All in all, I believe text speak should be banned from all classrooms, unless used in note-taking (as it can be a particularly fast method of short-hand). I do believe, despite the fact that students use text speak outside the classroom in all shapes and forms (email, text messaging etc.), that text speak does destroy the English language - the more we enforce the incorrect use of English, the more likely students will accidentally make mistakes and confuse themselves over correct spelling/grammar, no matter how aware they are of the correct conventions. I guess if text speak does creep its way into the classroom, we should be teaching students how to make that switch from text speak to traditional English language...and maybe text speak should not be a focus in primary school classrooms.
...or maybe, to contradict myself (which I'm quite good at doing!) text speak should be incorporated into study because English is a constantly evolving language??? What are other people's thoughts? I think I just like English the way it is but I suppose I have to be open to change...
Language certainly does evolve over time - but it's a question of how soon we allow new linguistic developments into the classroom. Fifty years ago, it would have been unacceptable to allow students to split an infinitive or end a sentence with a preposition; now those changes are established as almost universal usage in English. But there's no right or wrong answer here - it's about judging when the moment has come ...
ReplyDeletePS: Remember to include credits/sources for images you post.
ReplyDeleteOh, I will, except they are all mine - actually except for one, I'll get onto that :-)
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