posted
According to a article from The Press, Christchurch, NZ (11/8/2006) 'text speak' may be okay in English exams in New Zealand.
quote: The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is still strongly discouraging students from using anything other than full English, but says credit will be given if the answer "clearly shows the required understanding", even if it contains text speak.
(...)
Christchurch teenager Cathy Adank, a Year 11 student at Avonside Girls' High School, said most students would be surprised to hear text language was acceptable in some exams.
"That's great. You'll just be able to get your ideas out quicker. It's so much faster; you can get through the exam faster," she said.
Close friend Harriet Prebble did not agree. "I think it's a terrible idea. When you start progressing in the world, people judge you on the written language, and spelling things incorrectly seems sloppy and lazy and gives a bad impression," she said.
(bold mine)
According to later news (11/10/2006), the Authority is not so sure anymore:
quote: The New Zealand Qualifications Authority said this week the use of abbreviated "text speak" was accepted in school exams if the answer showed the required understanding.
However, yesterday NZQA was taking a stricter stance, with spokesman Steve Rendle "strongly discouraging" the use of text language.
Education Minister Steve Maharey is also discouraging pupils from using text speak in NCEA.
Can any NZ snopster shed any light on this?
-------------------- My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling, but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places. - Pooh Bear Posts: 2209 | From: Hamburg, Germany | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
As much as I despise chat-damaged writing, I agree that it should not be a factor in how a test on knowledge is evaluated. If the question is about, say, pendulum movement, the answer still shows that the student know the answer to the question and nothing else should matter. Spelling is a separate subject.
-------------------- /Troberg Posts: 4360 | From: Borlänge, Sweden | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Troberg, I would agree in principle about spelling not being important if it were a physics or math test. But being as this is English classes, I would say that the students should be required to at least attempt to get the correct spelling and grammar. I wouldn't expect a math class to allow an answer that involved division by zero even if it proved they knew the concept being questioned.
Also, allowing text speak could get problematic. What if the grader doesn't know text speak? It might be obvious with something like "2b or nt 2b", but it may not always be that clear. And since there is no authority on what text speak is, what would happen if a student used 3l33t speak instead?
Finally, Harriet Prebble had it correct. In the working world, "i ned 2 meat w u abot d wilsn murgr" would probably get you fired.
-------------------- IIRC, it wasn't the shoe bomber's loud prayers that sparked the takedown by the other passengers; it was that he was trying to light his shoe on fire. Very, very different. Canuckistan Posts: 3694 | From: Arizona | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I don't perceive chat room stylizations as damaging to the language, at all. As a matter of fact, poets such as Ezra Pound made bizarre abbreviations a popular form of expression in the early 20th century. I think of it as the evolution of language with a possibility to become more creative with words.
Naturally, some text-speak is obnoxious and overused. But I would argue that there are plenty of words and phrases employed with "proper English" that are equally obnoxious and overused.
As for the OP, I don't have any light to shed on the facts, but my own opinion supports the discretion (and translation skills) of the professor as to whether or not such language is acceptable for a formal exam.
-------------------- The salty fragrance of L’EauD’I’mNotDedalus - made entirely of and entirely for sea turtles. Posts: 1983 | From: Chicagoland, IL | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I can agree with you at the drop of a hat. The language is changing, and that's just the way the cookie crumbles, ladies and gentlemen. By the grace of God I stand here before you to proclaim that I am of the opinion that it is very possible to write in the Queen's English and still produce a product that is quite bothersome to the senses.
-------------------- "For me, religion is like a rhinoceros: I don't have one, and I'd really prefer not to be trampled by yours. But it is impressive, and even beautiful, and, to be honest, the world would be slightly worse off if there weren't any." -Silas Sparkhammer Posts: 3239 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I took a class in high school called speed writing . The concept was that it was a way to take notes faster, but you didn't have to learn a whole new code like you would with shorthand/stenography. Instead you took the letters of the alphabet you already knew, and shortened them. Some letters always meant certain words (e = the, for example) and longer words were made shorter by taking out the vowels and keeping the main consonants. Here is a link that is similar, though not exactly the same as what I learned.
In 1988, there was no chat or text speak, and yet there I was, in a classroom in a high school learning what would essentially become texting. Kind of funny. I wonder if the students use text speak to take their notes, too.
Having said that, I feel that students shouldn't be turning in papers that need to be deciphered before they can be graded (leaving the decision up to the instructor, as it were).
There is no reason to assume that its going to have to be deciphered. If it can't be read by the professor than its a mistake no matter what kind of writing its done in. Anything sentence that needs to be read twice (or more) to be understood is a mistake.
Posts: 201 | From: Toronto, ON | Registered: Jun 2006
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ThreeQuarks
I'll Be Home for After Christmas Sales
posted
As a sometime physics grader who's encountered this on all too many papers, I wholeheartedly disagree that text speak would be okay in physics or math exams. It's very confusing to encounter numbers and single letters in what's supposed to be text explaining the equations.
For example, in a test question about springs, the letter U is standard variable for the stored internal energy. Suppose a student writes "2 measure u ..." Are they describing how to measure the energy, or are they describing the steps "u" would take to measure something else? It's often not as clear as one would hope from the rest of the answer.
