Have been involved in recruiting people for a job recently and am amazed by the inability of candidates to be able to spell or write anywhere near correctly.

This was for a clerical job so being able to write letters to customers is a major part of the job. :mad: :o

Just bin the applications; that's what I always do! :thumbsup:

Ah thah reight,,, thahs a reet set o morons round ooh no nowt bout out.If theyed aal had n edicashun like me tha wunt have a problum. I balme teecherz.

We get people applying for jobs in the bank who cannot add up.

I do think the current generation of school leavers are lacking soem basic skills.

I was speaking to an 18 year old recently who was taking her A levels. I was aboslutely astounding to discover that she didn't know what the capital of france was and thought the capital of germany was belgium. I really fail to understand what they actually learn in school.

Take a look at some of the more recent posts on the sex education thread.

here (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1329&perpage=15&pagenumber=3)

Originally posted by TimmyR
I was speaking to an 18 year old recently who was taking her A levels. I was aboslutely astounding to discover that she didn't know what the capital of france was and thought the capital of germany was belgium. I really fail to understand what they actually learn in school.

Shouldnt that be the capikal of france?
LMAO! :)

Actually, it should be France, Germany and Belgium. :hihi:

Originally posted by TimmyR
I was speaking to an 18 year old recently who was taking her A levels. I was aboslutely astounding to discover that she didn't know what the capital of france was and thought the capital of germany was belgium. I really fail to understand what they actually learn in school.

Also, aboslutely isn't a word and astounding should be astounded. Darn, wish I'd listened in school! :hihi:

Originally posted by Cyclone
Take a look at some of the more recent posts on the sex education thread.

here (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1329&perpage=15&pagenumber=3)

It seems that it isn't kewl to use gramma n that anymore. Maybe we should just revert to grunting at each other.

It is also difficult to innocently correct people when they make a mistake. They don't like to hear it and take great offence...like you have insulted their intelligence or something. I think accurate spelling is an basic essential of English education.

Originally posted by Babooshka
It is also difficult to innocently correct people when they make a mistake. They don't like to hear it and take great offence...like you have insulted their intelligence or something. I think accurate spelling is an basic essential of English education.

I would be offended as well to be quite honest, although I can spell usually.

I dont really care what people spell like, and I dont think we should put people down on the forums because of it.

Originally posted by Kristian
Just bin the applications; that's what I always do! :thumbsup:

We had somebody who had applied for a job, who completed his application (online) in txt spk, including using some smilies.

The manager who was looking at it is not into modern things like txt, and he actually thought the computer must have missed some of the letters off, as surely nobody would fill in a job application form like that?

I don't think correcting a person's spelling IS putting them down. It is just correcting their mistake...no big deal. I would desperately want to know if I was making a mistake as then, I would spell it correctly (and maybe on a crucial app form) in the future. I certainly would not get offended by someone saying
'this word is spelt like this'.

Originally posted by Babooshka
I don't think correcting a person's spelling IS putting them down. It is just correcting their mistake...no big deal. I would desperately want to know if I was making a mistake as then, I would spell it correctly (and maybe on a crucial app form) in the future. I certainly would not get offended by someone saying
'this word is spelt like this'.

Not having a go at you or anything :)

Its just that a lot of people on here seem to have beef with people who cant spell properly and to me it is insulting someone's intelligence somewhat when we have to tell them off for it.

Heck, if we got rid of everyone who couldnt spell properly and used bad grammar from the forums, we would be losing a lot of people IMHO which are providing us with new topics to read and respond to.

I think that it is not always necessary to be able to spell everything correctly or always use proper grammar, unless the job you are applying for is one where communication skills are important. However, I do think if you are sending an important letter - you should get someone to check it for you if you think it may have mistakes in it. Even today - first impressions count.

I agree, it is a rather annoying stage in a thread (often when they get heated) when people start correcting each others spelling. It is used in this case often AS an insult. There is no need for it really. Not being able to spell doesn't mean you can't have your say.

Having said that there was a guy recently who wrote everything in one block of text with no fullstops or capitals - like a stream of thoughts - it was nearly impossible to read.

Also, on application forms if you don't have the common sense to get your spelling/grammar checked there really is no hope.

Why would people NOT want to be able to spell correctly. Everything I undertake I wish to do to the best of my ability. English is my Mother tongue and if I was not even interested in getting that right then I would have to look at myself in great depth. It is not just about spelling. It is about not caring whether you are doing something rightly or wrongly. If you are applying for a job it takes more than first impressions to do the job correctly. Doing the job requires more than just completing an application form. Also, as I said, it is neither insulting someone's intelligence nor telling them off for it. When I speak other languages, or indeed when completing other tasks I need to know if I am doing it right or else I will continue to make mistakes. I am far from being a perfectionist but I would not want to unwittingly continue to make errors when a simple correction would mean I could henceforth get it right.

