Universities no longer to required to expect good written/spoken English as it is “elitist”

[jacks11]

I have just read this in The Times. I am appalled! I think this is a retrograde step. Apparently it is to close the attainment gap between higher and lower socio-economic groups and also between white and other ethnic groups. Is it not rather insulting to suggest we ought to expect lower standards from these groups?

Surely, if we have identified that there is an issue in terms of literacy/communication, then we should focus on improving those in schools. For those struggling at university, provision should be made to support the student to gain these skills. For those who have a genuine SEN (e.g. dyslexia) it is obviously appropriate to have particular arrangements for that student. What is ludicrous is suggesting literacy and accuracy in both oral and written work is no longer required. To suggest it is “elitist” is, in my view, a travesty.

At university level you must be able to communicate clearly and proficiently in both oral and written work. It is not a “nice to have”. It is essential for many reasons. I fear this country is becoming devoid of all sense and rigour, sacrificed on the supposed alter of “inclusiveness” and “fairness”- utterly wrongly. Inclusiveness can be achieved in far more sensible and effect ways.

I don’t understand why expecting literacy and a clear grasp of written and spoken English at university level is “elitist”.

Students can make grammar mistakes and still write cohesively. It depends a lot on the type of mistakes. The point is to get them to focus on the skills they need to achieve cohesion first. So, writing shorter sentences that are constructed reasonably well and understanding how to use referents so the sentences link in a logical way is usually more successful than attempting lots of complex sentences. Obviously, with a really low level of English, that won’t work either.

Tbh, a big problem with international students can be them trying to emulate the style of writing they come across in their reading as a lot of published academic writing is pretty awful! So the combination of an IELTS 6/6.5 with a Dickensian sentence structure is a difficult mess to undo.

UK students are notoriously lazy. Full time study is supposed to be full time study - 37.5 hours a week of study, which consists of contact time and self study. An undergraduate degree is supposed to be the equivalent of 4500 hours of study if you look at the Bologna Process. Barely any students actually put in the hours expected of them, especially compared to their European counterparts.

There are so many support services available nowadays there’s really no excuse for producing such a poor standard of work.

Its not elitist, it's essential. Our Education system expects children to learn other languages in which it's necessary to understand structure and grammar. If they haven't been taught the basics of their own language how the hell can they be expected to grasp it in another? The standard of literacy in his country is disgraceful.

I’m not clear what’s changed exactly? I know a lot of people who have obtained degrees since Uni was thrown open / everyone was forced to have a degree to get jobs (delete as appropriate to your perspective). Many of them have the most godawful English language skills. To the point where I wonder how they managed to pass GCSEs and a-levels. It’s been a long time since degrees were purely vocational and academic too, it seems like you need qualifications for every bit of common sense nowadays, and no one has any common sense without training either.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

Basically, I try to enable students to express their complex ideas in a comprehensible way. They need to understand structure and need to be able to demonstrate criticality. Those two skills will always trump grammar and spelling in my book. Coherence and cohesion are the holy grail!

I'm not a stickler for prescriptive grammar. Errors like splitting the infinitive, for eg., would have been corrected once upon a time but now largely pass without comment. Without comprehensible grammar, though, there is no cohesion. No matter how brilliant the ideas an essay contains, if a reader is constantly hiccupping over faulty syntax then they're not going to find it easy to follow an argument. Especially if half the thing is written in sentence fragments. Like this. As often happens in undergraduate writing. When their written work takes the form of their speech.

Universities are one place where pedantry does and should have its rightful place (an internet message board where members correct others as some form of snide putdown, not so much). As for the flowery academic syntax mentioned upthread, that might have been the case in the 70s and 80s but trends ebb and flow and it's now seen as pompous and ostentatious. The same goes for overuse of jargon. Any academic peer could tell you this sort of style achieves the reverse of making writer seem clever, which isn't unlike correcting strangers' grammar on the internet.

If “good English” was defined as “comprehensible English” then I think we would be in agreement. I am not arguing that students who can’t communicate their ideas should be rewarded - quite the opposite.

My concern is that “good English” is defined as standard grammar and spelling, even where the intention and communication is perfectly clear.

