Is Germany Raising a Generation of Illiterates?

StartsWithABang (3485481) writes "Over at Starts With A Bang, the weekly question comes in from Germany, where we're informed: 'In Germany, many teachers have adopted a new way of teaching children to write properly. The way is called "Writing by Reading" and essentially says: Write as you wish, you're not bound by any rules. Recently, this way of teaching has been heavily criticized [link in German], but not before it has been "tested" on several years of school children.' The reading wars have been going on in the US, too, but will this wind up having a negative outcome? Or, as this piece argues, is it likely to be a wash?"

Comments

u can rite any way u want

[ArcadeMan]

i rite az i wish and it doz afekt my wrighting.

Re:u can rite any way u want

[rrohbeck]

This seems perfectly par for the course as far as Internet comments go.

Re:u can rite any way u want

[MakubeX]

I'm torn between the issue. I discovered old letters in my house from the 1800's and was able to glimpse in the past of how life was like back then. The letters had their words written phonetically, and while I did "notice" what I perceived to be errors at the time, I did understand the letter and remembered that eduction wasn't necessarily standardized back then and not everyone had access or could afford to attend school.

Fast forward to today and a part of me believes that if an educator is actually teaching words and meanings to students that their should be actually definitive meanings for terms when given the chance. We know that written language is derived from verbal communication which is why we used phonetics in the first place. So, for example, if a teacher was teaching the world "there" without a definitive meaning, then students would always have to rely on context clues to figure out if the communicator is saying the equivalent to "there, their, or they're". Which can become even more confusing if there are other words that are also homophones in the same sentence.

Granted we already did with this when we speak, but if you are reading words, then there is the chance to be explicit and avoid the confusion from the beginning as you can specify intent with words.

Again, I'm not the grammar police (English was always my worst subject), but I'm torn between if grammar is overbearing or necessary. Instructions are clearer when a standard exists, but then again someone being pedantic about bad grammar (commas) when the meaning clearly gets across merely seems to belittle someone to feel superior about something irrelevant to the topic. Case and point, when I write a paragraph to defeat someone's argument and they point out that I didn't capitalize a nationality, inferring my argument is thus invalid.

-my 2 cents

Re:u can rite any way u want

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hungry. Lets eat grandma!

I'm hungry. Lets eat, grandma!

Re:u can rite any way u want

[Panoptes]

"Up to the early 20th century, words were spelled phonetically" Utter poppycock!

Re:u can rite any way u want

[Teun]

In the case of Germany and German you'd at least have to go down another century to find the first attempts at standardising the spelling.
The German language is strictly regulated, possibly even more so than present day French.

Contrary to many other European languages for phonetic reasons they decided to change out the Latin leading C to a (greek) K but also felt the need to retain the Latin 'a' that's in German plural phonetically an 'e' by adding an Umlaut: ä.

It's this partial wish to retain compatibility with original Latin and Greek words and the slightly different phonetics to Latin and Greek that is so difficult to incorporate into Germanic languages.

English is a whole different matter, the English phonetics changed drastically from their Germanic roots during/ due to 'The Great Vowel Shift'. Strange enough the spelling remained basically Germanic but the pronunciation is nothing like it used to be.
This vowel shift is even more pronounced in American, the (a?) reason they have great difficulty in comprehensively speaking European languages, including Church-Latin.

So the results of the suggestion to allow phonetic spelling depends greatly on the alphabet used, Germanic, Latin, UK-English or US-English are some of the options.

Re:u can rite any way u want

[Culture20]

Fast forward to today and a part of me believes that if an educator is actually teaching words and meanings to students that their should be actually definitive meanings for terms when given the chance. We know that written language is derived from verbal communication which is why we used phonetics in the first place. So, for example, if a teacher was teaching the world "there" without a definitive meaning, then students would always have to rely on context clues to figure out if the communicator is saying the equivalent to "there, their, or they're". Which can become even more confusing if there are other words that are also homophones in the same sentence.

Is this irony or coincidence? I was never taught the difference.

Re:u can rite any way u want

[Anonymous Coward]

You troglodyte.

There should be an apostrophe in there.

They've got a lot of catching up to do...

[damn_registrars]

The US has been raising illiterates for decades (if not longer). In this metric we can truly shout

We're number one!
We're number one!
We're number one!