When I did my GCSEs, there were a certain number of marks available purely for spelling, punctuation and grammar.

My sister, who is a few years younger than me, was told by a teacher that spelling wasn't important; it was ideas and understanding that was important.

Equally, I have heard a teacher state that arithmatic is not important since people have calculators these days. I still feel being able to add up is important, regardless of whether you have a calculator.

Finally, some teachers themselves cannot spell. I remember our school newsletter, which told us that if we wanted to go on a school trip, our parents should complete a form and "return it to Miss William's.". :confused:

Ahem! When you start to criticise the grammar, spelling and sentence structure of others, you may well find that you are standing in a glass house and throwing stones...

The two previous posts are a good example of this, if you study them carefully! :D

i no wot i wrote aint perfect but @ least u can understnad it not like sum of the rubish ppl come out wiv!

...and for the gazillionth time...nobody is criticising anyone!!!

Originally posted by Babooshka
gazillionth

I don't think that's a proper word :nono:

:hihi:

...and feel free to point out MY errors whilst you are scrutinising my post. I am fascinated by language and anything I can learn is of nothing but benefit to me! (Oh no, not another language grad in our midst!)

Kp in mnd tht sm ppl cn get a msg a x rapdly in txt spk, far mr qwkly thn by typn it out in ful, bcos tht is wot thyr mor ust 2!

or in other words...

Keep in mind that some people can get a message across in text speak, far more quickly than by typing it out in full, because that is what they are more used to!

I'm picking spots off here, Babooshka, purely to prove a point...

You wrote...

"Why would people NOT want to be able to spell correctly. Everything I undertake I wish to do to the best of my ability. English is my Mother tongue and if I was not even interested in getting that right then I would have to look at myself in great depth. It is not just about spelling. It is about not caring whether you are doing something rightly or wrongly. If you are applying for a job it takes more than first impressions to do the job correctly. Doing the job requires more than just completing an application form. Also, as I said, it is neither insulting someone's intelligence nor telling them off for it. When I speak other languages, or indeed when completing other tasks I need to know if I am doing it right or else I will continue to make mistakes. I am far from being a perfectionist but I would not want to unwittingly continue to make errors when a simple correction would mean I could henceforth get it right."

The sentence in bold is grammatically incorect in that within the context of your message, it is an unqualified statement and therefore doesn't make sense. I understand perfect what you mean by it but it is referring, without giving the indication that it is doing so, to a completely separate statement that you made earlier.

Ideally it should read something along the lines of... "Also, as I said, correcting someone's error is neither insulting their intelligence nor telling them off for it." Or words to that effect...

This is absolutely HYPER nit-picking, as I said, to demonstrate a point.

As the guy said in 'Gone with the Wind' "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!" :D

EDIT: LOL! I've just spotted my typo!(perfect-ly) See! Even I ain't perfik! :D

Originally posted by Andy
I don't think that's a proper word :nono:

:hihi:
Neither is arithmatic! ;)

Sorry, in the light of the current discussion, I just couldn't resist it! :D

Originally posted by Pseudonym
Ideally it should read something along the lines of... "Also, as I said, correcting someone's error is neither insulting their intelligence nor telling them off for it."

I think you should have used a colon there. :P

There is a clear difference though between a post with the odd spelling mistake/typo and odd gramatical error, and (see, and should not follow a comma) one riddled with awful spelling, no attempt at structuring, punctuation or use of sentences and paragraphs.

Text speak is just extreme lazyness, and posts where no attempt to stick to the basic tenets of the english language are made are difficult to read and generally give me the impression that the poster has some sort of learning difficulty.

Originally posted by Andy
I think you should have used a colon there. :P
EXACTLY! Even though Babooshka says that she welcomes her errors being corrected, I believe that it's a dangerous course to follow and can so easily backfire on you!

As long as the communication is relatively easy to understand, I don't see that errors matter greatly, though pure text-speak is a different kettle of fish, as to many it's virtually a whole new language and therefore not easy for them to follow at all!

When writing applications, etc. of course different standards apply.

Originally posted by Cyclone
There is a clear difference though between a post with the odd spelling mistake/typo and odd gramatical error, and (see, and should not follow a comma) one riddled with awful spelling, no attempt at structuring, punctuation or use of sentences and paragraphs.

Text speak is just extreme lazyness, and posts where no attempt to stick to the basic tenets of the english language are made are difficult to read and generally give me the impression that the poster has some sort of learning difficulty.

I agree that messages written in one long block, sometimes with virtually no punctuation at all, not even capitals to indicate the start of a new sentence, are painful to try and understand. I tend to think that if the writer can't be bothered to lay it out in a way so that I can easily read it, why should I struggle to do so... and I ignore it.

