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It's OK to keep AIMing
fooby12 writes "According to the Univeristy of Toronto instant messaging does not hurt the grammar of the people who use it. From the article: "With 80% of Canadian teenagers using instant messaging and adopting its unique linguistic shorthand, many teachers and parents are concerned about the medium's potential to corrupt kids' grammar. But instant messaging doesn't deserve its bad reputation as a spoiler of syntax, suggests a new study from the University of Toronto.""
And even if it does change the language a little bit, thats to be expected. Languages (esp English isnt static) so this is just part of the normal evolution process of the language(albeit a little quicker than the past). Personally I do have a hard time reading netspeak but then it does remind me of Chaucer sometimes :)
eg.
That it was May thus dremed me
In time of love and jollite
That al thyng gynneth waxen gay
For there is neither busk nor hay
In May that it nyl shrouded ben,
And it with new leves wryen.
These greves eke recoveren grene,
That dry in wynter ben to sen,
And the erthe waxeth proude withal
For swete dewes that on it falle . . .
Maybe thats why the can still do well in their English classes.
Children don't have to formally learn grammar. A child learning a language natively will by definition speak with perfect grammar even without schooling, because in the science of linguistics rules of grammar are based on what is heard in the vernacular of the language in question, not what some pundit sets down by fiat.
If you're asking whether children are still taught prescriptivist rules, that's a whole 'nother matter.