"Students failing because of Twitter, texting,"
 

Student grammar failure: capability or context?

By John Timmer | Last updated February 1, 2010 12:09 PM

LOL-speak, fractured grammar, and emoticons are all finding their way into the college essays of Canadian students with increasing and disturbing frequencies, if a report in that nation's popular press is to be believed. Entitled "Students failing because of Twitter, texting," the report is based in part on the failure rate of an English language exam administered by the prestigious University of Waterloo in Ontario. The failure rate has now approached one third, up from 25 percent a few years ago, and a University administrator blames failure of basic grammar.

Emoticons and textspeak have apparently made their way into these exams, and the administrators are horrified. All of which flies in the face of some research that's only a few years old, which suggests that teens who are heavy texters actually have a reasonable grasp of grammar. One of those studies, in fact, was performed with Canadian teens, some of whom have probably made their way to college in the intervening years.

Although it would be tempting to ascribe the apparent differences to those between anecdote (in the form of college English exam scores) and formalized studies, the differences may really be a matter of what's being measured. The earlier studies focused on how the students were expressing themselves, and focused on the complexity of the communications; these came through despite what our report termed "informal diction and bizarre acronyms." It's precisely that informal diction, like replacing "because" with "cuz" and merging "a lot" into a single word, that's grating on college administrators. At the same time, liberated from the tyranny of character limits, students are apparently sprinkling commas liberally throughout the text.



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FYI - I don't believe Canada has standardized testing so it's worrisome that they are seeing this coming out of college students.


Beware of the creeping trend of anti-intellectualism that is upon us!

If you don't have sense enough to not use textspeak in your essay, you would've failed anyway.

I don't think it's an issue of "common sense". I think it's more of what's not being taught in the school system. Kids are taught 'just enough' to get by. No emphasis on phonics, nor emphasis on creative writing makes today's youth a lot less prepared.

It's why people get "your" and "you're" or "its" and "it's" all mixed up....heh.

Worst of all: "won" or "one"

emoticons?? so you mean someone will write a paper and put a damn smiley face in it? lol smiley face! gtfoh.

I give this speech to students every semester. I have only received a couple of term papers over the years that were in "informal type," and only a couple of students who insist on emailing me as though they are texting a buddy.

I agree with christiangirl in that this is less likely to happen at institutions where students can't get away with it from day ONE (but that speaks to the relationship between being taught, socialization, and "common sense"). Also, the "good students" with well-balanced backgrounds aren't usually the ones with this problem. It's the students who have become completely socialized by their Internet and texting generation that have this problem. They have fewer familial, peer, and academic breaks from the Internet/texting so they are never brought back to reality. I mean, seriously, what can we expect if newer families are spending less face time together and parents and kids are texting each other to "rmmber 2 wash dishes n com down n pic up ur dnner."

I wish I could go back and thank all of my teachers who were strict when it came to spelling and grammar.

One of the things I will NEVER forget from elementary school was learning that "a lot" was two words. I had a teacher drill that into our heads.

Learning when to use to/too/two and your/you're were also things that we reviewed periodically throughout a school year. The key was repetition.

I sometimes hear that teachers/administrators are trying to overload the curriculum, so as to leave little room for these "small" lessons to be taught extensively.

Or maybe they're not being taught at all?

I guess it's hard to compare one thing to another when I didn't have the internet until I was in 7th grade, and a cell phone until 16, but kids nowadays can reprogram my computer by the time they're 5.

Teaching the "whole language" way in elementary school or before + texting from the age of 10 on = epic grammar and spelling fail. I don't know why anyone would be surprised by this.

This is a tough one. It is a combination of school, family environment, and overall socialization.

There are kids who are A students and in the National Junior Honor Society who write and speak HORRIBLY because that is how their families write and speak and how their peers write and speak.

I come from a family of college educators and my parents kept us in check. We used to hate it when we were kids because we wanted to be able to relax and speak slang or say things like "where you at." LOL. My parents were not having it because they KNEW it would socialize us to forget there is a difference.

I see that now in kids and I hate always being the one to create potentially hostile environments by correcting them.

We didn't have the Internet until college (and we walked 100 miles to class in bare feet LOL). Sending a black screened-green lettered instant message and lower tech email were huge deals to us.

I think I got my first cellphone in college. One of the good things about being 30+ is that you remember how it was before, during, and after much of this technology existed.

Other cultures really value their languages. In fact, in some places, for a foreigner to use improper grammar is looked down upon, for a native speaker, it's tantamount to blasphemy.

If someone has a poor command of grammar and/or poor diction, then a lot of doors will be closed to them.

Perhaps the problem is that the attitude in most classrooms when it comes to grammar is that we're going to teach you a bunch of rules, and if you don't learn them, you'll get a bad grade when the message needs to be that if you don't learn these rules, you [in internet parlance] will epic fail.

Not surprising, there's also seem to be a rash of grad level students using an internet forum for their sources.:D:D:D

Bingo! LOL

This is a REAL situation that may have some addiction linked to it albeit unproven. Research is ongoing at John Hopkins et al.

I found this interesting...

My mom is close to 60 and has a Master's degree and has recently learned to text...AND SHE'S DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!

Last text she sent: Member 2 get tics 4 Sat 2-13

I have a full keyboard on my phone for a reason. I text in complete sentences and paragraphs.

