To think spelling and grammar can't be ignored

[busyhouseof8]

DS2 is in Yr6. He came home from school with homework for a 30 minute piece of writing to describe a friend.

I gave the usual talk about being careful with your spelling and punctuation only for him to say, "it's OK, Mrs P says she doesn't mind about any of that so long as she can work out what we're trying to say".

AIBU to think that actually learning spelling and punctuation is reasonably important? DH is currently sifting through graduates to employ, many of whom have excellent degrees but can't seem to spell for toffee or string a literate sentence together. His firm runs remedial English classes just so they can write a letter to a client that makes sense and will be paid for!

Parents' evening this week - should I question her methods?

Apologies for all spelling and grammar errors in this post..............

English spelling is definitely much harder than in Italian, Spanish or German. That's the reason why the OP is NBU - spelling (and grammar also) should be an integral part of English teaching, and essays should be marked down accordingly (I suppose you could make allowances for a biology essay, say, but definitely not in English, and definitely not at primary).

Grammar and orthography are a massive part of writing: for instance punctuation can give a certain rhythm to a text and it can help to stress particular words/sentences. A creative writing idea will remain an idea if the writer hasn't got sufficient skills to convey it: and these skills includes knowing the basics of grammar and spelling.

I have a busy job, and I do not have the time to interpret what my colleagues are writing because of bad punctuation, lack of structure, or because half of the sentences are in dire need of a verb. Equally, CVs with consistently bad grammar and spelling will continue ending up in the bin: I do not want to work with people who are so lazy to even use spell-check, or getting someone else to read it over.

'A creative writing idea will remain an idea if the writer hasn't got sufficient skills to convey it: and these skills includes knowing the basics of grammar and spelling.'

Yet many good 'writers' are dyslexics who farm out these skills or use tools such as spellcheckers to help them. I think actually, being good at these skills is mostly important for jobs that aren't very English-oriented.

I would really like to know what the teacher says about it though - whether it's a one-off exercise, or just for this term, or only applies to a first draft, or what.

At GCSE English, some of the peices in the exam carry 16 marks for content and 16 for SPAG...

English is not my first language(I'm french), but even I am shocked at how bad some english people's spelling and grammar is. It's not only a problem in the UK, though, and too many people leave french shools unable to read and write properly. It is very sad, and I think schools should probably have higher expectations from their pupils.

Why did the OP start this thread and never come back to it?

Because she's scared off by evangelical spelling-and-grammar weirdos?

If so, I hope not - please come back OP!

I can confirm that the problem is not confined to English. Many French school leavers are really poor at written French, and as they usually manage to get their Baccalauréat in spite of this, a number of them then blithely work their way through university writing really awful French. Some French universites have been known to offer courses in written French to their doctoral students because the level of language in their theses was embarrassing to their institution.

I don't think attention to correct spelling and grammar is snobbery. When the writer reveals ignorance as to how the language works, I tend to see it as a worrying insight into their general level of instruction and awareness. And it also reveals, in some cases, an inability to assimilate information, which I would be concerned might be reproduced elsewhere. If someone can't retain a fairly easy rule (it's/its or they're/their), I find myself wondering how they will handle more complex data.

You could always check how they handle complex data, though, couldn't you?

Something like 1/10 people is dyslexic. To many of them, they're/their may not be an easy rule, but they may find data that is not phonetic is much easier to assimilate (just as an example). It's worth checking first and then judging, instead of using spelling and grammar as a poor man's yardstick. IMO.

A lot more that 10% of the population have problems with spelling and grammar though ella. I have also come across many who struggle with spoken English also.

Oh, yes, I agree Minus.

I'm not saying we shouldn't teach these things, or that spelling and grammar is never part of a bigger problem with English - it often is. I just wanted to respond to the idea that faulty spelling and grammar might be a good indication that someone is not good with learning 'simple rules', or not good with data. Earlier someone said it might be laziness or carelessness. The problem is, if you think that and discount people who make these mistakes when you look at job applicants, or university applicants, not only may you lose out on so many good applicants, but also, the horizons for such people become pretty grim.

So I would want to say, give people who struggle with spelling and grammar a fair chance - it's far from the only thing that matters, and certainly not in English. The situation the OP describes may be an attempt to give children who are struggling a bit a chance.

