OMG! City teachers alarmed as IM speak sneaks into students writing

1/29/09
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By Pete Catapano

OMG! City teachers alarmed as IM speak sneaks into students writing

Photo credit: Urbanite

Principal Dr. Gregory Hodge works with students at the Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem (photo by RJ Mickelson/amNY)

By Stephen J. Bronner

Special to amNewYork

R students getting bad writing habits in school ‘cuz of texting and instant messaging?

While text messaging and twittering may be easy ways to communicate, it’s leaving teens and young adults with a mess of misspellings, improper abbreviations and poor grammar in the classroom, city educators say.

Patrizia Fernandes, a seventh grade teacher at I.S. 230 in Jackson Heights, sees the use of texting shorthand in class firsthand. Some students will respond “IDK” (I don’t know) when Fernandes asks them a question, and she sees “OMG” (oh my God) used in their essays.

“It’s hard for kids to differentiate between essay language, IM language and proper oral speech between friends and adults,” said Fernandes, who teaches language arts. “It's almost becoming new language.”Gregory Hodge, principal of Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem, agreed that electronic communications have developed a new language.

“The advent of new technology has created new challenges,” he said. Hodge’s students have adopted abbreviations and the short style of texts and instant messaging in their essays, including students applying to college, who felt 100 words were enough for a 300-word essay. However, he looks at the positives of new technology as well, and pointed out that students have greater access to information, making them savvier.

“It’s kind of exciting to watch,” Hodge said.

Most students denied using text or IM slang in their work, but John Sfiris, 20, of Queens, a student at Queensborough Community College, admitted to sometimes using "u" for "you and "r" for "are" but then fixing it immediately. "It's something subconscious," he said.

Others say they’ve done their best to keep the shorthand out of the classroom.

“The only time I write like that is with friends. If you’re in a rush you won’t realize (you made a mistake) until it’s over,” said Michael, a 14-year-old high school student who wouldn’t give his last name.

Caution, though, may go away under pressure, suggested David Humphries, a Queensborough Community College assistant professor of English. He said he'd see essays from students start out well but then a few pages in he'll see errors like "thru," "b/c," "BTW" and "nite."

"They're forming habits that pop through when they're in a rush," he said. "I do wonder how that translates into the work world."

A majority of teens engage in electronic communications, according to a Pew Research survey conducted last year.

Even though 60 percent of teens surveyed don’t see texts as writing, many acknowledge that the quick exchanges do impact their schoolwork. Half of the surveyed teens admitted they sometimes write in an informal style, not using proper capitalization and punctuation. Text slang like “LOL” managed to get into 38 percent of students’ work and a quarter of students even said they used emoticons in their writing.

David Crystal, a professor of linguistics at the United Kingdom’s University of Wales, Bangor, who writes on the English language and electronic communications, defends the “language” of texts and instant messaging and said he doesn’t hear about its effects on students’ work. “You’d have to be pretty dumb to not see the difference between texting style and essay style,” he said in an email. “Or, putting this another way, teachers who let kids think the difference doesn’t matter wouldn’t be doing their job.”

He actually makes the argument that communicating electronically helps students write better.

“Reading and writing improve with practice,” he said. “Texting provides that practice. As does IM, and other forms of Internet communication.”

Still, Crystal’s perceptions don’t seem to reflect those of local teachers. Fernandes is making a point of helping her students leave the shorthand and misspellings where they’re acceptable — on their phones.

“I make them correct themselves and rewrite so they know the difference,” she said. “It’s hard for them to break the habit.”

Ten common Internet abbreviations:

U You

C See

R - Are

IDK - I don’t know

OMG - Oh my god

BRB - Be right back

BTW - By the way

BFF - Best friends forever

LOL - Laughing out loud

JK - Just kidding
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OMG! City teachers alarmed as IM speak sneaks into students writing