Slashdot Mirror
New Zealand To Allow 'Text-Speak' On Exams
ScentCone writes "New Zealand's Qualification Authority (which sets testing standards for the public schools) is confident that those grading papers will understand the meaning of students' responses, even if they use phone/IM-style text-speak. From the article: 'credit will be given if the answer "clearly shows the required understanding," even if it contains text-speak.' Many teachers are not amused, and critics say that the move will devalue NZ's equivalent of a high school diploma." Not to mention that graders will need to be restrained so they don't gouge their own eyes out. While in the medium of text messages, some shorthand might be in order, but I didn't realize that world paper, pencil, and ink shortages were so severe so that text-speak is necessary everywhere.
How are kids supposed to learn proper spelling & grammar?
Anyone remember "Ebonics"?
Willie...
a competition to find something worse than Ebonics to use as an approved teaching language? What next is 1337 going to be aproved for essays?
what about l33t sp33k?
t3h kn33 b0n3 15 c0nn3ct3d t0 teh th1g|-| b0n3!
liqbase
omfg
Moar leik 'new FAILland' amirite?
I 4 1 wlcm our txtg ovrlrds ...and let the stupid texting jokes begin!
Given your views on the matter, CowboyNeal, have you suggested to Rob Malda that spelling matters and aids effective communication? He'll probably fire you on the spot.
that frst pst is worth +5, insightful in New Zealand?
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
Sometimes "text-speak" (surprised it's not "txt-spk") appears in odd places. Like 90% of the offshore folks from India I've interacted with, even in e-mail that was otherwise very professional and well written. Now some of these guys were bozos, but even for the ones that I knew were solid, smart workers...I just couldn't be sure if they even knew that "you" is not spelled "u"
Is "The Artist Formerly Know As" popular over there? I blame him for all this in general.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I guess the monkey phonics thing never reallly caught on there...oh when will the descrimination end?
The nature of language is that you must maintain it in order to prevent it from devolving. You must be carefull to separate the jargon from the main language. If we say LOL out loud, it would definitely mean some sort of devolvation.
// You may rejoice.
One thing that would give me hope though is that textspeak is really only required right now because with so many modern phones, text input is still cumbersome, so it is a necessity. Seemingly when new technologies come into place which would make text entry more efficient (maybe better predictive text input, speech-to-text built into phones, etc.) textspeak won't even be needed.
At least that's what I hope for.
In illiterate New Zealand, exm brd mipsells U!
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
We could use abbreviated words on our exams before mobiles sms where common, it where the kind of abbreviations we used to note quickly what the professor told us in class, but it was probably less worse than actual text-speech of the younger generations :) Our abbreviated words where mostly the first and last letter with a line drawn uppon it, and those where allowed by the professors.
// instead of parallelism.
I want give any concrete examples as it was not in English, but in more mathematical courses we could write
So it is not that new, but there are surely more 'abbreviated' words now.
But then again, I do not think it is that good for the students, and it want do them any good in their later professional life where communication skills are very important.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
Bali Haque, deputy chief executive of the authority, said there had been no change to guidelines and there was no specific policy about text language. However, he warned: "If people are expecting they can come up with an exam script full of text and pass, then they're dreaming. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1 &ObjectID=10410066
.. to let teachers set assigments and mark in text speak too. Let's see parents try doing their homework for their kids when they can't understand a damn word of it. In other words 'U FL GO STR8 2 MACCYDS'
ORLY WTF?
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
That could hide many things. After all, understanding the subject isn't the whole of the mark. Communicating it also carries a non-trivial mark.
If the examiner can't correctly work out what the writer is trying to say, then marks will be lost. Presentation also carries a portion of the mark in most subjects, and using txt spk will almost certainly lose that.
So, it's basically allowing people to use txt spk, and actually have a non-zero mark (credit given for the understanding of the subject where it's communicated successfully), but in all probability, they won't be garnering the kind of mark they would otherwise be achieving if they used correct English.
It's possibly the kind of discrepancy that would make the difference between a fail and an average pass mark (depending on how obfuscated the text was by using txt spk).
I looked at that sentence a few times and even looked some things up in "A Writer's Reference", Third Edition, by Diana Hacker. I don't see what the problem is with his grammar or spelling.
What is it?