Anything that blurs the lines between explanation of the concepts and working through the equations makes it very difficult to tell what the student is thinking. In introductory physics classes students often already have a poor understanding of how to structure a problem so it makes sense (to them or to me); this makes it worse!
Clarity of thinking and of explanation is just as important in math and science as it is in English or history, even if the standard expressions differ from those of an essay. I went over this in a lot of detail with my students. Replicability is at the heart of the scientific method, and an inability to explain your method or your results seriously hinders one's work as a scientist. Bad writers often get fewer grants and fewer citations than their work might warrant.
Sorry for the hijack, but physics graders suffer terrible indignities. The idea that grammar, spelling and clarity don't matter in science kinda (ok, very much) hangs my munchkin.
On the bright side, I'm impressed by Harriet Prebble's quoted statement; for a teen interviewed for a text-messaging article, she's got a very mature take on what school is for and how to get where she (presumably) wants to go.
Posts: 109 | From: Pittsburgh, PA | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I should trade some stories with you about physics grading sometime, I see the funniest stuff. (did you know that the frictional cooefficient is the same thing as heat and is measured in Newtons )
I agree that the answers students give sometimes are confusing enough already without allowing l33t speak in them. Physics is full of it's own acronyms and abbreviations, some of which mean different things depending on the specific subject.
-------------------- Conforming meant that everyone liked you except yourself Rebecca Posts: 682 | From: Jacksonville, FL | Registered: Aug 2005
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Richard W
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
quote:Originally posted by GenYus: Finally, Harriet Prebble had it correct. In the working world, "i ned 2 meat w u abot d wilsn murgr" would probably get you fired.
You should tell one of our managers that... I think he does it to make himself look dynamic - he's not got time to type the extra three characters involved in "need to" over "nd 2". Since he's too old to have learnt it at school, it probably takes him longer to actually work out the abbreviations than it would to just write normally, though. It certainly takes longer to read.
Posts: 8725 | From: Ipswich - the UK's 9th Best Place to Sleep! | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by NeeCD: In 1988, there was no chat or text speak, and yet there I was, in a classroom in a high school learning what would essentially become texting. Kind of funny. I wonder if the students use text speak to take their notes, too.
In high school we were taught how to "properly" take shorthand notes, although my mother had been a stenographer and the abbreviations we were taught in school were not the ones she'd taught me. It took me longer to write using the school's shorthand than using my own. For example, \ was supposed to represent "th", and we were supposed to use it every time there was a "th". The amount of time it took me to stop and think about what shorthand symbols I was supposed to use took me twice as long as regular spelling. So I stick with that.
-------------------- "There is no constitutional right to sleep with endangered reptiles." -- Carl Hiaasen Won't somebody please think of the adults! Posts: 8254 | From: Florida | Registered: Oct 2002
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Canuckistan
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
When I was in school, I developed my own shorthand for note-taking during lectures. To anyone else, they would have been incomprehensible, but these were symbols I adopted over years. By fourth year, my notes were usually half letters and half symbols.
But final exams and essays were always written with full sentences. I shudder to think what professors would have thought of my shorthand technique.
-------------------- People need to stop appropriating Jesus as their reason for behaving badly. It's so irritating. (Avril) Posts: 8429 | From: New York run by the Swiss (Toronto) | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
We never had any lectures in high school. The closest we came was when our Gr 12 English teacher took one class and gave a quick lesson. Unfortunately, it was not nearly enough to prepare us for real note-taking. Now, after four years, I've got my own little system for notes that looks very much like the one given earlier by NeeCD. Even more fun is when you mix it with my scribbles for Golgi bodies, endoplasmic reticulii (sp?) (It's quicker to draw than write that one) as well as all the organic chemistry structures.
Probably the most useful thing to be taught in senior is an efficient and useful way to take notes during a lecture. That and teach the science correctly the first time, so I don't have to re-learn it all.
Posts: 69 | From: Nova Scotia | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Muncle: Probably the most useful thing to be taught in senior is an efficient and useful way to take notes during a lecture.
Why? Not everyone who graduates from high school is going to go on to University. Why should their time be taken up teaching them things that they will likely have no use for?
-------------------- "The United States Government: significantly less cruel and sadistic than the Taliban." - Dara Posts: 1289 | From: Aberdeen University, Aberdeen, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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quote:Originally posted by BringTheNoise: Why? Not everyone who graduates from high school is going to go on to University. Why should their time be taken up teaching them things that they will likely have no use for?
If people only spent time in high school learning things that would provide future utility, then high school could be wrapped up in about six months.
Posts: 345 | From: Washington, DC | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:Originally posted by DaGuyWitBluGlasses: Anything sentence that needs to be read twice (or more) to be understood is a mistake.
In general? Or are you only referring to formal essays/exams?
-------------------- The salty fragrance of L’EauD’I’mNotDedalus - made entirely of and entirely for sea turtles. Posts: 1983 | From: Chicagoland, IL | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BringTheNoise: Why? Not everyone who graduates from high school is going to go on to University. Why should their time be taken up teaching them things that they will likely have no use for?
If people only spent time in high school learning things that would provide future utility, then high school could be wrapped up in about six months.
Yeah, whenever am I gonna need history, or maths or the... English language?
(5 pts for Reference)
-------------------- "The United States Government: significantly less cruel and sadistic than the Taliban." - Dara Posts: 1289 | From: Aberdeen University, Aberdeen, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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