Text Speak
As a future teacher and a Communications/Writing Arts dual major, this article bothered me. The article discusses how schools in New Zealand now allow their students to use “text speak” on national exams. For those who don’t know, text speak is the slang and abbreviations for words/phrases used in text messaging and instant messaging. For example, CU = see you, lol = laugh out loud, etc. The example they give in the article is “2b or nt 2b” for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I’m sure English majors would cringe at the sight of that. The schools in New Zealand aren’t concerned with how the students write, as long as they get their point across. I always thought, in schools, the focus should be on writing correctly. I’m not against text speak because I use it myself but when writing papers and doing assignments for school, I write in complete sentences with real, correctly spelled words. Do you think text speak should be allowed in schools? Will text speak one day join or replace the English language?
Tags: New Zealand, Text Speak, Writing
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March 30, 2008 at 9:25 am
I think this is just unbelievable! What I think is that anyone who wants to go to university in England, America, or anywhere else is going to be out of luck, because they’ll never be able to pass the university entrance exams in writing. I think this is a REAL disservice to students to let them get by with this (probably starting in elementary school).
Eileen
Dedicated Elementary Teacher Overseas
elementaryteacher.wordpress.com