And no, I'm not trying to slam you or anything; I am always trying to learn how to write and speak better.
Text speak in an English exam of course should result in failing it. On the other hand, I think bad grammar and spelling should be ignored on a math or a chemistry exam, so long the answer is understandable.
This is diminishing the importance of the English language. If 'txt spk' is allowed in exams, where else is this going to expand to, the work place, in which case 'txt spk' would become an accepted form of written communication. Not everyone understands the abbrieviations used, in which case it could be said that the communication is selective. Does this also mean that the students which use 'txt spk' in their exams will get higher credit if they havre given a greater amount of information than those using the full english versions, as it is less time consuming to use 'txt spk'. This can't lead to anything good...
Doubleplusgood..
I can see algebraic equations getting very confusing!
3 = mc^2 anyone?
kids will be allowed to use calculators in Science class!
Him pa ellenrof andswarode!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Thanks to my Handspring Visor (a major outlet for me for hand writing) I have to stop and think about how to form a K when writing on paper. I automatically make the Graffiti version.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I still read exams as emacs.
Fry: I tell you, bein' here really brings me back to my college days. (Flashback to Coney Island Community College.) Good old Coney Island College. Go Whitefish!
Leela: Don't take this the wrong way, Fry, but you don't seem like the educated type.
Fry: Oh yeah? (Produces Notice of Failure to Graduated from CICC.) Read it and weep. I'm a certified college drop-out.
Leela: Please. Everyone knows twentieth century colleges were basically expensive day care centers.
Professor: That's true. By current academic standards, you're merely a high school dropout.
Fry: What? That's not fair. I deserve the same respect any other college dropout gets. By God, I'm going to enroll here at Mars University and drop out all over again!
If only there were some sort of common, standardized symbolism New Zealanders could use to convey their thoughts! They could call it a "language" or something like that.
text speak? Such as "u r an 1d10t" or "u fail it"
Monstar L
Shepherd's pie for lunch!
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
I take it you rarely grade a couple of hundred exams. It makes a huge difference in how long it takes. And believe it or not, if I can choose between spending one or two weeks on grading exams, I choose the former.
Respect your reader, he deserves it.
u fl dk
g, su me
i dr
I am an english major.
In some poor parts of the world an English degree means studying how to spell and speak properly.
This is exceedingly unfortunate because the true value of an appreciation of English comes from the ability to understand the nuances of a persons expressions, and in turn to control ones own nuances.
As a Comp Sci major I think the best way to explain this would be to say that it adds bandwidth to people's ability to communicate, before I became an English major I thought it would add bandwidth in the way facial expressions do. Now I understand that a true understanding of English adds more bandwidth than anything short of the original use of language.
This is difficult to explain to people who are so used to people using casual expressions and syntax and choosing topics without enough thought.
When an author puts a word on a page that is the word he has chosen and he has chosen it for a reason, he chose it instead of every other word there is.
Anyway, I'm disgusted with New Zealanders, fortunately in my country approx 50-60% of people end up going to university, and they call it university because your forced to take English.
Cheers!
That, I think, is the key thing: we're talking about communication here. Abbreviations that require the reader to think twice about the meaning of the writing are an impairment to efficient communication. Depending on the context, they may also be an indication that you consider your time spent writing to be more valuable than the reader's time, which tells the reader how little you value their consideration.
Certainly on on-line forums for students where I've helped out in the past, contributors would be far more willing to reply to a question that was carefully written to explain the problem clearly and concisely than to try to interpret vague L337sp33k or txt tlk because someone couldn't be bothered to write in proper English.
In other words, conventional shorthands are fine if they're used in an appropriate context. IMHO, few people reading this on Slashdot won't immediately understand this sentence. However, those who write poorly out of laziness should not be surprised to find that they come across as such, and are treated accordingly by those whose opinions of them might matter. I wouldn't write "IMHO" in a business report for an audience who might not be familiar with the shorthand.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Wrong ! it is B4 instead of B3f0r3.