A message composed entirely of text-speak is usually an attempt to impress by appearing 'l33t', i.e. one of the 'in-crowd' and whilst I find it fun to interpret, I appreciate how it can be annoying to others.

As for the occasional text-speak scattered here and there in a message, if you use phone text frequently, over a long period, which many of the younger ones on here do, then you're almost certain to revert to it at times when not concentrating.

You are quite right Pseu...I should have mentioned, in that sentence, to what I was referring. However, considering that the whole paragraph referred to the very thing which I was qualifying I felt that I did not need to make mention of the specifics again. The grammatical structure of the sentence is correct...innit? My, isn't language a wonderful, wonderful thing?

Don't you feel, however, that people who continue to make errors in language use should face some sort of financial penalty or community order? Should it not be a minor infraction of the law?

(hee hee hee)

Working as a teacher in a secondary school I am amazed at how poor literacy skills are - personally I think a large portion of blame lies in the fact kids watch tv rather than read and spend half of their lives chatting on MSN. In my subject (RE), success is dependant on the quality of written communication and as such kids that are coming into school with a reading age of less than 9, can barely be expected to understand the exam paper let alone formulate a coherent answer to the questions...

It's getting worse rather than better as well - I have noticed a demise even in the short 4 years that I have been teaching...

I do think secondary school is too late to be teaching literacy though... it needs to start at age 4 and be encouraged at home as well as at school...

I suspect, Babooshka, that if you were to be given command of the Prose Police or the Syntax Squad, then making a grammatical error would become a major infraction of the law if you had your way! :D

Yes, language is amazing when you think about the emotions, ideas, feelings, etc. that it can convey.

It intrigues me that by placing an inflexion on each of the words in turn, a sentence such as...

"What is this thing called love?"

Can alter its' meaning in so many different ways... It must be a nightmare at times for those who learn english as a second language!

I remember, in infant and junior school, we always had a reading book. We'd have reading time in class; some of the time we'd read aloud to the teacher, often we'd read on our own. We also used to take the book home and were expected to read with our parents.

My school had lots of books to choose from, and I think this is where my love of reading today comes from.

So - if we have any primary school teachers here - how do you teach reading today?

They should just be ostracised from polite forum society.

Had an interesting conversation with a French guy (in France) last week.
We (the group) had all had a few beers and more than a little of the local vintage, when we got onto the topic of grammar.
It turned out that he knew an awful lot more about the our grammar than we (as a group) did. Most of it we knew implicitly, we just couldn't articulate it, but some of it we hadn't even known....

Originally posted by absynthfairy
Working as a teacher in a secondary school I am amazed at how poor literacy skills are - personally I think a large portion of blame lies in the fact kids watch tv rather than read and spend half of their lives chatting on MSN. In my subject (RE), success is dependant on the quality of written communication and as such kids that are coming into school with a reading age of less than 9, can barely be expected to understand the exam paper let alone formulate a coherent answer to the questions...

It's getting worse rather than better as well - I have noticed a demise even in the short 4 years that I have been teaching...

I do think secondary school is too late to be teaching literacy though... it needs to start at age 4 and be encouraged at home as well as at school...

This is probably the key point, parents.

Do you see a big difference between the kids with reasonable grasp of the language and those without, or does it spread across the entire range. And is there anything that may be causally linked to the ability or lack thereof?

Originally posted by Pseudonym

It intrigues me that by placing an inflexion on each of the words in turn, a sentence such as...

"What is this thing called love?"

Can alter its' meaning in so many different ways... It must be a nightmare at times for those who learn english as a second language!

Don't forget that a lot (OK. Not all) of the meanings can be clearly indicated by correct punctuation.

What is this thing called, Love?

What! Is this thing called "love"?

"What is this thing?" called Love.

"What is this?" Thing called Love.

etc.

Originally posted by Pseudonym
It intrigues me that by placing an inflexion on each of the words in turn, a sentence such as...

"What is this thing called love?"


It's 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' all over again :)

Prose Police.......man, I like the sound of that!

I have also heard English people being corrected by foreigners(mostly the Dutch, who seem to be the most eloquent and accurate commanders of the English language). They seem to know grammatical rules that we are not even taught. I seem to remember learning more about the structure of sentences in English in my FRENCH classes at school. That, and being taught by my Mum at home. School needs to pull up its' boots. I disagree completely with statements like 'there is no correct..only ideas, thoughts etc' RUBBISH! Also, as much as I hate maths and am truly hopeless at it, teachers who use calculators as a sole means of solving mathematical problems should go back to school themselves. It is disgusting. We have subjects....now let's learn them and stop farting around kidding ourselves that there are no rules and we are all free..free...and totally loopy!!!

Having learnt german for many years I find the usage of who and whom easy to grasp. BUt I rarely find anyone who understands me when I try and explain to them when you should use each. It seems no one has heard of the nominative (who) and accusative (whom) tenses.