I doubt they could catch up with our functional illiteracy rates even if they tried.

Re:They've got a lot of catching up to do...

[Karmashock]

That statistical argument ignores the details in those statistics.

If you ignore all the demographic information that actually tells you what is going on in the population and only focus on ONE variable then you find a high level of illiteracy.

However, if you filter the list you'll find that much of the illiteracy is in communities that have been historically prone to that status for... literally... ever. Nearly all of it is in America's urban squalor. And even then you don't find Asian Americans with high levels of illiteracy despite the fact that many of them either still live or recently came from those urban blight zones.

We have certain demographic groups in the US that are having a very hard time. The reasons for this are debatable but to pretend that our problem is universal and broadly distributed throughout our society is merely to admit ignorance of the facts.

Certain groups are having a problem and they need help. Their failures however do not speak to the general ignorance of our population as a whole.

The US remains one of the better educated populations on the planet. What drags us down is that we have a diverse population where as Japan for example has a very homogenous population. There isn't much immigration from mexico for example or a large discontented african american population that has sadly enshrined ignorance as a badge of honor. Those are facts of the American population at this point. And it isn't reasonable to expect any society to be able to raise everyone up to the same level especially when factions are currently being encouraged to resist integration.

The mantra of the day is "be different, honor your distinctions, etc" and that's fine if your differences are either neutral or admirable. However, if they're a general detriment to yourself and society maybe adopting a more successful attitude might be in everyone's interest.

Here is where someone calls me a racist or a bigot. I am neither. My comments were not anti race but anti subculture. And only against subcultures that have failed. The US is full of subcultures and most of them are successful. If it works, then keep doing it. You'll hear no complaint from me. But if what you're doing isn't working and you're draining national resources to keep your subculture on life support... maybe that should stop.

These communities get enourmous amounts of money from the federal, state, and city governments. Society at large wants to help. We want them to be successful. But it will NEVER happen until these subcultures either adapt to be independent or are supplanted with a more rational framework.

And that is the problem with education, crime, etc in the US almost entirely.

I'm sorry if that sounds politically incorrect but there is reality and there is delusion. Pick one.

Re:They've got a lot of catching up to do...

[BoRegardless]

Observation from Orange County, California: Kids who do well have parents who literally taught their kids to read and write BEFORE they entered a classroom.

I have seen all races in this group, though some more than others.

It is strictly a parental issue in believing in education and starting it at home, where it must start by example.

Re:They've got a lot of catching up to do...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Well, of COURSE! In any report about any country having a problem, a comment about the USA being worse will pop up within the first 20 comments.

Can the writings be read?

[mwvdlee]

I take value in writing correctly (my native tongue is Dutch, not English, in case anybody finds errors).
But language is not something defined by laws; it is alive, changing and evolving all the time.
I may enjoy writing following proper grammar rules, but that's just my personal preference and just because I like it, doesn't mean everybody should do so.
If the text written using this method can be read as easy and fast as text written according to the rules, what really is the problem?

Re:Can the writings be read?

[GenieGenieGenie]

People who are encouraged as kids to be sloppy about their writing tend to emerge from adolescence sloppy about their thinking too. This is a cliche but it is, unfortunately, quite an accurate one. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but where I live there is a generation of people who can't spell or read efficiently and this is reflected in how shallow their thoughts are.

Re:Can the writings be read?

[damn_registrars]

Language rules are critical to communication. Eventually if too many linguistic rules and word meanings are discarded, communication becomes essentially impossible as statements don't have the same meaning to both parties in the discussion. There are some rules that don't make a lot of sense, but they are what they are and mostly need to be adhered to in order to ensure that communication can happen.

Re:Can the writings be read?

[AK Marc]

Communication is the goal. If you write as you speak, it's considered poor, as writings should be "more formal" but that was a declaration from a previous age when whiting cost money. Now, I can write something and be seen by hundreds in a few minutes. Something that would cost $1000 (or so, inflation over 200+ years isn't exact) in revolutionary times. So when you are paying that much to have your words seen, you would consider them more. When I can post about something and have a large audience, and I can edit/delete/repost with ease, why should I think about what I'm saying?