The Emporor's new clothes: The king is dead - Long live the king ! leet sp33k will |-|4v3 gr4m4
I 4 1 wlcm our new overlords: The leet sp33k Grammar Nazis
The predictive text input on LG phones is fast and complete enough that I can send proper English texts faster than abbreviating with conventional ABC input. It's different for different manufacturers, I know Motorola's is next to unusable and I hear Samsung's is iffy, but mine is great.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Wouldn't the actual time saved by writing in txt spk be negligible? What are the actual benefits of being able to write like this? If you're too stupid to know the real spelling of a word, then you should probably not be sitting the exams :P
One reason why txt spk is so prevalent among texters is that people try to cram as much info into an SMS as possible without going over the 160 character limit (1 message). It's simple, its cheaper. I don't think the problem lies in the quality of T9 or whatever recognition system you're using, but the fact that 160 characters is often not enough to contain your whole message if you typed it out using the correct spelling. I have an unlimited in-country texting package and I would rarely, if ever, use abbreviations, except that my mobile (Nokia 6225) doesn't automatically extend the message. Once you fill up the 160 chars, you can't type anymore.
Those are only a couple reasons why someone might use it, but it still doesn't give you an excuse to use it for any academic or exam writing purpose (unless of course you were writing a paper on the phenomenon itself). It's just scandalous that it would even be considered in the first place...
Hey, jackass, why don't you come back to Slashdot when you've outgrown your white sheet hood? That kinda ignorance isn't welcome here.
In theory, I don't really have a problem with it. Obviously, it wouldn't be appropriate in English class (since non-fucked-up composition is the very thing that the student is supposed to demonstrate) but if someone can communicate a math problem solution, it doesn't matter how they do it.
The catch is that "text speak" (wtf? is that really what it's called now?!) does not clearly communicate. Some people can read it, and others have trouble. I know for a fact that I read it and decipher it much more slowly, and every once in a while, it totally stumps me. Puedo leer Espanol mas rapido que "text speak." If I were a math teacher and a student handed in an assignment in "text speak" there's a good change I'd grade it an F, because it's not my responsibility to go to extra trouble to understand your weirdo language. To put it another way, your assignment may be written in flawless Russian, but if the teacher doesn't know Russian, you're screwed.
What's funny is that after I gave out half a semester of Fs for this, I would probably be exposed to it enough that I would have picked up some of it, and then I'd start to hand out Ds. So the question is: who wants to be the guinea pig who fails some classes for the sake of teaching the teachers, so they don't fail people later? ;-)
And yes, in case anyone's wondering: in the rare event that I actually send text messages from my phone, I always spell out words. It's just habit, not language-nazism. I learned English long before I learned "text speak," and I suspect it will always be my native and most "automatic" language.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Nitshiz to da byotchiz, dog.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
They speak with psuedo European accents over there. It's likely they're suseptable to the same bouts of mental retardation that the people on the European continant are suffering from.
New Zealand has made the right decision. Penalizing a student for non-standard English on an exam for a subject that is not English amounts to standard English mastery being counted as part of the grade for that subject. Why should the student's level of English be a factor in determining his or her grade in, for example, chemistry? This would diminish the accuracy of the grade, contradicting the very point of the test.
Others have asked how students can learn "proper" English with these newly loosened regulations. I'd like to point out that one of the main objectives of English class is to teach the use of standard English! The students' mastery of English can be tested with their English exams; doing so with those of any other subject would be ridiculous.
Note: I am an American high school student.
Le français vous intéresse?
Anyone remember "Ebonics"?
I took a text sample and ran it through both a ebonics translator and a leet traslator...
Wh3n 1n d4 k0uR23 0' hUm4n 3v3n72, D4 7H4n9 83C0m32 n3C3554rY pH0' 0N3 n1920r2 74 D1550LV3 d4 p0l171C4l 84nd2 wh1Ch h42 k0NN3c73D D3M w1Ff 4N07h3r, 4N' 74 422uM3 4M0N9 d4 p0w3r2 0' d4 34R7h, d4 53p4r473 4n' 3kw4l 574710n 74 WH1CH d4 L4w2 0' n47uR3 4n' 0' N47UR3'2 90d 3n717l3 D3M, Uh D3C3N7 R35P3c7 74 D4 0P1N10N2 0' M4nk1ND R3kw1R32 D47 d4 n1920r2 5H0Uld D3cL4r3 d4 K4U532 wH1cH 1Mp3L D3M 74 D4 53p4R4710N. 1N 7h3 H00d
--
Does that seem like a good idea?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
While in the medium of text messages, some shorthand might be in order, but I didn't realize that world paper, pencil, and ink shortages were so severe...
