Re: Teaching learners to write right

[Mubarak Abdessalami]

On Jan 1, 11:09 pm, Mubarak Abdessalami <prom...@gmail.com> wrote:
What if we start combating the worst illiteracy ever? To know to write
but in a very incomprehensible way for every one to read:
> "pls" for “please”,
> "u" for “you”,
> "r" for “are”,
> "4" for “for”,
> "c" for “see”,
> “brb” for “be right back”,
> “j/k” for “just kidding”,
> “jam” for “just a minute”,
> “cul” for “see you later”

And finally "lol" for "Laugh Out Loud" or "Lots Of Love". It always
depends on who writes and who reads. These syntactical and lexical
reductions or say ‘abbreviations’ or ‘acronyms’  are strategies
employed to reduce time, effort and space but they kill the original
language features slowly until literate people become illiterate;
which is an awkward learning development direction. Normally
illiterate people with learning become literate.

Well, teachers are certainly not happy with the "emoticons, smileys
and asterisks" “language” technology have provided to force people to
communicate through web chat, instant messaging, texting, email and
SMS, to get rid of what remains of what is called standard language,
no more grammar, no more styles, no more rhetoric. Where is the human
written language in all this?!

This group is trying to look for ways to foster and assist students
not to get used to those "signs" and lose the authentic way language
is used to deliver information. The learners nowadays spend more time
on the MSN (MicroSoft Networks) than the time they spend in class.
Therefore the danger is deadly if we don’t react quickly.

Many teachers suggest exploiting the learners’ attachment and love for
chat to teach them how to write right.

Let’s start talking writing on all levels and exchange ideas that may
drag the learners from the trap of being lost or at least  “>:-
(“ [Annoyed] or “#:-o” [shocked] when they grow up unable to
communicate their ideas normally using the genuine language script.