If someone’s studying for a proofreading or technical writing qualification, then of course they need a firm grasp of accepted English standards. If they’re studying art or poetry or nursing, then... not so much.

Something I have found interesting is that lots of adults only know how to be taught. They have no idea how to learn. They are used to being talked at and told, and think that’s what learning is. University is a massive shock to those people. We don’t prepare our young adults properly for university. There should be a shift in teaching methodology in sixth form/college to teach kids how to learn for themselves. Move away from pedagogical approaches to andragogical principles.

@VestaTilley

I agree.

Standards have slipped so badly. Correct spelling and grammar isn’t elitist - it’s just correct! And you need it for many jobs, especially in the professions.

My Granny was born in 1925 to a humble family in Sussex. When I was growing up she told me about how she used to use Sussex dialect words, and was told by a neighbour that when she went to High School she’d learn the “right” way to speak. She did, and it stood her in good stead.

Different accents are fine, but incorrect grammar isn’t and should be challenged.

You must be so proud that your grandmother had her regional dialect driven out of her. She sounds like a peasant!

I think the issue is this idea that everyone should go to university. They clearly shouldn't

I agree. Neither of my children were (or should that be ‘was’?) interested in academic work and I begged and pleased with them not to go, but they wanted to do what their friends were doing.
What a waste of time and money (though they did have fun and make lots of friends).

‘Pleaded’ not ‘pleased’.

If someone’s studying for a proofreading or technical writing qualification, then of course they need a firm grasp of accepted English standards. If they’re studying art or poetry or nursing, then... not so much

Poetry is the best words in the best order, it's very exact.

As for nursing not requiring accurate English. How do you want your notes written up?

How would you feel if a nurse did not, for instance, know the correct preposition: in/on/under/beneath/above/below/beside?

Life and death, I tell you.

I taught English on an access to nursing course years ago and correct English is vital. Prepositions were a considerable challenge, as they still are.

There should be a shift in teaching methodology in sixth form/college to teach kids how to learn for themselves. Move away from pedagogical approaches to andragogical principles.

Absolutely true. Within some universities teaching principles are still universally described as pedagogy, which I think speaks for itself.

On a separate point, and post, if you're studying poetry you're reading for an English or English Literature degree. That is one subject in which a fluent, accurate writing style is essential.

In some US universities the way they tackle the problem of poor English writing skills is provision of remedial writing classes, thus maintaining and facilitating the expectation that students will graduate with the ability to express themselves in English.

I agree with the OP that ability to express oneself in English in an English speaking country is important.

As with school uniforms and many other misguided British efforts to level the playing field, the decision to graduate students regardless of poor spoken or written English will not do anything to change perceptions of this group.

@expectopelargonium

If you want to study for a degree, then you need to have a high enough standard of written English, otherwise you shouldn't be going to university in the first place.

Yes

@mathanxiety

In some US universities the way they tackle the problem of poor English writing skills is provision of remedial writing classes, thus maintaining and facilitating the expectation that students will graduate with the ability to express themselves in English.

I agree with the OP that ability to express oneself in English in an English speaking country is important.

As with school uniforms and many other misguided British efforts to level the playing field, the decision to graduate students regardless of poor spoken or written English will not do anything to change perceptions of this group.

Yes, in US universities there is often a requirement to take composition classes, to try and get everyone on a level playing field.

The mechanics of English language, grammar, composition etc play second fiddle to 'literature' in UK education... As if people are just going to absorb effective punctuation and form via osmosis...

I don't think it's necessarily overseas students who have a poor grasp of the language. For Russell Group universities, the requirement is often to have 8 at least (out of 9) for IELTS as part of the entry requirement - which covers written exams and a spoken one. Because they learn the language as a second language, that means they learn it properly - grammar etc. There are many British students who have a poor grasp of the language - please don't assume that universities necessarily lower the entry requirements just because you are an overseas student. I had a requirement of a score of 8 for IELTS and a conditional offer of 3As for A Levels with an additional A preferred for Further Mathematics (there wasn't A* back then)

I deal with uni students who come from all over the world on a daily basis. I once struggled so much to have a conversation in English that I voiced my concerns to my manager. If a student struggles with a ten minute phone conversion, how are they able to complete a three year degree?

