Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for December 10, 2006 DO U TXT SPK...OR IM?

From the Wilmington News Journal...

Some let 'text speak' slide, but others see erosion of language

By ALISON KEPNER, The News Journal

Txt spk iz fst & EZ so y not uz it?

For quick-fingered teenagers across the world, mobile phone text messaging hasn't changed just how they communicate, it's changed how they write.

"Text speak" -- shorthand writing that eliminates vowels and punctuation and uses phonetic symbols instead of whole sounds -- is moving from inboxes to essays.

Beginning this year, New Zealand high school students may use text speak on national exams, meaning they won't lose points if they replace words with popular abbreviations, such as 2 for "to" or "l8" for "late."

Advocates argue efficiency is smart. Text speak allows users to communicate more ideas faster. Others are aghast, fearing the erosion of the language is spreading to classrooms, where it should be safest.

"If your audience in text messaging is your friends, then 'cb' for 'call back' is legitimate. But when students move into the career world, when they are doing their [state test] writing, they need to be taught that their audience is an educated reader and they are to use formal English," said Jeanne Qvarnstrom, supervisor of assessment for the Red Clay Consolidated School District.

Four years ago, the district pioneered MY Access, an online writing tool that allows students to submit papers and receive instant feedback -- including instructions to improve the writing and a grade on a six-point scale. About 3,500 fifth- to eighth-graders use it.

"When the students go into the editor mode, it will highlight those phrases such as just the letter 'u' for 'you.' Students are shown that, for formal English, that is not acceptable," Qvarnstrom said.

An external audit of the program, which costs the district $85,000 a year, found eighth-graders using MY Access increased their state writing test scores.

Many of the text-speak abbreviations gained popularity in chat rooms and on instant-messaging services, where users shorten words to respond faster. The prominence of text messaging on mobile phones -- which often have space limitations and don't have keys for each letter, making it more difficult to type a word -- furthered the phenomenon.

A 2005 Pew Internet & American Life Project report on teens and technology found 64 percent of teen cell phone owners text message, and 46 percent of online teens prefer to communicate by instant messenger rather than e-mail. One girl in the study's focus group talked about sending text messages in school, saying it is "the same as passing notes."

Shorthand becomes a habit

Middletown High School English teacher Abby Shubert, who is working on her doctorate in educational technology at the University of Delaware, surveyed 50 of her freshmen. Two said they don't text-message or use instant-messaging services regularly.

Some students told her they write more on instant messenger and cell phones than they do in class, so the shorthand becomes a habit. Shubert sees some abbreviations on student papers.

"On the first draft, the IM language comes through," she said. "They are getting their words down as quickly as they can. ... Typically, that kind of language gets phased out in the [revision] process."

Colleague John Tanner notices a lot of text speak in his Middletown High students' writing, too, the most common example being "u" for "you."

"I am convinced that students don't even see the error; I think that text speak has become so common that it does not register in students' brains as being inappropriate in an academic paper," Tanner said in an e-mail.

He encourages students to use abbreviations while taking notes but won't allow it on their papers.

"It promotes a view of writing as something that does not require thoroughness or revision," he said.

Hodgson Vocational Technical High School junior Jackee Wilson finds the text speak she is used to thumbing into her Sidekick sometimes creeps into her school papers. Wilson, 16, uses abbreviations such as "idk" for "I don't know" and "ttyl" for "talk to you later." Teachers mark abbreviations, but she doesn't think that is fair if the content of what she is saying is correct.

"They should question it first" before they mark it as wrong, she said.

Stanton Middle School English teacher Chimere Savage notices her eighth-graders using text speak, too.

"I see 'lol' a lot," Savage said. (For nontext speakers, that stands for "laughing out loud" or "lots of luck.")

"I see 'bc' for 'because.' I see 'w/' for 'with' and things like that," Savage said. "A lot of times, the capitalization of 'I' is a big deal."

Neither Shubert nor Savage accepts text speak on assignments.

Showing required understanding

New Zealand's Qualifications Authority also discourages students from using anything but full English, but its new rule says students may receive credit if an answer using text speak "clearly shows the required understanding."