I think one way to improve our knowledge of grammar would be to learn foreign languages from an earlier age.

Originally posted by Andy
We get people applying for jobs in the bank who cannot add up.

I do think the current generation of school leavers are lacking some basic skills.
Well, given the statistic that this year the percentage of correct answers on the maths GCSE of just 16% gave a candidate a C grade, there's no hope at all :shakes:

16% gets a 'pass'? :help: :shakes: :help:

Originally posted by TimmyR
Having learnt german for many years I find the usage of who and whom easy to grasp. BUt I rarely find anyone who understands me when I try and explain to them when you should use each. It seems no one has heard of the nominative (who) and accusative (whom) tenses.

I think one way to improve our knowledge of grammar would be to learn foreign languages from an earlier age.

I think a better way would be to spend some time learning english grammar as we are never formally taught it.

16% for a 'C'???!!! Christ almighty! What is our education coming to? If that had been the case when I was at school I would have had a decent Chemstry result. It is a total joke. Trouble is, you tell that to someone who got that grade and they get offended. Let's be realistc. Some people are academically better at certain subjects than others. Not everyone has to 'pass' everything. Some fail. We separate the 'wheat from the chaff' in our working lives, and I am sorry but there is some chaff out there. Me for one where mathematics is concerned. Our schools are laughable.

I'm surprised by that figure. And I can only find a similar reference on a website which clearly has an axe to grind.

Checking the edExcel marking guidelines, they require 60% in order to achieve a C (this is the B paper, I think presume there is an A paper with harder questions and a lower requirement for any given grade..), rising to 80% for an A*.
Anything below 20% on that paper would be ungrades as 20%> is required for a G grade.

I think the finest example of grammar correction is in the beavis and butthead movie:

Cop: Is that the van that he was caught wacking off in?

Senior cop: I think you should have learnt by now after 5 years of experience with the police not to end your sentence with a preposition!

Cop: Sorry sir, errrr, is that the van off in which he was caught wacking?

Originally posted by Babooshka
16% for a 'C'???!!!

To be fair, this quote has been taken out of context.

Have a look at this article. (http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1912352005)

One of the papers (out of 7? plus coursework) was worth 25% of the total marks and a candidate was required to obtain a 16% mark for this paper for it to be graded C.

I agree that is seems disturbingly low but we are not told what scores are required in all the other papers to maintain a Final Grade of C.
It is possible (but in my mind unclear) that much higher scores may be required in what may be "easier" papers.

Originally posted by cgksheff
To be fair, this quote has been taken out of context.

Have a look at this article. (http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1912352005)

One of the papers (out of 7? plus coursework) was worth 25% of the total marks and a candidate was required to obtain a 16% mark for this paper for it to be graded C.

I agree that is seems disturbingly low but we are not told what scores are required in all the other papers to maintain a Final Grade of C.
It is possible (but in my mind unclear) that much higher scores may be required in what may be "easier" papers.

I expect that the 16% was for the top paper then, with much higher marks being required for the easier papers.
They'd only just introduced the ideas of different papers when I was doing GCSE's so it was a new idea that I took papers 1 & 2 whilst people from the lower sets were taking 2 & 3, but couldn't achieve a mark above C.

Originally posted by Strix
Well, given the statistic that this year the percentage of correct answers on the maths GCSE of just 16% gave a candidate a C grade, there's no hope at all :shakes:

16% gets a 'pass'? :help: :shakes: :help:

no probs here my daughter had to sit a final exam for year 2 of an english degree, all she technically had to do was write her name - to gain a 2:1 result for year 2.
the reason was she had scored so high through out the year her exam result was not relevant to her grade.

the 16% would only gain a pass when added to earlier coursework etc.

When we say that we will accept lapses in English (or even usage of text speak) on a forum then it's one matter, but we can't carry that acceptance over into other areas of life. If I was sifting applications for any kind of job I would be tempted just to bin any written in terrible English. I would have no doubts about binning any written in 'text'. If a prospective employee had terrible English but a wealth of experience then I might enquire further, but any 'average' applicant with poor English would be rejected.

Contrary to what many might think, children are taught about context and audience in English lessons at school, and it is part of the curriculum to learn how to put a job application together. So there are few reasons why a job applicant should not attempt to make a good impression. There is a big difference between being poor at spelling and coming across as though you just don't care.

*waiting for a pedant to pick up on something here* ;)

"The good old days" people make me laugh. Everything was better back then and everything in the World is getting worse now.

Not at all.

The sex education thread is a good one. Parents saying things are worse now, when they are not. Their generation had far more teen pregnancies, but back then it was acceptable. More the norm. So parents perceptions of what is right has changed and the kids/school gets blamed?