^^^THIS.

I understand the socialization aspect, but it boggles my brain that prior to college the writing and grammar of these students wasn't addressed enough that they don't know the difference. I honestly can't conceive of a situation like that at all, minus a complete lack of formal education.

I think that beyond understanding the mechanics and structure of the primary language of one's country (Canada also has French), it is vital to know time and place for language. there is nothing wrong with being culturally competent and using short hand for communication informally, but it is inappropriate and damaging if one doesn't learn how to function professionally and to interract with others. Language changes over time but there is a definite split with those who can easily go between formal and informal speech and writing, and those who have no idea that there they exist or how to discern when are where, let alone how to communicate effectively.

Now that's a mouthful. I'm exactly like you, AlphaFrog, in that I always text in complete sentences. While it may very well save time to do the "short hand" version by using 'u' for 'you' and/or 'r' for 'are', I just think it really takes us out of being specific about communicating our thoughts and ideas to one another. The more we get out of it, the less we are able to communicate with one another. I think all of us grew up with slang as a second language ;), but each one of us understood the value of the written word when it was time to communicate to our teachers. Nowadays, it doesn't seem to be valued as much unfortunately. :rolleyes:

LOL. My friends and I also text in complete words and sentences with proper grammar and spelling. I hate the character limits that make me have to shorten sentences to avoid messing up the grammar and syntax.

I guess we're all dorks who know that shorthand is technically not the same as the sucky syntax, grammar, and spelling that people do in texts and so forth. :p

Same here! The only reason I'll shorten something is if my text goes slightly over the 160 character limit. If it's going to be way over, I'll just send 2 texts. But I always change "and" to "&", take out some commas, or not leave a space in between a period and the next sentence before I start shortening and/or changing the spelling of words.

Thinking about it, I believe it takes me more time to edit my texts than it does to actually type them out sometimes :p

Same here! :p This is also why I call more than I text. If we need multiple, long texts then pleeeeeeease just call me. LOL

THANK YOU!

The other problem with texting is that everyone becomes so dependent on it, that no one wants to talk on the phone anymore. If a text conversation lasts more than 10 minutes, I simply stop texting back. Then the person usually asks, "You there?" and then they call me, or decide that the conversation isn't important enough to continue, and they give up. It's stupid to text for a half hour, having to put smileys, or "LOL" after every sentence so the other person understands your tone, when a 5 minute phone call could have worked just as well... and in some cases, even better.

I've been wondering about the bastardization of spelling and grammar for years before texting came about. I have cousins from one uncles who range from their mid teens to mid twenties, and spent a lot of time with them until the three older girls were in junior high/high school. Only the oldest out of five has what I would consider intelligent communication skills. (She has slowly been putting herself through college on her own dime and time, just got married and had a baby.). The second has probably B- level skills, and the rest just plain can't write. I'd put them in the D range.

It's really sad. Unfortunately, with the weaker academic levels, they are also making a lot of poor life choices, further limiting their ability to achieve anything past high school (still hoping the last two at least graduate). My sisters and I are the only ones in my family on either side (of over 50 first cousins) to graduate from college. I did it mostly on scholarships and academic grants, so I know it can be done. Though my parents weren't really involved in my college years, they were strict about grades through high school (and we didn't get any help on homework or projects, they just mandated stellar grades).

Do parents care anymore?

Perhaps they're just dumb.

Seriously, not everyone is in the same IQ range. If they're also doing stupid things in their personal lives, they probably just are not that smart.

Yup, ... and Twitter has really jacked us in the area of character limits. :rolleyes:

I just told my mom last night (who just got a phone with a keyboard, and thus has no more excuses for poor texting grammar) that to me, proper spelling/capitalization is the same as manners - it shows you have respect for the other person. She replies with "You can't figure out where the capitals go??" D'oh!:mad::rolleyes: She also tells me that text speak is the "wave of the future" and is now socially acceptable. I don't buy it.

I've never seen anyone use text-speak in formal papers, but the quality of my peers' writing concerns me nonetheless. Yesterday I read someone's paper who, in addition to adding completely arbitrary commas in the middle of sentences, spelled "adolescence" as "adolescents" or "adolescens" through the whole paper. It was horrifying. However, errors like that don't scare me nearly as much as the "conversational" tone of writing so many people gravitate toward. Personally, I can't imagine turning in a paper that had sentences like:
"Vince Vaughn is not of the normal appearance for the average human being. He is an actor at an extraordinary height of six foot five inches tall. He is also muscularly built like he can almost be built like a football player. This is greatly portrayed through his character Jeremy throughout the entire movie. In general, a man of his stature says too many people: you look like someone who could punch me and knock me down in that one punch."
Now, I recognize that not everyone is comfortable writing in a formal tone all the time, but for academic writing (the quote above was taken from a friend's 200-level communication term paper) a conversational tone is never acceptable!
I know I'm starting to look at my own generation from a curmudgeonly "Hey you kids, get off my front lawn" perspective at the tender age of nineteen, but stuff like this drives me crazy!!
/rant

^^That honestly sounds like someone who doesn't have English as their first language.

Or else they just grabbed sentences off the internet and did cut & paste.

It's his first language. And he's a communication major. Which is scary.