Hello
Iliwer,
Your instincts are most definitely right on the money.
Your daughter's teacher may be a fine teacher in most respects. However, I'm afraid it's rather common for teachers of English who have learned the language not as a native speaker to be somewhat stubborn in their belief of certain aspects of English and how it is used. They often forget that English, just like their native language, is an organic, living whole, and is subject to variety in use and changes in form from time to time. The style of English use today is simply different in certain ways from how it was used long ago or even a few years ago. New words come into the language all the time. A few fade away. Since English is the official and native language of not only England and other parts of British Isles, but also Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, it is of course natural that differences spring up in the way the language develops in each place. Even within these countries, there are wide differences in the way English is used. Yet it can hardly be denied that all these different styles remain real English. None of them is
wrong!
I have seen attempts to make rules governing the pronunciation of "a" in English sentences. Some of them are in older textbooks, but modern books rarely try to be firm about it. The truth is that there are a variety of acceptable ways to do it. And the actual pronunciation in any particular case depends on the speaker's exact intentions at the time of speaking. He or she may wish to emphasize something (within the context of the discussion taking place) by pronouncing "a" (or, for that matter, other words in his statement) in particular ways. "A" can be correctly pronounced as the letter "A" in the alphabet. It can also be pronounced as "uh" (generally called
schwa by teachers and linguists) with complete correctness. There are also regional variences in the way "a" is pronounced. All of them are correct. What is important is that the person or persons to whom the speaker is talking clearly understands what is being said, and to a large extent, that depends also on the degree of expertise held by those persons.
You can safely tell your daughter's teacher that you have backing by native-speaking English teachers that there is nothing wrong with"
uh man uh book" in many speaking situations. Nor is there any mistake in saying "
a man a book", where "a" is pronounced like the first letter of the alphabet.
Larry Latham