This week’s reading is a challenging one for me. I wrote my Admission Essay for this program on the negative effects of txt in classrooms. I have always been someone who believes very strongly that it is having a negative influence on today’s youth. I can say this because I notice it having an effect on me and I was 15 when I starting using instant messaging and 18 when I started to send text messages. Those are relatively late ages compared to children today.
That being said, I have become much more open minded the past few months about a lot of things. This stems a lot from this class. I never would have read a graphic novel or discussed technology as a necessity in a high school class before this course. Thus, I find myself a bit on the fence. I agree with the basic idea discussed in both articles of txt and IM as a kind of teenage lingo that is an expression of themselves. I also think it is unfair to label people who send txts or use txt shorthand as one group because most people these days sending txt messages and using common abbreviations.
What really struck me in the first article was the way it discussed switching between txt language and formal writing. It mentioned that it is the role of teachers to reinforce this. I think that is asking a lot. I find that this generation isn’t very good at understanding this kind of shift. This came up on my practicum. Teachers were discussing the kind of language that they hear in the hallways and the amount of swearing that happens. We discussed the way that we switch our language between how we talk with our friends when we are having a drink, to how we talk at a family dinner, to how we talk at school. It is a concern that many young people these days don’t seem to understand the concept of changing your discourse for your surroundings. They seem to think that they can talk however they want, whenever they want. I think the same goes for writing. When I was volunteering last year, I saw an alarming amount of written assignments containing things like “”bcuz” and “lol”.
I think this means that it is more important than ever that teachers reinforce proper writing because of this but I do think there is an increase in the loss of formal written language and I don’t think that we as english teachers can handle all of this ourselves. Unfortuantely, with so many students in Canada being from immigrant homes, we also can’t rely on parental support when it comes to teaching proper writing. I guess my concluding thoughts on the topic would be that we as teachers (and as parents if we are parents) need to constantly reinforce that there are different discourses for different aspects of life (When we speak casually, when we write formally, etc) and a very important life skill is recognizing what to use when.
4 responses so far ↓
bsangster // Nov 14th 2012 at 12:06 pm
Oh the memories of MSN messenger… I can remember being in elementary school running home just to talk to the friends that I had just seen at school. Usually the topics were based around “who likes whom”, “I like you. Do you like me?” etc. But when I think back on those grade 6 chats I think fondly about how I actually learned to type! Something that I think we take for granted today. I remember having the odd “typing” class in grade 5 where we had to copy the sentences: “The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog”, or my own Mavis Beacon typing lessons which I practiced at home. I do admit that usually it was more important what the style and colour of my font was rather than the proper grammar and style of my writing… but what I’m trying to say is that we have to recognize the ways in which these “corrupt” styles of communication can be helpful. That is something that I have really enjoyed about our class, that we are considering ways in which these frightening corruptions to our society and language can be turned around and used for the better. I wonder how kids learn to type today? Is it through their own Facebook profiles, Webkins, or penguin hotel profiles (essentially the Neopets of today’s age), or are Elementary Schools asking students to hand in typed projects as well as written… how do we teach these things?!
Another thing that this article reminded me of and something that rings through in your post is the idea of “Doublespeak” in George Orwell’s 1984; I hope to talk about it further this week… but we have to be careful not to lose the cosmos of language and how we communicate with one another.
TMD // Nov 14th 2012 at 2:07 pm
Thanks for this interesting post, Melissa. I think you’ve summed up what is important well: “we as teachers (and as parents if we are parents) need to constantly reinforce that there are different discourses for different aspects of life (When we speak casually, when we write formally, etc) and a very important life skill is recognizing what to use when.” It may seem like a tall order, but it is the best that can be done — and it has always been the best that can be done.
TMD // Nov 14th 2012 at 2:11 pm
Brendan,
Students are taught typewriting and handwriting in elementary school. There is a bit of a debate in regards to how much of each should be taught — perhaps we can discuss that today. In terms of teaching typing, there are many typing tutorials online that are used in elementary school. Google “learn to type” or “kids learn to type” and you’ll get an idea of what is available. Generally typing is taught as early as grade 3 or 4 to 8/9 year old students.
ritashahi // Nov 17th 2012 at 8:19 pm
Melissa, you make the point that teachers are more and more concerned about students using the same language they use with their peers and in text messages, in their classroom writing. Maybe it is because high school is a relatively recent experience for me, but I find that there was the same type of discourse about the appropriateness of cellphones in class and how to tackle the issue of distractions in the classroom when I was in high school. Teachers were also sticky about using ‘lol’ or other text abbreviations in formal writing, especially in English classes. Thinking even further back, because we had no cellphones in elementary school, there was MSN instant messaging where the same types of abbreviations were used.
I find that not much has changed in terms of discourse. While technology has been rapidly changing since then, the same discourse on the consequences of this text culture which has really been around for a long time, exists.There were instances where my peers would occasionally slip abbreviations into their writing, but for the most part, they were pretty good at distinguishing when it was appropriate to use them and when it was not. For example, in journal writing activities, I would use text language quite frequently and switch back to formal or “proper” language in formal writing activities.
It was the same experience for me on the other end, as a student teacher during my two-week practicum. Most, if not all students, knew when it was appropriate to use text language in their writing and when it was not. I remember specifically, one student told me he had accidentally slipped in an “lol” into his writing and he laughed at himself, so it demonstrated to me that he knew it was inappropriate for that assignment.
I also think younger students in the junior grade levels tend to use more of this text language because they have not yet developed a sophisticated style of writing. By grade 12, I think the majority of students understand that in senior high school to university level writing, formal English is to be used.
I guess what I am trying to say is, because of my experiences, I think we may need to give students a little more credit for knowing how to switch from text language to formal writing. More so than text language, teaching students to write in a formal tone with a more sophisticated writing style, rather than to use colloquial language, is a bigger concern for me especially as students near graduation. Some fellow teacher candidates have also discussed with me that as students, they only really learned “how to write” when they entered university. As a future English teacher that makes me wonder what level we actually expect our students to be at by grade 12… and what constitutes “poor writing.”
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