Of course, students risk whether the people grading their papers can comprehend their writing. Not every graying-at-the-temples teacher may recognize "d authRz chrctr devlpmnt iz wk" as "the author's character development is weak."

Colleen Marie, a recent graduate of the Delaware College of Art and Design, said she sends text messages more often than she talks on her phone, and most of her messages are made up of abbreviations. But that doesn't mean the 24-year-old would use the shorthand on school papers.

"It sounds more intelligent in an essay" to use full words, she said.

While Melissa Ianetta, director of University of Delaware's Writing Center, hasn't noticed her students using text speak on papers, some do revert to such informality when e-mailing professors.

"I will often get messages from my students as if they were texting it to me," she said, noting the problem has caused her to add a lesson at the start of the semester. "I tell my first-year students, 'This is the appropriate way to e-mail a professor.'

"They understand the genre of the paper, but they understand the genre of the e-mail less," Ianetta said.

Even outside of school or work, text speak can lead to trouble. Shubert reminds her students that people will judge them by their writing, even if it is informal or personal.

"I tell them not to embarrass their teacher on MySpace," she said referring to the popular social networking Web site. "'Someone is looking at a MySpace [page] and wondering, 'Who is that kid's English teacher?' "

A related article from the CNN.com website...

Story Highlights
•Poll results: Almost 1/2 of teens use instant messaging
•About 1/5 of teen IM users have used IM to ask for a date
•Phone still preferable when sharing serious news

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Teenager Michelle Rome can't imagine life without instant messaging. Baby boomer Steve Wilson doesn't care that it even exists.

They're part of an "instant messaging gap" between teens and adults. And the division is wide, says an AP-AOL survey on how Americans use or snub those Internet bursts of gossip, happy date-making and teen tragedies that young people exchange by the hour while supposedly doing homework.

Rome, 17, a high school senior in Morristown, New Jersey, spends more than two hours each day sending and receiving more than 100 instant messages -- or "IM-ing."

"I use it to ask questions about homework, make plans with people, keep up with my best friend in Texas and my sister in Connecticut," she said. "It has all the advantages."

The 51-year-old Wilson, a mechanic in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, prefers using e-mail and the telephone.

Instant messaging "is the worst of both worlds," he said. "It manages to combine all the things I don't like about each. I'm more or less a dinosaur. I use the Internet for things like buying car parts, reading celebrity gossip."

Almost half of teens, 48 percent of those ages 13-18, use instant messaging, according to the poll. That's more than twice the percentage of adults who use it.

According to the AP-AOL poll:

Almost three-fourths of adults who do use instant messages still communicate with e-mail more often. Almost three-fourths of teens send instant messages more than e-mail.

More than half of the teens who use instant messages send more than 25 a day, and one in five send more than 100. Three-fourths of adult users send fewer than 25 instant messages a day.

Teen users (30 percent) are almost twice as likely as adults (17 percent) to say they can't imagine life without instant messaging.

When keeping up with a friend who is far away, teens are most likely to use instant messaging, while adults turn first to e-mail.

About a fifth of teen IM users have used IM to ask for or accept a date. Almost that many, 16 percent, have used it to break up with someone. The bug can be contagious at any age.

Faith Laichter, a 50-year old elementary school teacher from Las Vegas, says she started using instant messaging after watching her children.

"I do it more now," she said, boasting: "Sometimes I do two conversations at once."

That's nothing for young people who check their e-mail, download music and perform other tasks at the same time.

"It's kind of remarkable to watch," said Steve Jones, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "They can keep half a dozen conversations or more going at the same time."

But that can be more of a distraction than an accomplishment, says Naomi Baron, a linguistics professor at American University.

"If you have 15 conversations going simultaneously," she said, "sometimes you're just throwing things out there and then dashing off to the next customer."

A bow to the traditional: When sharing serious or confidential news, both teens and adults prefer to use the telephone, the poll said.

The survey of 1,013 adults and 500 teens was conducted online by Knowledge Networks from November 30-December 4. The margin of sampling error for the adults was plus or minus 4 percentage points, 5.5 points for teens.

Technology for instant messaging has been available to the general public for about a decade. Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN are the major IM operators.