So the real problem with writing is that it's becoming more like spoken language, when before, they were almost separate dialects. That always annoys the purists.

Re:Can the writings be read?

[Anonymous Coward]

But language is not something defined by laws; it is alive, changing and evolving all the time.

Which is of course regulated by law, for German the Duden holds the currently recognized words and their correct spellings as well as meanings in common use.

If the text written using this method can be read as easy and fast as text written according to the rules, what really is the problem?

The linked German article has a nice, short example "Die Bollizei isst da", "The police eats there" where the correct spelling "Die Polizei ist da" would mean "the police is here". As can be seen the few wrong letters in Polizei wont cause any confusion, however other words are not blessed with that much error correcting redundancy - "ist" being and "isst" eating mean completely different things.

Even if you manage to correct these errors from the context they appear in it makes the texts harder to read. Most texts it is likely that they will be written once and read a many times, with basic "Textverständniss" reading comprehension already being a problem for some having texts easy to understand is important and avoids misunderstandings.

Re:Can the writings be read?

[houghi]

There are some rules that don't make a lot of sense, but they are what they are and mostly need to be adhered to in order to ensure that communication can happen.

Dutch has had several changes over the last 100 years. This is to follow the evolution of language.

I do not believe English has had the same done to it. Otherwise you would not end up with something like:
Dearest creature in creation,

  Study English pronunciation.
  I will teach you in my verse
  Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
  I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
  Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
  Tear in eye, your dress will tear,
  So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

  Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
  Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
  We say hallowed but allowed,
  People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
  Mark the differences, moreover,
  Between mover, cover, clover;
  Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
  Chalice, but police and lice;
  Camen, constable, unstable,
  Principle, disciple, label.

The trest can be read right here. Read it out loud the first time you read it. You will start to wonder what is so adhered in the language.

Re:Can the writings be read?

[Opportunist]

Language, no matter whether spoken or written, is a means of preserving and transporting information. That's its primary function. Of course, a calligraphy enthusiast might disagree, but form is of secondary importance. But only to the point where form influences its primary function.

In my experience, grammar rules exist for a very simple reason: Error correction. You can actually observe changes in language towards simpler grammar and fewer rules. Personally, I think this is mostly due to more standardization in other areas and hence less need for error correction. When everyone is writing in the same font, if everyone is following the same rules for writing letters and words, moreover if everyone has the same understanding of the words used, you need fewer features that ensure that these letters and words are used properly.

You notice this mostly in some jokes in those languages, jokes that rely on the simplicity of grammar that cannot work for that very reason in other languages. Classic: "My dog has no nose. How does he smell? Aweful." That joke relies on "smell" working as a verb and a adjective, something that does work in English and a few other languages with simple grammar, but not in many others because of how verbs are being conjugated in many languages. It also becomes obvious that due to the simplicity of the language structure, word order and context become very important. English has a rigid word order exactly because words are not flexed to mark them as subject and object, something that is done in more complex grammar structures, and you will notice that word order is not such a premium in such languages (like German and Russian, for example).

We're pretty much at the point where languages are as simple as they get. The big push for "more beautiful" writing is over. Overblown word processions that should show off just how eloquent someone can write and just how big his word stock is are a thing of the past. Actually, using such language is seen as a mark of someone taking himself as too important and generally being an elitist prick. Simple is the new sexy. But I don't think we can simplify our languages any more without actually losing our ability to express clearly what we want to convey. And that can be quite dangerous. Contracts today are already way more wordy than they should need to be, simply because our language IS already at the point where it is no longer absolutely unambiguous.

Re:Can the writings be read?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

There are some ongoing differences, aside from cost: With written material, you don't get the use of tone, gesture, expression, and the various other spoken-language tricks of expression that don't directly make it to paper. It is hardly impossible to write such that the reader will (mostly) correctly infer some of them; but that's exactly the sort of thing that you have to work at, or have sufficient practice to do nearly effortlessly, that you'd get for free when speaking.

There's also the difference that most spoken communication takes place in more or less real time, which allows the other person to interject, or you to elaborate on a point if the audience appears baffled, speed through a point if they appear bored, and otherwise tailor your speech to the demands of the occasion. It will lack formality; but customization counts for a lot.

