Are English standards declining in school?

[Lucio]

Something came up at work and I'm curious as to what other people's experiences are, particularly those of the younger generation. One of my collegues children aparently got an A-grade on an english paper, despite it being littered with spelling mistakes, the justification "the exercise was on grammar".

I remember even as far back as primary school, having weekly spelling tests, and always in my assignments having misspelt words being flagged up and highlighted. I'm no English guru, but I think I've got a reasonable good grasp of spelling and pronuciation.


So, what are your experiences?

[jim]

NO theys is pritty gdd ifs u arskin me?

[mycarsavw]

In school, in life, on forums, everywhere.

Text speak is taking over, we are all relying on spell checkers - dooooomed!

[mmh]

Something came up at work and I'm curious as to what other people's experiences are, particularly those of the younger generation. One of my collegues children aparently got an A-grade on an english paper, despite it being littered with spelling mistakes, the justification "the exercise was on grammar".

I remember even as far back as primary school, having weekly spelling tests, and always in my assignments having misspelt words being flagged up and highlighted. I'm no English guru, but I think I've got a reasonable good grasp of spelling and pronuciation.


So, what are your experiences?

see me after school!

[jim]

see me after school!

Anything's better than pronounciation .

[Clunk]

See me after school, you slaaaag!

Fixed.

[pauldarkside]

It's not really any different now than it was when IRC kicked off. I think we're just seeing more of it beause more people are connected.

It does bother me at times, particularly when it's by journalists but in forums I've learned to just live with it. I'd be here all day if I were to pick out every error. Plus I run the risk of falling foul others pointing out my mistakes, simply not worth the hassle. At least people are trying to contribute.

Personally, if there's something I'm not sure about, I'll run it by the spellchecker or Google it.

[Powderhound]

Something came up at work and I'm curious as to what other people's experiences are, particularly those of the younger generation. One of my collegues children aparently got an A-grade on an english paper, despite it being littered with spelling mistakes, the justification "the exercise was on grammar".

I remember even as far back as primary school, having weekly spelling tests, and always in my assignments having misspelt words being flagged up and highlighted. I'm no English guru, but I think I've got a reasonable good grasp of spelling and pronuciation.


So, what are your experiences?

Unacceptable.

[Lucio]

Unacceptable.

Well yes, I personally know I struggle with the odd word or two, I got very poor grades myself at school in English compared to the rest of my subjects. The point was that now it's aparently the norm to ignore spelling, which puzzled me.

[cleaverlch]

Isn't the limitation of SMS a major reason why the younger generation can't spell?

[kalniel]

Isn't the limitation of SMS a major reason why the younger generation can't spell?

To turn that around, is the advent of SMS the major reason why the younger generation can spell?

[matty-hodgson]

Spelling at school is utterly atrocious, i'm doing my A2s now and i'm still seeing spelling mistakes on my peers' work. This wouldn't be so bad if it was maths or science or something similar, but this is English language! Ya know.. The lesson where spelling mistakes shouldn't be made on all but the hardest of words to spell.

So yeah, i definitely agree with you Lucio.

[Noxvayl]

Luckily for me I went to a Private School where we did more than read books and debate the relevance of them...

As such I find most the British public ability to articulate appalling and downright disgraceful. It makes me sick to think that they passed English in GCSE's, what the hell were they doing in class?

[steve threlfall]

Something came up at work and I'm curious as to what other people's experiences are, particularly those of the younger generation. One of my collegues children aparently got an A-grade on an english paper, despite it being littered with spelling mistakes, the justification "the exercise was on grammar".

I remember even as far back as primary school, having weekly spelling tests, and always in my assignments having misspelt words being flagged up and highlighted. I'm no English guru, but I think I've got a reasonable good grasp of spelling and pronuciation.


So, what are your experiences?

This is still done.

Just as a point of interest, only about 5% of marks are for spelling and grammar at GCSE level, obviously with the exception of activities specifically targeting these.

[badass]

Well if spelling in the english language wasn't needlessly complicated it would be less on an issue.
The problem is that people resist change and every time someone suggests replacing our ridiculous spelling with something more logical and simple people jump on it and moan about declining standards of english.
An example of the rubbishness
Cough
Ought
Enough.
4 identical letters. 3 Different pronounciations. Needlessly complicated because most people resist change and love to insert pointless complexity and bull**** into everything they do.
Perhaps dyslexia would be less of an issue if we spelt phoenetically.
Maybe our children would spend less time learning the pathetic mess that is english spelling and learning more practical skills if we sorted it out.

P.S. I can't be bothered to spell check this so if I've spelt anything wrong the spelling Nazi's can do one.

[Saracen]

I don't know if standards are lower now than they were when I was at school, and I don't know how I could tell.

What I do know is that standards on forums are lower than school standards in my day, but is that any surprise?

My spelling is generally very good. My typing, on the other hand, lets me down. And to top it off, if I'm typing a post for a forum, I'm not about to spend the time it takes to carefully proof-read every word. I do that when I'm getting paid for what I write, and you lot aren't paying me so you'll have to put up with typos.

Also, while my grammar is pretty good, that doesn't mean you won't find, for instance, apostrophes in the wrong place. It isn't that I don't know where to put them, it's ..... oh all right, it's laziness. I'm quite capable of thinking one thing and typing another. If I spot an apostrophe in the wrong place in one of my posts, or a "they're" when I meant "there" or "their". on one of several similar things, I'll correct it. And I generally give posts a quick scan through. But if I miss one, I won't lose marks because of it, so you lot get what you get.

And finally, I'll use some techniques .... like this .... in a post, because it's a conversational style that works, even if it is grammatically incorrect.

In school work (which would have been handwritten, not typed, or in exams, or in paid work or business communications, I do take care not to let mistakes slip through .... and a few still do.

So you lot can't even tell what my educational standards are like, because mistakes are more about the medium I'm using, the care and attention I give to picking the up and to my typing skills (or lack thereof), than they are about what I do or don't know, or what I learned in my schooldays.

And therefore, as I'm not often exposed to the work of youngsters in an environment where standards matter and they might exercise care, I can't tell whether the generally lousy standard on forum posts is lack of knowing better, or as with me, lack of willingness to spend extra time making sure fings are wright.