And I am always reading how education today is terrible. But I would wager that nobody educated to high school level 20 years ago could even begging to compete with the kids in today's environment. Of course the answer must be ageism, not computer literacy or understanding of complex processes.

Education is better now. Much better. If you feel like picking one or two examples and generalizing the issue to everybody, go right ahead, but your wrong. Subjects are much more complex now, kids have to learn much more than people did 30 years ago, where basic arithmetic, English, History were the main parts to education.

Now things are more complex. The "they only know how to use a calculator these days" people are the best. You have to laugh. They don't just learn times tables in School these days you know, they lean complex calculations. Knowing how to get the best out of a computer is far more important these days. Tools -> Spellcheck. And I would wager that most of the "kids today are stupid" people do not know how to do that. If the kids today are stupid, why aren't people just employing older people? It would be in their best interests to employ the most intelligent people.

Kids are put under more stress, have to learn a much wider range of subjects to a much higher level than their parents ever did. There are exceptions, but in general that's the rule. And that's a good thing.

If things are better why are there less people leaving school able to write coherent English or do basic numerical tasks?

Back then teenage pregancys were acceptable? When was that exactly. Was that when the girl and her boyfriend would be marched down the aisle at shotgun point?
History certainly isn't my strong point, but the issue of teenage pregnancy certainly seems like a modern one.

How is it that subjects became more complex? Were there vast advances in the fields of maths, english, history, geography, GCSE level science, etc... I don't think there were.
Alright there might be a couple more subjects, with ICT being the main one, but it's a micky mouse subject with anyone who's used a pc before being capable of following with one eye closed.

Learning how to get the most out of a computer isn't really something that should be taught as a seperate subject IMO, I'm not sure what would best replace that though.
I've certainly managed though with computers and I didn't have any IT targetted education until I started my computer science degree.

Are you currently at school by any chance b2b? And out of interest how do you know that todays level is a higher one than historically?

Originally posted by Cyclone
If things are better why are there less people leaving school able to write coherent English or do basic numerical tasks?

Back then teenage pregancys were acceptable? When was that exactly. Was that when the girl and her boyfriend would be marched down the aisle at shotgun point?
History certainly isn't my strong point, but the issue of teenage pregnancy certainly seems like a modern one.

How is it that subjects became more complex? Were there vast advances in the fields of maths, english, history, geography, GCSE level science, etc... I don't think there were.
Alright there might be a couple more subjects, with ICT being the main one, but it's a micky mouse subject with anyone who's used a pc before being capable of following with one eye closed.

Learning how to get the most out of a computer isn't really something that should be taught as a seperate subject IMO, I'm not sure what would best replace that though.
I've certainly managed though with computers and I didn't have any IT targetted education until I started my computer science degree.

Are you currently at school by any chance b2b? And out of interest how do you know that todays level is a higher one than historically?

First go look at the figures I posted about teenage pregnancy. Government figures that show it's far less of a problem now. But it was more socially acceptable back then.

No I am not at school, well I am constantly studying but I am 33 so my school days are long gone. Thank god :)

I know what my parents were taught at school. I know what classes consisted of 20 or 30 years ago. And I know it was far less than kids are taught these days. Illiteracy keep being reduced. Again 20, 30 or 50 years ago illiteracy was much wider spread, as was poverty.

It's not me making wild claims that education is worse these days than before. The burden of proof is with those than believe it is, which clearly is clap trap. It's simple we and the human race continue to make huge steps. And our young must be educated to the new realities. Which they are. It's the older generations struggeling to catch up. In the 50's there were no computer languages or computers. People were not taught about matrixes or logic gates in Math's. They did not have to take a language. They did not even have a computer class or physics for that matter. They had a single science course. Back in those days the majority of the population finished school and went in to work. Now almost 50% go to university.

Ok lets throw it out there...

State your rouge age and what subjects did you learn at School? And what was the most advanced topic you learn in those subjects?

I did look at the figures, and they were quite interesting. Not how I'd seen the issue presented before, so I'd have to do some more research, and I only have a dial up line in here. Maybe tomorrow.

There have been for the last 4 to 5 years reports of illiteracy increasing, stories of exam papers being complete in text speak and similar things. Although on the flip side we are also told that more students achieve A - C grades... which apparently implies that the papers are getting easier (again i'd really have to see them to compare for myself).

I can't say whether matrixes were taught in the 50's maybe you're right, maybe not.
Are they taught today at GCSE level? I can remember using them in further maths at A-level to calculate points of intersections of lines and planes and other fun stuff like that.

Of course they don't have physics again now as a seperate subject, they have 'combined science' an abomination if ever I heard one.

I know that my mother had to take a language, and she was at school in the 60's, and computing as I already said wasn't taught as standard when I was at school 10 years ago, but I seem to be managing alright.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/xsdataset.asp?More=Y&vlnk=194&All=Y&B2.x=61&B2.y=14

Here is some data. It doesn't show that much (and i know somebody will say "but a levels are easier").

