If your school is in the USA you will follow the US English. If you are in Australia you will follow the Australian English.
Now your teachers need to get on the same page about what the standard English is for your school. In a primary (elementary school) this requires some discussion amongst the generalist teachers to ensure that they are being consistent across the classes.
If a school has specialist teachers of English and other subjects much inservice is needed to ensure that the standard English is the same across all classes in your school no matter what the subject. The English teachers, assuming they are in agreement about the standard English desired, can take a lead in the inservice discussions involving other subject specialists. In this case we would see 'distributive leadership' in action. Every teacher in this specialist context is a teacher of English.
I am unsure the extent to which US English is influenced by Australian English but I suspect not a lot. My observation is that it is the reverse. If we take the oft used word programme (the old standard English spelling) and its now more common form 'program' used across Australia I am all in favour of this change to the US version. The question is are all the teachers in your school?
At the risk of insulting my US colleagues I find the influence of US English a little irksome across my country. My hackles rise when I hear the following:
- 'get go'
- New years (Even hear this on the government broadcaster the ABC when normally Aussies would say New Year)
- gotten
- off of
Now I must tell a tale against myself. As a visiting student in a graduate program in a Canadian university I came across the common expression 'a bunch' of this or that and found myself thereafter using this expression. It is now common in Australian English.
Sorry. However my point is that your teachers must be on the same page about such usage. They must even be more on the same page about the golden rule of effective English communication being the KISS rule. Choose fewer appropriate words to create your sentences and paragraphs. One of my favourite teachers was a teacher of English and he once told me to take more time and write a good short essay.
No teacher in your school should accept shoddy and lazy English, but they must apply this constraint in a positive way. All students need to learn that everything they say for others to hear, or write for others to read, must be written in a way that does not insult the listener or the reader with poor language.
I of course recognise the value of colloquialisms and again at the Canadian university when I had to deliver in a tutorial I caused much mirth with my Australianisms like 'spot on'. I also recognise the text message abbreviated language of the mobile phone. Not sure that I heartily approve of it but swimming against this tide is very Canute like.
Hopefully the chosen English syllabus for your school provides clear guidance for your teachers however I still strongly maintain that there should be the in service discussions described above.
I am an avid user of my Kindle reader and just read a book in which the author took great delight in using the word 'moue' over and over as if to just show that he knew it, when a simple word like pout or grimace would have been more appropriate. This same author also appears to be very confused about what comprised a simile making this error more than once. My review of this book was not kind.
How's this for being old fashioned! I am a great believer that learning the format of letter writing both of the informal and formal variety is an excellent discipline for learning what makes an effective sentence and an effective paragraph.
My age shows in this post but I recklessly proceed to post it anyhow.
May the Force be with you in this New Year's Eve! Go for it in 2018.
GD
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