What "Standard English" actually means

Standard English isn't about sounding posh, stiff, or losing your accent. It's the form of English that has agreed grammar, agreed verb forms, and shared vocabulary across Britain — the form used in formal contexts: speeches, presentations, interviews, university applications, broadcast news.

You can speak Standard English in any accent. Standard English is about the grammar of what you say, not the sound of your voice.

What's assessed (AO9)

For the Spoken Language endorsement, AO9 specifically rewards:

• Accurate Standard English grammar (subject-verb agreement; correct tense forms; pronoun agreement).
• Appropriate vocabulary for formal context (no slang; no offensive language; precise word choice).
• Fluency without filler (no excessive um, like, you know).

Common Standard English slips — and how to fix them

Subject-verb agreement

The verb has to match the subject in number.

• ❌ "We was waiting at the bus stop."

• ✅ "We were waiting at the bus stop."

• ❌ "The data is clear." (debated; data is technically plural)

• ✅ "The data are clear." OR "The data is clear" (now widely accepted as singular).

Past-tense vs past-participle forms

• ❌ "I done my homework."

• ✅ "I did my homework." (simple past)

• ✅ "I have done my homework." (present perfect)

• ❌ "I seen it yesterday."

• ✅ "I saw it yesterday." (simple past)

• ✅ "I have seen it." (present perfect)

The pattern: did / done and saw / seen are not interchangeable.

"Could of" / "would of" / "should of"

• ❌ "I could of told you."
• ✅ "I could have told you."

This is a phonetic mishearing — could've sounds like could of — but it's never correct in writing or formal speech.

Double negatives

• ❌ "I don't know nothing about it."
• ✅ "I don't know anything about it."

In Standard English, two negatives don't cancel — they're marked as non-Standard.

Pronoun cases

• ❌ "Me and him went to the shop."

• ✅ "He and I went to the shop." (subject pronouns when subject of the verb)

• ❌ "She gave it to John and I."

• ✅ "She gave it to John and me." (object pronouns when object of the verb)

Test: drop the other person and see which sounds right. He went (yes); I went (yes); She gave it to me (yes). Then add the other person back.

Filler and verbal tics

Filler clutters formal speech and undermines authority. Common offenders:

• Um, uh, er — the most universal fillers; replace with silence.
• Like used as a hedge ("It was, like, really cold") — almost always cut.
• You know / innit — colloquial tags; cut.
• Obviously, basically, literally, kind of — verbal furniture; cut or replace.

Recording yourself and counting fillers is the fastest way to reduce them.

Vocabulary for formal contexts

• Avoid slang ("cool", "lit", "bare", "peng") in a formal talk — even when discussing youth issues. Quote it if you need to (e.g. "students described it as 'bare cold'") but don't adopt it as your own register.
• Avoid offensive language entirely; never quote racial slurs or sexist language even to criticise them.
• Choose precise verbs over weak ones. State instead of say; demonstrate instead of show (when "show" feels too casual). But don't over-formalise into stiffness.

Accent vs Standard English

You can have a strong regional accent and speak perfect Standard English. Examiners will not — and must not — penalise an accent. They reward Standard English grammar.

So: keep your accent, fix your grammar.

A model sentence pair

Non-Standard: "Me and the deputy manager, we was talking and I seen this kid, like, who could of been, you know, in real trouble, innit."

Standard English: "The deputy manager and I were talking when I saw a child who could have been in serious difficulty."

Same meaning. The Standard version reads as confident, formal, focused — the qualities AO9 rewards.