Yeah, and if it weren't for that crippling electron shortage we'd never abbreviate at all! Face it, "text-speak" is lazy no matter what medium you're using.
± 29 dB
A horrible step for academics to let people use their idiotic SMS-speak.
I pray to god I never see whitepapers released in SMS-speak.
Must use restrictive "that": "Proper spelling and grammar are unnatural constructs that were foisted upon the world by upper class tits who needed another way to make themselves feel special." Unless all unnatural constructs were foisted by these people for this reason. No, 95% doesn't count as all.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Math is full of cryptic abbreviatons, and every Student has to learn them in college, if not allready in highschool
EOF
kiwis learn that a = a and not an e
Try and say the folllowing:
Thet's right en 'ay' is en 'ay'
I bet you wanna say it like:
That's right, an 'a' is an 'a'
oh yeah, and that they are not the country with an accent most similar to British English (ever heard a brit talk like that?)
hehe go New Zuland!!!!
I've never understood why there isn't some kind of auto-completion feature in chat programs. For example, if I typed brb follwed by tab, the output would be I'll be right back. That way, the chat program wouldn't be making people far too comfortable reading weird abbreviations.
Is it anything like New Speak? ;)
The New Zealand Herald
Language Log also responds.
Perhaps it would be more productive to encourage the use of Gregg shorthand instead of texting. Text-speak is little more than teenager fad, whereas shorthand can actually be a valuable skill in many real world occupations.
While I accept that languages evolve over time, giving academic legitimacy to a shorthand form that still hasn't achieved a clear consensus is idiotic. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen a text message abbreviation that was new to me and made little or no sense.
Before I'm accused of dating myself with that comment, I'm certainly younger than the majority of high school teachers so you can imagine the problems they'll encounter grading these papers accurately.
Now, the thing to look at is how language is instinctive. This means you don't learn language in school, but from hearing and participating in it when your growing up. I suggest reading Steven's Pinker's The Language Instinct. What the book is about should be fairly obvious.
There are reasons to believe that Pinker is correct. There are Children who grow up with only a pidgin language to learn from, and they end up "filling in the gaps" so to speak, and come up with a full language just as powerful as English or any other.
What IS learned in school, however, is reading and writing. These are not things that people will learn naturally, as there are an infinite number of ways to represent any word. So, by allowing the New Zealender's (If thats what they are called) to use text speak, its allowing another way to represent the language they speak. This does not mean it will change their langauge, or how they speak.
One thing to note about text speak, is its an offshoot of another written representation. Indeed, I know no better way to learn text speak then to first learn the langauge its based off. So fears of it changing standard english writting forever seem to be ridiciulous, as text speak is based off of it.
Oh fuck no.
One more country to add to the list of 'demonstrations of the might of the Giant Pachinko Machine of Doom' when I begin my reign of terror.
This is really damned stupid, and whoever came up with the idea should be shot, hung, drown, drawn, quartered, poisoned, stabbed, beheaded, and SET THE HELL ON FIRE.
I think New Zealand has lost their right to use the English language. When you make 'you' a one letter word, you've gone and done it. Lewis Black is right, if you're going to fly 18 hours to some place, they should have the common courtesy to speak a different language when you get there, and if not... They should all jump off their island and push it a little closer to one of the other English-speaking nations.
If this shit continues, the term 'Grammar Nazi' is going to take on new meaning, and we're not going to like it.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Damn passive constructions! Here:
Proper Spelling and grammar are unnatural constructs which upper class tits, who needed another way to make themselves feel special, foisted upon the world.
On a whim, I looked up the history of English (as a language), and was facinated the by the change in the language over the years, I suspect what we are going through is something simliar (but at a much faster rate of change). All cultures evolve, and there will always be some who doesn't want it too. Consider American (meaning the United States) English versus England's English, there are pointed differences and they invented the language (I have more than enough English friends who joke about the way we speak, and vice verser.)
Stagnation kills, and change IS inevitable.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
Regards,
MBC1977,
Your mention of the skills needed by mathematicians and chemists is pointless. A math exam does NOT test your capacity to become either, merely how skilled you are in the subject. The point of a math exam is not to see how well suited you are to a career. That can only be done by combining all tests together. A math teacher will have far greater need to be skilled in english then a pure researcher. Even with math teachers there is a difference merely in what age group they are going to teach. A university teacher can probably get away with a more direct/abstract approach then a gradeschool teacher who will needs to be able to explain the basics in common english. The uni-teacher will hopefully have students who have learned the basics allready and have an active desire to learn more.
