Question for the younger posters... a mini-rant

Blaxicanlatino

i still dont know alot of the txt language so when they make mention of those words, i just act like i know what it means =3

SaylorKennedy

It annoys me as well. :S
I don't even use "text language" when texting. I always try to use proper grammar, unless I run out of room in the text, then I simplify some words. I've got a full keyboard and I'm going to use it!

Blaxicanlatino

i only use real language on my ipod touch cause there is a keyboard or simply when im on the laptop. but when on the cell, i have to use txt language =3

SaylorKennedy

Oh, and when people were signing my yearbook, a lot of people use the wrong you're/your. That's kind of annoying too.

kuklachica

ARGH. I can speak for my state, Maine, that they don't teach grammar anymore. They teach such things as "describing words" (adjective), and "action words" (verb), etc. As a language teacher, it makes it very difficult to teach such topics as direct objects and pronouns - the kids look at you like you literally are speaking a foreign language when using those terms. The kids in my classes as even SAYING 'lol' and 'OMG'. I'm not old, I'm 26, and my generation was the first one to really use AOL and then AIM came out when I was in middle school, and even then I refused to use 'u' and 'r' and 'brb'. And now it drives me nuts when students do it when they are TALKING to each other. Thankfully they don't know any text shortcuts in Spanish, so I haven't seen that pop up in any of their writing. XD

But, looking at it from a linguistic point of view, our language is evolving. People in the 1700's-1800's probably were complaining about the same things (although much more eloquently) when people were not using "thou" and "thy" any more and women were starting to wear pants. Think of how the most mildy literate, and uneducated, soldier in the civil war wrote eloquent letters back to his family. They could write circles around most of us today. From that point of view, who are we to criticize the 'lol's and 'OMG', BRB's? We'd be getting a linguistic whipping out behind the shed if we were around in the 1800s!

Rant: And, on another note, our educational system is terrible. Speaking as a public school teacher, it is a direct reflection on public education on how lazy our kids have become and how teachers have failed to instill how import proper communication is. For example, doggyhog is homeschooled (as she mentioned in one of the getting to know you threads) and you would NEVER know she was young by looking at the way she types. Our schools badly need to be overhauled. Keep an eye out for the movie Waiting for Superman, by the director in An Inconvenient Truth, coming out in the fall. End rant.

I don't mean to tick off anyone with my rant. This is just one of my HUGE pet peeves and something I would love to devote my life to - changing out educational system.

SaylorKennedy

kuklachica, I agree. My freshman year, only 4 years ago, our English class consisted of reading Great Expectations and writing stories emphasizing on verbs and adjectives. We didn't do much of the direct/indirect objects, complex/compound sentences or anything like that except for like a 2 page packet at the beginning of the year. I've found though that's it's not just the kids, it's the teachers as well. I'm sure you're a good teacher, lol, but the language teachers at my school are horrible, especially our foreign language teachers. As a spanish 450 class, we read a book two months ago that the spanish 150 classes are reading now. We know nothing and it's completely our teacher's fault. Same with the french classes, all they do are watch movies with french subtitles. If I didn't have one of the hardest teachers my sophomore and junior year and just had 4 years like my freshman year, I would probably be really bad at proper english. She's a mid-50's teacher though and grades extremely hard.

Yeah.

1fish2fish

Awesome post Kuklachica.. I agree 100%. I was helping my nephew (in 1st grade) with his spelling homework and he had no idea how to figure out what the word was! I kept saying "sound it out, sound it out" and he had no idea what I was saying :(

I hate seeing kids being put through school without even the slightest inclination on how to speak. It really makes me sad being in an upper level English course in college and hearing people not being able to pronounce simple words :(

I went through public school my entire career, but I also have a Mom who (although she only got as far as a high school education) insists on us using correct grammar. She doesn't even allow us to say "y'all" (which is really hard if you've grown up in the south! LOL). I also think reading has helped me to learn correct grammar. Not enough focus is being directed towards simple reading any more.

As far as compound sentences and past participles.. and all the other grammar voodoo that we should be learning.. I don't know ANY of it. We were never taught proper grammar past what "School House Rock" could teach us.

SaylorKennedy

I remember School House Rock! I loved those. They were quite catchy.

I understand about the mentoring thing. I am a peer tutor to a freshman and she asked me what her vocab word meant and if it was a real word...it was demonic...eh.

kuklachica

There are some HORRRRRRRENDOUS language teachers. I'm sorry that you've had more than your fair share of them! When I get together with teachers at conferences, we actually PRACTICE TEACHING - WHAT A CONCEPT!!! Now, in a new district, the HS language teachers only complain about tests, and standards, and how horrible kids are. When I suggest that maybe they question the way THEY teach rather than just the kids, they are shocked and mortified. Needless to say, I am not a very popular teacher in our language dept.! But, my principal at the MS loves me because the kids are REALLY LEARNING SPANISH and REALLY enjoy it. Last year, when I had a better schedule (every other day for 55 minutes, versus this year at once a week for 55 mins.) I had 8th graders, that had never had a language, writing 30-50 sentence stories in the middle of the year. Granted their grammar and such were not perfect, but given the fact that they are learning pre-school level language at the MS level, how perfect were we in kindergarten and pre-school?? They hadn't learned the terms for things (i.e. gender-adj. agreement, spitting back conjugations) but they KNEW what was RIGHT. How often, if you travel, does someone in Guatemala stop you on the street and say, "Conjugate the verb 'tener' right now! And don't forget vosotros!" Um, never. But how often do you need to COMMUNICATE and make the right linguistic choices, and, God forbid, think on your own??? Well, I showed my current colleagues what my 8th graders did mid-year last year, and the 3rd year Spanish teacher said his 3rd year students couldn't even write that well. But I bet they sure could spit out the conjugations of "pedir" and the uses of "ser" and "estar". Here's hoping they ONLY need to speak to SPANISH TEACHERS when they travel to Costa Rica some day. Because God knows the waiters won't know what to do with "pido, pides, pide, piden..." .

ARGH. Sorry about my rant again. Can you tell I'm passionate about this??? Especially language teachers. I can't stand the ones who aren't willing to change and re-think the way they teach. In case you're curious (or you're a language nerd like me) this and this explain better what I am trying to say, and this explains the method. And if you're really interested, his blog is amazing.


Phew... I think it's time for bed!

kuklachica

That is not to say that I am against students knowing the terms for things such as noun-adjective agreement, the uses of ser vs. estar, etc. But I think a lot of foreign language teachers forget that students are learning PRE-SCHOOL (or lower) level things as middle schoolers and sometimes freshman. Did our parents sit us down with a textbook when we were 2, and say "Now, what you just said was actually in the nominative case because... And you used the word actRESS rather than actOR because the person you were speaking about was a female and the adjective must agree with the proper noun." No, we just LEARNED to SPEAK English and then (hopefully) later we studied those concepts when we reached upper elementary/middle school when we had grasped the use of English. Students of foreign language are forced to learned these concepts when their brains are at an infant's level regarding the language they are learning. Once the students have grasped the basics of the language, then that is the time to look into the why's and how's of a language. Maybe later in HS or in college, if they choose to continue with a language.


Wow, I am sorry that I totally got this thread off-topic. I will stop here. I could go on and on!!!