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Text messages: fun and a quick way to get the point across.
Formal English: complete sentences, no emoticons (smilies) and correct grammar.
Correct and proper English is a must for Laurel Foster, a freshman and sophomore English teacher at St. Joseph High School, and new technology isn’t always a good thing.
“Many of my students write the way they speak, in slang,” Foster said.
In the age of technology, Foster and other English teachers are having difficulty explaining the need for proper English.
“It’s hard to get them to realize that w/o (without) is not proper,” Foster said.
Some college professors have yet to see the influences of text messaging in essays.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see college students write this way in the future,” said Andrew Baerg, communications professor at University of Houston-Victoria.
High school students like Jesseca Westbrook, 17, of Calhoun High School admit that due to texting elaborating and using more detail in essays is difficult.
“Texting is addicting and when it’s time to write an essay I have to go over it, to make sure I didn’t leave symbols or lol anywhere,” Westbrook said.
Students also have to worry about working on the computer and Microsoft Word not picking up all the symbols as incorrect.
“With almost all assignments being done on the computer now I’m curious to see if Microsoft Word picks up the slang,” Baerg said.
The answer to that would be no. Word does indicate that text words like cuz, luv, lol, ttyl, and ur etc. are not grammatically correct. But symbols like @, &, and % are correct.
“A couple of the most used symbols and terms are @ and cuz,” Foster said.
Because texting is not like writing an essay and messages are meant to be short words are often shortened.
“One of my problems is that I’ve started writing shorter and I use words like gonna or cuz,” Hannah Crone, 17 student at Calhoun High School said.
The difficulty with teaching the students to write formally is that they don’t recognize the difference in what they wrote and proper English said Foster.
Not all students have difficulty keeping text symbols and words out of their English assignments.
“They’re two separate things and I’m able to keep it that way,” said Kayla Merklinger, 15, student at Cuero High School.
While some students and teachers will continue to struggle to keep symbols and emoticons out of essays, only the future will tell what really is proper and improper English.
“We don’t know what writing will be like 10 or 20 years from now,” Baerg said. “This is one of those cases that we’re going to have to wait and see.”
Rubi Reyes is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact her at 361-580-6578 or rreyes@vicad.com or comment on this story at www.VictoriaAdvocate.com.