But there is another problem with grading math exams or similar on the english quality as well. It punished people twice who are bad in language. Would you combine a math exam with a physical exam? Offcourse not. Then why do you find it logical to base your math test results on your english capabilities?
Real teachers accept that outside pure language courses correct use of the language is not the most important factor. Some teachers even go as far as making grammar and spelling of lesser importance in language subjects like writing. If you write a beautifull piece of prose that is riddled with grammar and spelling errors you will find that most language teachers will still give you a higher grade then a student that has perfect spelling and grammar but writes meaningless trash.
Offcourse this shouldn't be taken too far. I am not in favor of the school of thought that goes, 1+1=3 is a good answer as long as the kid feels positive about it. Nor should spelling and grammar be ignored, BUT I rather read an fascinating article riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes then a spellchecker sanitized piece of crap.
Or put another way, I rather hear someone sing with passion of key, then hear someone do toneladders with perfect pitch.
"I am an english major..."
"As a Comp Sci major..."
A little confused, are we?
OMG!!!!! LOL
I live in New Zealand, the public education system in New Zealand has been in the toilet since the introduction of NCEA, which basically lets you reattempt the units you sit until you pass them, and has no records of failure. The universities here have had a hard job knowing what criteria to accept people into the more restricted programmes (law, engineering, medicine etc) since publics schools switched over to NCEA from the previous and IMHO superior bursary system. Public schools in New Zealand havn't been worth sending your children too for a few years now.
I am a recent university graduate, who just missed the NCEA introduction by a couple of years.
I haven't read the article yet, I will when I get to work.
For short fill in the blank questions, I see no problem with this. If if only takes a sentence or two to fully answer the question, grammar and spelling really aren't that important.
For essay questions, where you have to fully justify and explain your answer, hell no. These generally don't simply test "do you know this" but also "can you explain this", and the latter can't really be satisfied with textspeak.
The key is whether you are simply answering a question, or writing a paper(even an abbreviated one on a test).
I can understand IM speak if you never learned to type, but if you're IMing people all day, how is it you don't learn to type from that?
And T9's been out a while. With it, there's no advantage with the most common abbreviations like "u" or "4." So unless kids are using really old phones or can't figure out T9, why do they do it?
What wrong wiff usin' shothan English, as long as ya knows da answer, Beeatch? and git Sheniquah's ass back ova' heeah.
A friend of mine said his child's teacher refused to teach them cursive writing because it wasn't needed anymore, the Web, newspapers, pretty much everything is written as block text.
I've also noticed quite a few adults "write" notes and letters in block letters instead of cursive, these are business executives, professors not your average Joe they are professionals! It looks childish, it would be even worse if they also used " u r " instead of "you are".
I would expect the United States to condone poor grammar, but New Zealand? I know they've got some bizarre idioms and slang, but I thought every other country took education much more seriously than mine.
Excerpt from a top-notch paper:
People of New Zealand: if you take education seriously, you will do well. If you don't, you end up with a president (prime minister) who will get us stuck in Iraq. Also, you end up with a senator (MP) who leaves out a very important pronoun in a bad joke.
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
When I'm grading, the burden of communication is on the student. It is each student's job not just to know the answer, but to convince me that he or she knows it. No credit if this doesn't happen.
I used to be a lot more forgiving, but practical issues (stacks of quizzes a foot high) pushed me to reexamine my philosophy.
Short Answer: Move along, nothing to see here, it's an unsubstantiated rumour.
Long Answer:
From a New Zealand Herald article, somewhat more authorative on what's going on in New Zealand than CNN.
Text language risky move in NCEA examinations
Friday November 10, 2006
By Claire Trevett
Students are being warned not to use cellphone texting abbreviations in NCEA exams after reports suggested the shorthand was to be allowed.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority is dashing media reports that students could use text abbreviations in exams without penalty if their answers otherwise showed the required understanding.
...
Read the article for more. And get it while it's hot, as NZ Herald only allows access to non-subscribers for a week.