Just to add ... I really do have a problem with the idea that children should be heavily marked down in 'English' for SPAG mistakes. At secondary school, that is liable to mean children who are poor at spelling and grammar won't carry on with English Lit beyond GCSE. And that's a real pity because of course English Lit is not really more about grammar and spelling than Biology is. You dissaude so many people who could go on and do well, and contribute well to that subject.

Benjamin Zephaniah is very good on the subject of people's reactions to his becoming a poet despite his struggles with these subjects.

Really interesting thread but I'm just off to bed so only read half of it.

OP, YANBU. For all those shouting about how concentrating too much on spelling and grammar interrupts the flow of the child's creative thought processes.....do we really want to get to the stage where the spelling is so bad that it's all a reader notices and so interrupts THEM in the reading of it? I work in a secondary school and sometimes see such bad spelling that it DOES make it hard to read.

In my day at junior level, we would actually have regular SEPARATE lessons on spelling and grammar which focussed on those two things only. Forget about being creative - for those lessons, accuracy was what mattered. If you make children do that regularly then the correct spelling becomes entrenched in their brain and comes out automatically when they write creatively and expressively in other lessons. EllaDee, I really believe that it's not doing ENOUGH spelling and grammar exercises which is actually interrupting the child's flow whilst writing creatively if they are having to think about the spelling - if it's been practised enough that it's embedded in their brain (like times tables) then it simply becomes automatic and is automatically churned out whilst they are writing stories etc.

What has happened to regular spelling tests - a list of words given out to junior school children to learn over the weekend, to be tested on the following week? Have they disappeared? If so, that's very sad.

I also think that some people are natural readers and will tend to be better spellers as their brain is absorbing the correct spellings as they read. Same for grammar. Other children who don't read much for pleasure at home won't be exposed to correct spelling if they don't see it written down and don't have it corrected at school. How are they ever expected to improve at it?

OP, I am with you. It is really important. When it comes down to it, it's all about standards. For example, I would not expect a letter from a law practice to be riddled with errors. If it contained too many errors, then I'd assume that the solicitor or whoever was sloppy at their job. It might not have been they themselves who made the spelling mistakes, but it would sure as hell tell me that they hadn't bothered to proof-read documents which were being sent to clients. Which would suggest to me that they weren't bothering doing other stuff too. And I would switch to a different solicitor!

I'm sorry, but standards DO matter. Yes, creative and expressive writing is important, but spelling and grammar are equally as important. From looking at the standards of secondary children's writing which I see in work, the better written pieces tend to be the ones which also contain the better spelling too.

'Yes, creative and expressive writing is important, but spelling and grammar are equally as important.'

FFS, either 'they are equally important', or 'they are as important'. And, for the record, they are neither.

Sorry, that was very harsh.

But I don't believe hammering in these rules works very well (obviously it is not perfect). And I don't find any correlation at all between good spelling/grammar and good English Lit essays - often the reverse. And it makes me wonder how many potentially good students never made it because they thought if they couldn't spell, English could never be for them. It's sad.

Spelling pedants - I secretly stick two fingers up at you when your backs are turned.

As I had a 70's primary education, including three years with the same teacher (speciality art) who left us to muck around get on with project work, my spelling and grammar skills are terrible.

I'm glad my year 2 DC has had more spelling tests than I have ever had - perhaps she won't have to encounter pedants at work who verbally abuse her for not knowing the correct spelling of 'necessary' without using a spell-checker.

You can stick "data is the plural of datum so data were collected not data was collected" where the monkey stuffs his whatsits!

EllaDee - When I asked you to link to the "research by experts" you were claiming exists and says English is oh so difficult, I was not asking you to write down the names of first five books you had heard of. I asked you to link to one such research. Please do, if you can.

Meanwhile, have a look at this fascinating article from The Economist about some truly difficult languages. In the first page, you will see:

It may be natural to think that your own tongue is complex and mysterious. But English is pretty simple: verbs hardly conjugate; nouns pluralise easily (just add ?s?, mostly) and there are no genders to remember.

English-speakers appreciate this when they try to learn other languages. A Spanish verb has six present-tense forms, and six each in the preterite, imperfect, future, conditional, subjunctive and two different past subjunctives, for a total of 48 forms. German has three genders, seemingly so random that Mark Twain wondered why ?a young lady has no sex, but a turnip has?. (Mädchen is neuter, whereas Steckrübe is feminine.)