Some text communication, IM and the like, is largely the same and admits of the same sort of near-real-time course corrections; but even at the level of message board posts you really start to see the effects of delay. If I fuck this up, I can post a (hopefully) clarifying reply; but I could easily end up being misunderstood by numerous people before one of them posts something that informs me and I refresh the page and see that, and get my correction in.

The 'purists' who spend their time harping on The True Rules, or replying purely to note that somebody has used 'there' instead of 'their' or the reverse, are an utter waste of time. Spending more time thinking about communication that will be stripped of spoken and nonverbal cues and sent out into the world with a nontrivial turnaround time, though, is something that I suspect we won't escape.

I agree that logistical issues for most text have declined over time (and some things that used to be text, like 'letter writing' as an actual social institution are now largely dominated by spoken word replacements); but I would argue that they aren't gone, and that additional issues that the writer needs to consider start to crop up with surprisingly small delays.

Re:Can the writings be read?

[CRCulver]

Eventually if too many linguistic rules and word meanings are discarded, communication becomes essentially impossible as statements don't have the same meaning to both parties in the discussion.

You really need to read some Saussure, especially the principle of l'arbitraire du signe and the distinction between langue and parole. This science is a century old at this point, there's no excuse for an educated person not knowing it. Human language naturally contains some level of ambiguity, it is simply avoidable. However, this does not typically lead to multual intelligibility, and most of the human population handles diaglossia just fine.

Furthermore, this is a discussion about a writing system, not a language. Writing systems too have a great deal of ambiguity, starting from the ambiguity in the speech they represent and then going from there. Just think about how many different lexemes are represented in speech and writing as <set>, or how two different tense forms with two different pronunciations are represented as the single grapheme <read>. And yet, readers handle that just fine.

As an English speaker, your own language's history in writing should be enough to disabuse of the notion that divergent spellings are a threat to society. English spelling in the 18th century was not yet firmly established, and yet that era saw an explosion in popular literacy and scholarly publication.

Is something being casually elided here?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I realize that Slashdot Summaries are one of the important, protected, habitats of a mixture of questionable proofreading and overt editorializing; but isn't something important being left out here?

The scheme in question is known as 'write by reading'. This apparently boils down to 'write however you want', according to a blog post that barely touches on the matter aside from a link to a German newspaper. Is it possible that this 'write by reading' theory involves some 'reading' somewhere? Maybe the notion that children will pick up grammar by exposure to it, which would make spending the time previously allocated to Learning Your Grammar Rules Children on reading things that are both examples of good writing and also useful, interesting, or otherwise better than distilled essence of grammar a plausible alternative?

Now, I'd be the first to agree that the standards of pedagogical research are... notably tepid... and education is much ruled by fads, many with little or no basis in evidence beyond anecdotes; but can we really have a useful discussion if we are going to start from a position of such inspiring intellectual honesty?

The question: "Do children pick up grammar from exposure to well written, but not otherwise grammar focused, texts sufficiently efficiently that we are better off skipping the lessons in pure grammar in favor of receiving the grammar as a side effect of reading that will also have other uses?" is a perfectly reasonable one, and it isn't immediately obvious which side the facts would come down on, so some research would be nice; but I'm pretty sure that 'Writing by Reading' is not actually a polite expression for 'Thare iz no ruls in Sckool.'

Re:Tested on school children?

[cold fjord]

They had to test it on school children. Environmental law is too strict to allow testing on rats.

My experience as one of the "tested" pupils

[maweki]

I went to primary school in Germany from 1996 on and I was in one of those classes that learned "Reading by Writing" (I explained above that the referenced article gets the German original article the wrong way around).

The way it basically works is, that you get a phonetics-alphabet and learn just the sounds and then you write them down in the way you think is right. My class was, in direct comparison to the class that learned traditionally, on average half a grade better in writing and reading by year 4. But my class had only eleven pupils and our teacher had the chance to explain errors and nuances. Usually, classes nowadays are more than double the size.
I am sure that, without proper guidance, many mistakes can be made. The primary thing my parents loved was, that I was able to read stuff the first day I came home from school with my phonetics-alphabet. I could read my children-books from day one. We didn't start with the letter "e" or "o" and only short words. This gave me a real thirst for books and I read "Robinson Crusoe" in second grade.