Reading the replies to this story hurts my head. Imagine having to read essays and essays written in AIMSpeak. I would not want to be a teacher in New Zealand right now.
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/news/releases/2006/101106. html
It does not encourage the behaviour, and will not tolerate it in language questions.
In math, rather than right "there exists", you can just write an upside down 'E'.
They are just broadening this idea to include "text-speak" for non language areas.
I predict that in the future, we will be able to talk into a phone and the person on the other end can read what we said. Eventually, the technology will be so advanced that we will talk into a phone, and the person on the other end will hear our voice.
now i cn sav tyme bi ritin shrtr wrdz LOOL!
10 November, 2006 The Qualifications Authority is actively discouraging candidates in NCEA exams from using abbreviations, including text-style abbreviations. Deputy Chief Executive, Qualifications, Bali Haque said there had been no change in the Authority's policy in regard to use of abbreviations in examinations. Where an examination requires candidates to demonstrate language use - i.e. sentence structure, grammar, spelling - they would be penalised for using abbreviations, Mr Haque said. Where an examination requires candidates to demonstrate understanding in an area of study other than language use, they need to clearly show the required understanding. In these cases, use of abbreviations creates a risk of answers not being understood, Mr Haque said. "The candidates' priority at all times should be to ensure their answers are clearly understandable to markers. The best way to do this is to use standard English," he said.
I must say that the nzqa website puts it in less wow omg. terms
The English language has gone to the pack. What about these additions:
bootylicious, doobry, feh, google, lesbigay, prairie-dogging, warez.
The Oxford Dictionary has become UrbanDictionary. And yes, I am aware that languages evolve.
Back in the 1980's as a graduate student TA (University of Colorado, Boulder) the faculty became increasingly annoyed at that fact and made all undergraduate exams in Molecular and Cell Biology essay exams.
Of course, the poor TA's had to grade the things and it was instantly apparent that even those students who presumably graduated in the upper 1/3 of their class could not write a simple declarative sentence in English. Off to start dating English majors to help with grading homework assignments. Always look at the bright side of things....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
They may as well allow morse code:
? input="Brevity%20is%20the%20soul%20of%20wit.%20Wil liam%20Shakespeare"
http://morsecode.scphillips.com/cgi-bin/morse.cgi
rg! wtf s rng w ths ppl?
http://outcampaign.org/
Insensitive clods! What about other encodings? Will I be able to write my exams in Morse code? How about base64?
http://outcampaign.org/
One of the tasks of a school is to teach students proper English, not devalue it.
text-speak, doubleplusbad,
doublellonglive Newspeak! haha
Nz, y u do dat?
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
Except, you know, my citation tends to show the original had no mistakes. :-)
Maybe black mariah is an upper class tit.
the numeral '2' is not a word. Also two, to, too and 2 all have different meanings. Luckily those meanings are consistant whatever context you are in. When using '2' as a text-speak word the meaning depends on context.
2 me it seems 2 be more complicated as 2 what 2 means, don't you think so 2?
now does 'ur' mean you are, you're or your ? I would think it is literally "you are". any other way other way of vocalizing it seems to come out like a grunt. urururur is the sound l33t sp33kers make in the bedroom.
if people can use text-speak in exams, can I use words like unF and fapfapfapfap?
there is a time for formal writing(like resumes/CVs, exams), and a time for informal writing(like slashdot, irc, texting your friends, etc)
--
i h8 skript kiddie sp33k.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
OMG!! R U 4 real? LOLOL!!!!111!!!!!
This is not good; how is lowering the bar possibly going to help kids learn?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
One of the classes I undertook this year for my year 12 was music solo performance. Anyway, this year they changed the course a bit. They added stuff like Algerian Minor, Gypsy Minor, Lydian Dominant, and other stuff no one has heard of, and that you will likely never use. But one of the major changes was that they added the option for guitarists to write some of their answers in Tablature form, which for those who don't know, is very different from notated music.
Basically, because most of the guitarists were having a hard time, they tried to dumb down the system for them instead of teaching them how to read and write notated music. Learning to read notated music helps a lot when learning music theory, which we also do a lot of. Unless you understand the basics, you will never understand the more complex theory, and thus will not become a competent musician.