But it shows since 1975 the amount of women getting 2 of more a levels has doubled. And males almost doubled. I will get more information on literacy and the amount of people going on to further education.

And thats is one of the great successes of modern education. How women have been able to flourish like they were never allowed to, in the days of housekeeping classes.

We do have issues with boys these days.

But on the whole this is a case of people seeing the negative and being blind to the positive.

so why do we constantly see the school leavers joining the forum and using terrible grammar, bad spelling and text speak?

You do have to rule out a change in the difficulty for the statistics to mean anything.
But I did maths papers going back 10 years as revision for A levels and didn't notice that the earlier ones were any harder, so i've never been particularly convinced of the 'it's getting easier' argument.

It does actually say that males increase 50%, not nearly doubled.

The change in the amount of people who go onto further and higher education is down more to societal change and governmental policy in my opinion than people coming out of GCSE/A-level any smarter.

It's more acceptable now to do A-level and degree than ever before, indeed almost expected of you, whereas in the 70's I think almost the opposite attitude was taken by the majority of parents and teachers, it would take a strong person to push to go to university when everyone expected them to leave school and get a job.

Maybe the problem is partly that the gap between the educationally enabled and the not enabled is growing bigger and more stark.

Originally posted by Cyclone


There have been for the last 4 to 5 years reports of illiteracy increasing, stories of exam papers being complete in text speak and similar things. Although on the flip side we are also told that more students achieve A - C grades... which apparently implies that the papers are getting easier (again i'd really have to see them to compare for myself).



Sure illeteracy could be increasing over the short term (last several years) but compare it to the 60s and 70s and you will see a huge improvement.



I can't say whether matrixes were taught in the 50's maybe you're right, maybe not.
Are they taught today at GCSE level? I can remember using them in further maths at A-level to calculate points of intersections of lines and planes and other fun stuff like that.




I was taught matrixes in School. Only the basics, still. I was in the class of the first years of GCSEs. Not sure what they do now. But i know it is a hell of alot more than the 50's.



Of course they don't have physics again now as a seperate subject, they have 'combined science' an abomination if ever I heard one.

I know that my mother had to take a language, and she was at school in the 60's, and computing as I already said wasn't taught as standard when I was at school 10 years ago, but I seem to be managing alright.

It is an abomination. But thats only to start with (general science). When you choose your options, you can take physics. Back in the 50s you had to be going to a good school to have those options. And how many subjects do you have to take? I think i had to take either 6 or 8. Ask your mum how many she had to take.

I never took a computer class at school either, it wasn't available. And it's a career for me now. Ask my mother to do a basic task on a computer and she cannot. It's because in general we (even without being taught it) understand technology. We have to. Thats all part of the extra learning, or many more subjects kids of today have. The World is more complex today. People of yesteryear has it easy, and without all the distractions! And that is why they cannot compete with the generations coming out of education now. Thats just indisputable.

My parents could not help me with much of my homework it was way beyond them.

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/stats/keystatistics.html#11-year-olds

That's got some interesting statistics, but generally they back up your position, literacy is increasing across the board... Maybe it just makes a good story in the news then....

My parents were able to help with my homework until the point when my education continued beyond theirs. Neither of them had done A-level maths, so by then my capabilities were beyond theirs, which is to be expected. I can't repair a car or suture a wound, skills which my parents have (not both of them mind).

I checked out matrixes, it's just basic addition, subtraction and multiplication. It gets a lot more complex, and thankfully I can't remember any of it now.

I was in the class of the first year of National Curriculum for the sciences and english (I think it was just those subjects, could have been science and maths though).

I do wonder though, if we managed to pick up all this computer stuff without special lessons, (I didn't even have a computer until I was 7), then why do kids need special lessons for it now? Surely having a computer to use before they can probably read or write is going to make them familiar enough with it, it's just a tool, we don't have special "how to use video recorder" lessons...

Originally posted by Cyclone
so why do we constantly see the school leavers joining the forum and using terrible grammar, bad spelling and text speak?


You answered this further down. Society! We have phones without full key pads. So they come up with abbreviations, have you ever tried to send a text message on one of those phones? It takes for ever! :) It really is as simple as that.

Language evolves. We all come from Yorkshire, have you heard the language some of the oldies use? "put-wood-into-oil" for
close the door? "eye our lad", where is the grammar there? Is language really getting worse? :)


You do have to rule out a change in the difficulty for the statistics to mean anything.
But I did maths papers going back 10 years as revision for A levels and didn't notice that the earlier ones were any harder, so i've never been particularly convinced of the 'it's getting easier' argument.


Yeah statistics are difficult in this one. I am not so much talking about the difference in 10 years, more like 20 or 30. I think in a decade things can fluctuate a little. But over the cause of several decades we always see the human race progressing. We allways have.


