To hate seeing teens with such a bad standard of English?

[MontgomeryCheese]

Before anyone says it, this thread will NOT be 100% English perfect.

I don't expect that from anyone.

But I get so concerned when I see the standard of English from todays teenagers and young adults.

My niece is 13 and she is a friend on my facebook. A status update from her yesterday read:

"english woz a rite laff 2day eifen tho mss walker sed i woz tlking wen i wozent so i dunt no wot she woz on abowt coz it wozent eifen me stpid bitch!!!"

Another message read

"god so bord now cuz nofink on telly and got no cred in fone so carnt eifen txt mi m8s nd got stpid asiynment to do 4 skowl tmoz nd cart eifen be arsed wit it so mite nt bover lol"

If it was just on facebook, fair enough but I was reading this assignment she was on about a couple of days later and it was absolutely full of spelling and grammar mistakes. Every other word was wrong. For instance:

"in the oldon days peeple beleved in witches becouse they was more relijous then now and i think when somethink whent wrong in there lifes they whent to blame somethink so they blamed things like witches and i think i would of done it to"

Apparantly she is not classed as having problems in English and this is "standard" work.

If my 10 year old wrote that I'd be mortified.

Please tell me this isn't something that happens once the kids reach secondard school?? My niece went to the same primary as my son and I know they wouldn't have settled for this kind of work there, so did it all go downhill when she started secondary school? Do they do it to look cool or what?

I'm dreading my son starting secondary if this is the case.

That assignment is pretty bad. I don't think she was writing like that for a joke or to be cool though, it's quite different to the other messages with all the textspeak.

I have exactly the same issue with my niece, shes 14 and that FB example could have been lifted straight from her updates/text messages, I find it appalling and it drives me NUTS , although I have to admit I did try correcting the spelling and grammar in the text messages she sent to me before sending them back but this just irritated her and took me way too long.

My MIL has to teach basic spelling and grammar to her A Level English sets every year. Things like there / their / they're, and not using "we was" for example.

These students have already gained a grade C at GCSE.

but how is that possible ninks? My own schooldays are too far in the past for me to be sure how accurately we wrote at that age but I'm fairly sure everyone or almost everyone got that much right.

I'm a secondary school English teacher and I can assure you that the example you give is not 'standard'. If that is how she writes for GCSE English she would certainly not gain more than an E grade.

Most teens know the difference between text speak and standard written English, and will use the appropriate form in their formal essays. I have no problem with them using a different spelling system when on facebook, bebo, texting etc. This is their way of carving out a linguistic identity for their generation, just as all generations create their own language of some kind. In my experience, teens do still care about spelling things 'properly' on their schoolwork and most make an effort to do so.

So YABU to say that this is the norm. But YANBU to worry about your niece's standard of spelling or her general attitude towards school and teachers. She sounds like she's well established on the path to under-achievement. Sorry!

I work in a University and am often shocked by the students' spelling and grammar. Not only that, they seem to fail to understand register; they write formal correspondence as though they were writing to their m8s (sic), without capitals, using "i" for "I" etc.

I do realise that language changes and it's inevitable. And, to some extent, I think that this teen facebook speak is quite inventive. But I do think that it is also important to be able to "code switch" and write formally where necessary. If they can't do that then there is a problem.

See on my facebook I also have friends who I went to school with so these women, like me will be aproaching 30 now.

Some of their status updates are also shocking.

This was one from a girl I went to school with, now married with two children:

"oh my i am so fuking sik of this nw. bradley hs jst pewked in lving rm and aimme is cryng her eyes owt nd were l8 4 skool AGAIN. cart wait 4 a drink l8er i need it lol

If this is what classes as a decent standard of English, what hope do the kids have? And what is worrying me...are todays secondary English classes dumbed down to accomodate this? if so, my son's English is going to worsen with secondary school, not improve!

I get this all the time from my 14 year old sister.

ie a text ' fed up cos inglish teach sed shed read my essay n then sed she ws 2 bsy'

God ZZZen I don't know. MIL isn't prone to lying or exaggerating. It's shocking to me because I remember teaching that sort of thing to Year 3 not that long ago.

I'd like to point out to ninks that those students will certainly have lost marks in their GCSE written sections for the mistakes you point out. But 50% of their marks are for their analytical reading skills, and the writing marks are also for vocabulary, overall structure, punctuation, interesting content etc. So yes, it's possible to get a C grade even if you still make some common errors such as those you have given as examples. Without those errors, those students might have got B, A or A*.

Why type eifen for even or wozent for wasn't or cart for can't (cant).
Corrrect version is more efficient, takes less time 2 text.
Does not compute.
Does not compute.
Does not compute....

Ah, I see. Yes MIL does say that it's about subject knowledge so I suppose if the student has an understanding of the literature then they should be given credit for it. That's fair.

She does think that a GSCE grade C should mean a competent use of language though. If someone put "too" instead of "to" all the way through their CV it'd be thrown away.

The CV not the person would be thrown away that is.

I'm I the only one who has an image of Vicky Pollard in my head?

Like innedalifelaundry, I'm an English teacher in a fairly average comprehensive school and can say that writing of this standard:

"in the oldon days peeple beleved in witches becouse they was more relijous then now and i think when somethink whent wrong in there lifes they whent to blame somethink so they blamed things like witches and i think i would of done it to"

would be graded an E at best, which in my school is generally the weakest 20% of the students.

If your niece was in my class and did not have any literacy problems I'd be very concerned about her laziness and lack of effort because that is definitely not 'standard' work for 13 year old.

YANBU at all but it's not just teens, I have a friend in her mid thirties who texts like that.

Surely it'll affect their chances of work?

It's not that I doubt the veracity of it ninks, I don't understand how dc reach secondary school without the spelling of common words like "wsomething" or "people" etc having been mastered

I think you have to separate out the two things - Facebook and text messages are developing their own separate "language" - it's really not English at all. As BrokenArm comments, it's not even just about shortening the words to make texting easier any more, it's about creating a whole different version of the language. I don't exactly like it, mostly because it takes me ages to "translate" - but you have to think of it as a separate language, not badly-written English.

But the standard of the piece she wrote for her assignment (which is a very different "language" from the Facebook updates) is also very poor. The two things don't have to go together, and she really needs to get her act together if she wants to do adequately in her exams.

One of the reasons teens use 'facebook' lanaguge is because adults find it difficult to decode. They want to alientate us, and that's perfectly natural.

Over 25s who attempt to use facebook or text language are just sad.