The same goes for languages. You have to learn the alphabet and a number of words before you can begin to understand it. If you don't learn the basic grammar and spelling, you will only end up confused and misunderstood.
I teach in a school in South Auckland, New Zealand. The teenagers I teach can hardly understand the requirements of the assessments we give them as their literacy standards can be up to four years behind the national average. I wonder if they would achieve better results if the assessment papers were written in txt language also.
Never know, it might be worth an experiment. These answer scripts could be intresting research material for linguists scratching their heads about irregular verbs.
On the face of it and without local grassroots knowledge, I'd be disgusted with New Zealanders too. As always, there's more to the story however.
Well, having said that I actually am disgusted, because sufficient numbers of New Zealand sheeple have voted twice now in continued support of this kind of madness.
Unfortunately, those of us who prefer adult debate to childish ad-hominem attacks, fiscal responsibility to blatant misappropriation of public funds, etc., are in the minority and effectively up against the wall of a deeply insidious socialist regime.
Sadly, the US does not hold a monopoly on collective stupidity as many of us sometimes like to believe. Our education system is something of a litmus test for the whole New Zealand way of life, which has been systematically de-fanged and hobbled over the years to the point where our incomprehensible stupidity manages to make it to Slashdot (to my shame, I might add).
My optimism for the future is also very shaky. I shudder when considering the human garbage rolling out of the New Zealand educational system each and every year; blank-faced dullards with little comprehension or interest in the world around them, partially literate at best and even lacking enough basic arithmatic to make a rough guess at how much change they should expect back from the shopkeeper!
Don't write this off as hyperbole either, I can personally name a dozen kids up to the age of fifteen who can't tell the time from an analogue clock! Kids without even the skills to look up an address in the phonebook!
More and more I am finding that these are the class of morons served up by recruitment agencies, leaving employers sifting through piles of cruft to find the one golden person capable of crafting a coherent e-mail without needing babysitting!
If the kids aren't being educated by their educators or parented by their parents, how can we hope to hold our own on the world stage?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2005/05/15/nspell15.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/15 /ixhome.html
PS: Are there dictionaries for "l33t" so I know when I'm doing it correctly?
No sig today...
The education system in my country is considered to be one of the best in the world. I use perfectly correct grammar at all times but I do see that this approach is sensible. For several years now this has been in place in our schools. Unless you are specifically testing English grammar then it should not count against you. Someone who has a perfectly good understanding of History should not be penalised on their history score because their English is not good enough. Even English Literature is a measure of Literary knowledge and understanding, not grammar.
I never get used to these constant resurrections
If the US can invent its own form of english cause they couldn't handle real (british) english, then why not i say!
Maybe it'll be the new "international language". Although it is comically familiar of the "microsoft english" joke where they "own" english and transform it into a pseudo-german sounding language...
..."The dog ate my homework" will be acceptable in school, provided the student provide stool samples of the animal in question with said homework fragments throughout.
FLR
To quote a friend working in IT for St. John's College in New Zealand:
It is not true. There was an announcement here to all students and teachers
that the media has gotten this very wrong. As an English teacher said, "We
try to teach them good spelling and grammar, and then the media does this.
What is the point of teaching if kids would be allowed to do that?"
Blame seems to go to the Associated Press of America.
How about we all still speak like this - Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære e hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, æt hi Angle genemnode wæron. a cwæð he, "Rihtlice hi sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað, and swilcum gedafenað æt hi on heofonum engla geferan beon."
Let the language evolve.
Seriously though, I used to tutor various information systems subjects at university, in which there were a lot of foreign students, often with poor English skills. Unless the particular assignment had specific requirements for English ability, I only marked the students down for bad English if I couldn't understand what they were writing. I didn't worry about poor spelling (unless it was inconsistent - I saw one student spell the name of a company 6 different ways on two pages once!) or grammatical mistakes. My reasoning was:
- The students were being assessed on their abilities in the subject, not English
- If the student went back overseas and got a job in his/her native country, then the language would not matter, only the knowledge of the subject matter would
- If the student remained in Australia and tried to get a job, the employer would notice their inability to communicate and would probably not hire them.
Usually these sort of students didn't get high marks anyway because they had trouble understanding the subjects, let alone doing assignments etc. There were some fun moments, like a Russian student I once had who put ":)" into his technical report several times! Maybe he should go to New Zealand.I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.