@freda999 could it be due to accents for example? When I first moved to the UK, I remember finding it difficult to understand my Scottish/Australian friends - i'm used to it now. But I understood my American friends easily as I was used to the American accent ( and I appreciate that even that has variations!)

@echt

If someone’s studying for a proofreading or technical writing qualification, then of course they need a firm grasp of accepted English standards. If they’re studying art or poetry or nursing, then... not so much

Poetry is the best words in the best order, it's very exact.

As for nursing not requiring accurate English. How do you want your notes written up?

How would you feel if a nurse did not, for instance, know the correct preposition: in/on/under/beneath/above/below/beside?

Life and death, I tell you.

I taught English on an access to nursing course years ago and correct English is vital. Prepositions were a considerable challenge, as they still are.

Which is why I said clear communication is necessary.

Yes, poetry is precisely about the best words to illuminate, inspire or provoke. Not the most standard way of expressing a sentiment, but the exact opposite. That’s my point!

Which is why I said clear communication is necessary

No you didn't.

You said: If someone’s studying for a proofreading or technical writing qualification, then of course they need a firm grasp of accepted English standards. If they’re studying art or poetry or nursing, then... not so much

So you said good English was not a prerequisite for poetry or nursing.

As a concept it's deeply classist and racist.

Part of the problem is that we should not expect universities to fix problems that have their origins long before a student sends in an application. If there is a lack of good working class applicants, there may be very little the university can do to produce more working class graduates. Society has to step up and look at the origins of that problem.

The experience in the US of big name universities admitting some groups with a lower standard hasn't worked out particularly well for anyone, including those students. It's a way of avoiding the real problem, for the state, and making themselves look good while doing nothing, for the university.

There is nothing wrong with people whose native home-language is not English, or is an English dialect. But it is perfectly possible, as you can see by looking at other countries, to speak (and write) in what is seen as dialect at home or in informal situations, but a more standard form in academic or formal situations. That is not some kind of elitism, it's a standard element of many languages, in fact we all do it to some extent.

And expecting 50% of people to get university degrees is stupid, too - a waste of their time and money and it IS an elitist state of affairs - it comes from a disrespect for other types of education and work.

I fink we mite aswell all right lyk this. can I go 2 uni now?

@Charley50

I think the issue is this idea that everyone should go to university. They clearly shouldn't. I work in FE and so many of our learners cannot think deeply about the subject they are studying; fashion for example. It's all very on the surface and so many of them can't critique or understand context or history or ideas development. We try and teach this, but some students don't have these thinking skills, and really struggle to learn them. These comprehension and analytics skills are more important than literacy in many ways. These students still want to go to uni.

Oh, and sadly, reading to babies and children is on the decline. I read a book about it recently, and the explosion of vocabulary and ability to discuss and explore ideas, that reading to small children creates, is amazing. Conversely, lack of reading has an enormous negative impact.

I tend to think that the ability to do that kind of high level thinking is connected to being literate. Both in the sense that a person who has the capability for higher level thinking is almost always capable of being really literate, but also to some degree a developed relation to language enables complex thinking.

Which is why traditionally languages were always at the heart of humanities education.

You really can't write poetry without a strong understanding of the language you are writing in, including it's conventions. That isn't alwas the more common dialect or formal register, but I would be shocked to meet a poet who was actually serious about it who didn't want to command as much language as they could in their circumstances.

But someone who wants to study poetry at a university level has to understand the structure of language at a deep level.

I grew up on a council estate, attended a bog-standard comprehensive school and was the first person in my family to go to university.

If, when I was a student, someone had told me that, because of my ‘marginalised’ background, I wasn’t expected to be capable of writing grammatically correct, accurately spelled & properly punctuated English I would have told them to stop patronising me.

Universities are now money-making businesses so, from that perspective, it makes sense that they want to maximise their customer base. The state and employers used to pay to educate and train our citizens, but now that cost has to be shouldered by the individual. In a global economy the state and employers can either import trained workers or export the actual work. We have a system where employers, mostly needlessly, expect employees to have a degree, universities are selling people mostly useless degrees, and anyone who wants to stand out from the crowd has to sink further into debt by undertaking postgraduate study. The whole thing is a massive, expensive con.