It does actually say that males increase 50%, not nearly doubled.


Ha i guess i deserved that. Irony anybody? :)


The change in the amount of people who go onto further and higher education is down more to societal change and governmental policy in my opinion than people coming out of GCSE/A-level any smarter.

It's more acceptable now to do A-level and degree than ever before, indeed almost expected of you, whereas in the 70's I think almost the opposite attitude was taken by the majority of parents and teachers, it would take a strong person to push to go to university when everyone expected them to leave school and get a job.


I think its even more than that. I think poverty was a big part of it. I think 30 years ago women were expected to keep the house, and many of the advances in education have been with women (over the course of several decades not one).


Maybe the problem is partly that the gap between the educationally enabled and the not enabled is growing bigger and more stark.

No i think it's old people not understanding the young.. again. How many times were you told yur music was crap by your parents? How many times have you heard times are not like they were. Or you could go out and leave your door open in my day!

Kids of today have their own thing, just like we did. And they have a way of speaking using as few key presses as possible. Thats whay kids do today, they spend lots of time on the internet and text messaging. Our parents, didn't have TV's... but they also lacked information that kids of today have.

There are bad things, but to suggest that kids of today in general are dumber than people years ago are missing some really basic facts... that we are still progressing. That work today requires different skills, and our younger generation seem to be doing as good a job as we did.

Cyclone really enjoyed this thanks :)

Originally posted by Cyclone
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/stats/keystatistics.html#11-year-olds

That's got some interesting statistics, but generally they back up your position, literacy is increasing across the board... Maybe it just makes a good story in the news then....


And those stats only go back to 1997. I have been looking for some that went back in to the 50's. Cannot find one yet. But i would like to bet literacy back then was much lower than 70-80%.

Hopefully nobody takes offence...

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/4718/jesusbrb8dz.jpg

Originally posted by cgksheff
Don't forget that a lot (OK. Not all) of the meanings can be clearly indicated by correct punctuation.

What is this thing called, Love?

What! Is this thing called "love"?

"What is this thing?" called Love.

"What is this?" Thing called Love.

etc.
I was referring to the spoken sentence, not the typed one in this instance, hence my mentioning inflexion, i.e. placing stress on specific word(s)... :)

Punctuation in speech is indicated by inflexion and brief pauses and when coupled with voice tone and level of voice, a single sentence, or even a single word, can have a multiplicity of meanings...


Whilst I'm talking about inflexion, is there anyone else who finds the habit of making a normal statement into an interrogative one, rather irritating to listen to...

e.g. "I bought a new coat today?"

The 'rise' in the last word of a sentence either makes a statement sound like a question, or renders it totally meaningless...

From casual observation, I suspect that it results from viewing too many Oz soaps and subconsciously mimicking their manner of speech. ;)

Originally posted by Cyclone
If things are better why are there LESS people leaving school able to write coherent English or do basic numerical tasks?

shouldn't that be 'fewer'? :D

Why can't some of you supposedly literate people learn the difference between 'it's' and 'its' .... it's hardly Shakespeare, is it :rolleyes:

'IT'S' is a contraction of 'it is' or 'it has' and 'ITS' means 'belonging to it'. If you'd just take a second to say it over to yourself, you wouldn't keep making such an elementary mistake ...

"It's got a thing stuck to its bottom".... There you see, not so difficult is it?

Jeeze, you've broken me ... I've become a spelling/grammar flamer ... I just hope you're all happy now :help:

Your final sentence lacked a full stop.

It's like an addiction. The urge is irresistable.

QUOTE "The sex education thread is a good one. Parents saying things are worse now, when they are not. Their generation had far more teen pregnancies, but back then it was acceptable. More the norm. So parents perceptions of what is right has changed and the kids/school gets blamed?"

Off topic I know, but I have to take issue with this comment. Which period exactly are you talking about? I was a teenager in the 60s and it most certainly was NOT the norm! An illegitimate pregnancy was still considered a terrible disgrace to a girl and her family. For ANY unmarried female to become pregnant was frowned on and she was highly unlikely to be accepted. Most girls were forced into having their babies adopted and there was no help from the State to keep them. I don't think there were many 13 and 14 yr old children getting pregnant then either. In facct it wasn't unheard of for Social Services to forcibly remove babies from unmarried parents and have them adopted.

Can you be more specific as to the period to which you're referrring?

Edit: had to come back to share a giggle at Ant's post. :clap:

Originally posted by back2basics
First go look at the figures I posted about teenage pregnancy. Government figures that show it's far less of a problem now. But it was more socially acceptable back then.

By teenage pregnancy do you possibly mean unmarried pregnancy? Most girls married in their teens then so teenage pregnancy was quite common and accepted as long as you were MARRIED.