English spelling may be the most idiosyncratic, although French gives it a run for the money with 13 ways to spell the sound ?o?: o, ot, ots, os, ocs, au, aux, aud, auds, eau, eaux, ho and ö. ?Ghoti,? as wordsmiths have noted, could be pronounced ?fish?: gh as in ?cough?, o as in ?women? and ti as in ?motion?. But spelling is ancillary to a language?s real complexity; English is a relatively simple language, absurdly spelled.

Perhaps the ?hardest? language studied by many Anglophones is Latin (...) Yet are Latin and Greek truly hard? These two genetic cousins of English, in the Indo-European language family, are child?s play compared with some. Languages tend to get ?harder? the farther one moves from English and its relatives.

!Yet many good 'writers' are dyslexics who farm out these skills or use tools such as spellcheckers to help them. I think actually, being good at these skills is mostly important for jobs that aren't very English-oriented.!

"English-oriented" jobs: unless one never puts pen to paper (cleaning jobs perhaps?), language is vital to any job. My DH is basically a statistician. He still tests job applicants for writing skills - funnily enough even mathmos jobs require high levels of written communication skills.

"The problem is, if you think that and discount people who make these mistakes when you look at job applicants, or university applicants, not only may you lose out on so many good applicants, but also, the horizons for such people become pretty grim."

There a lot of very good people out there (50 applicants for every job in boom years) so I pick the good ones who can also write - a candidate who cannot write correctly costs us a lot more because you always have to triple check their work before it goes to clients.
That is exactly why there should be a lot more emphasis in primary school on the basics - grammar, spelling, ability to interpret data and graphs (I could go on what these basic skills are) - this will affect their employment chances.

Cote, I wasn't linking to the first book I'd heard of. I was linking to a good, basic introduction to the subject, which I hoped you'd find useful. And I told you you'd find more in the bibligraphy of that book. The idea that English has a deep orthography is a very basic one. If you don't know it, expect to be directed to a basic textbook!

minerva - SPAG are not vital to what I'm doing, and I was always told they would be, so it makes me quite suspicious when people claim they are vital. What is wrong with accepting you're a poor speller and learning to use a spellcheck? Not always perfect, I know - but not bad either.

Incidentally, if an employer interviews or employs someone who makes their disability known, the employer required by law to make 'reasonable adjustment'. This could include access to spellchecking facilities, or a proof reader. It's no longer acceptable simply to discriminate.

Btw, Cote, don't you see linking to an article - ie., not research at all! - and ticking me off for offering you proper but basic academic research, is a bit rude?

I have already said orthography does not refer to grammar, and that all sorts of things impact on how 'hard' a language may be for an individual to learn.

But I have to take issue with this: 'Languages tend to get ?harder? the farther one moves from English and its relatives.'

This is obviously intended to be true for an English speaker. It's not some kind of objective measure!

IMO French and English are similarly difficult to spell; however, the difficulties are not directly comparable. The complexity of English orthography is in its multiple phoneme/grapheme correspondences, but a good grounding in synthetic phonics and systematic teaching of decoding and also encoding makes English a lot easier to learn to spell; the complexity of French orthography is in its grammatical spelling (conjugation and agreements), and French children need rigorous and systematic teaching of grammar over many years to master this.

You're right, the two languages are difficult to compare, perhaps I shouldn't have brought up the comparison. It was just an off-the-cuff comment on orthography, not grammar, made in the context of much bigger differences between English and French teaching styles.

I agree that phonics really seems to make a big difference.

Phonics really helps French children too; however, having observed my DD learn to read in English and in French simultaneously but entirely separately using a synthetic phonics method for each language I can vouch for the fact that French is a darn sight quicker to get through! She can decode much more complex texts in French than in English, even though her English is her stronger language by a long way.

But of course she cannot really free write in French at all yet, because she hasn't started to learn conjugation. It is much easier for children to launch into creative writing in English than in French.

That's interesting bonsoir. I wonder how much your first language affects her too (remind me, is your DH French himself?). I'm just starting to think of all this language stuff again because I have a new baby niece a few months old, who has a German mother and English father.

I do think grammar is one of the areas where, if you speak English and your spoken or written grammar is poor, you really find it hard to pick up another language. But if your spelling is poor in English, it can be good in other languages - I never made many mistakes in written French. I suspect that is a big difference between learning as a small child and learning as an older teen, too. But I expect in Yr6 this child won't have the dubious pleasure of language classes yet!