No I am not at school, well I am constantly studying but I am 33 so my school days are long gone. Thank god :)

I know what my parents were taught at school. I know what classes consisted of 20 or 30 years ago. And I know it was far less than kids are taught these days. Illiteracy keep being reduced. Again 20, 30 or 50 years ago illiteracy was much wider spread, as was poverty.

Sorry, must disagree with you there. 150 years ago, yes. 100 years ago? No. My Grandfather could express himself on paper better than most teenagers today. He went to a village school in North Yorkshire and left before he was 14. This was before the First World War. 50? Even if you went to the most basic Secondary Modern School in the fifties or sixties, you came out able to read, write and do simple maths.

It's not me making wild claims that education is worse these days than before. The burden of proof is with those than believe it is, which clearly is clap trap. Sorry again, didn't get that sentence. It's simple we and the human race continue to make huge steps. And our young must be educated to the new realities. Which they are. It's the older generations struggeling to catch up. In the 50's there were no computer languages or computers. People were not taught about matrixes or logic gates in Math's. They did not have to take a language. Wrong. Latin or Greek was compulsory in a lot of schools. They did not even have a computer class (Bit difficult considering the only computers were in Universities or one or two large corporations and weighed tons rather than pounds.) or physics for that matter. Nope, physics was pretty much compulsory in all Grammar schools and a lot of Secondary Moderns as well. They had a single science course. See above (Physics Chemistry and Biology were separate lessons in many schools). Back in those days the majority of the population finished school and went in to work. Now almost 50% go to university. .....where 1/2 come out with degrees which have no use whatsoever in the outside world. Half the youngsters in my office doing admin work have attended universities. 30 years ago, all you needed to get an office job was 2 'O' levels. If you had Maths (not Math's) and English Language you had most of the skills needed. Because you had learned them at school. Modern employers are What a waste of education and resources! See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3446417.stm for more on the subject.

Ok lets throw it out there...

State your rouge ????? age and what subjects did you learn at School? And what was the most advanced topic you learn in those subjects?

A number of things lately have prompted me to start this thread.

1/ A discussion in our office brought blank looks from our most junior member of staff when we talked about Pi. He'd never heard of it. This is fantastic (i.e., "unreal", not the modern definition of "simply wonderful"). Caused a debate of "What did you learn in school?

2/ Modern Geographical knowledge of your own country. Answers to "Where's Swindon near?" brought about guesses such as "Glasgow" or "Birmingham".

3/ Signwriters art examples such as "3 bar's" outside a pub, "Advanced bookings only" on taxis (they mean "Advance bookings only"). Adverts such as "Improve you're system stability" are all too common. 50 years ago, an advert with a spelling mistake in it was so rare it stood out like a sore thumb. Nowadays, it's so common, you hardly notice.

4/ Candidates for a job in an admin role getting 0 in all but one section of a "spelling and grammar" test paper.

When you leave school/university and enter the real world, your employer needs you to have certain basic skills: like being able to put a coherent sentence together on paper; being able to communicate ideas to others; being able to reckon up a simple sum in your head, without having to scurry round looking for a calculator or have some kind of a clue as to where abouts Dundee or Chile is. Being able to spell in English rather than "Microsoft Enhanced English" (Network Neighborhood causes my right eye to go into a twitching spasm) also helps.

We have people at my workplace who are in their '50s and can get a pc to do what they want it to do. They did not "learn computers" at school.

Good article at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1235401.stm

Ok lets throw it out there...

State your rouge age and what subjects did you learn at School? And what was the most advanced topic you learn in those subjects?

Age: 40

Mathematics:
Algebra, Boolean Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Calculus

Sciences:
Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics

English Language Studies:
Composition, Communications, American Literature, and English Literature

Foreign Language:
Spanish

Business Courses:
Typing, Bookkeeping, and General Business

Miscellaneous: Coding in BASIC, Electronics, Psychology, Sociology, American History, World History, Geography, and Consumer Education.

Note:
We had calculators in school but were not allowed to use them until we took calculus.
In my last year, we had a couple Commodore PET computers.
:)

Just with reference to where Swindon is, first of all, who cares (joke).

Secondly Geography isn't about and never has been about memorising a map of the UK or an atlas. What it should do (as a very small part of the subject) is teach you to read a map and locate Swindon on it (should you be foolish enough to wish to go there).

from the 'starting at Sheffield Hallam' thread;

YO!!
Movin in2 Leadmill on 17th! Flat 32 if ne1 is nearby!
Gna b studyin English Studies if ne1 on here has dun it cd they let me no wt its like and if ne1 hu has stayd at leadmill cd tel me wt 2 brin it wd b much appreciated!
Big up the Birmingham Crew!

Originally posted by willman
no probs here my daughter had to sit a final exam for year 2 of an english degree, all she technically had to do was write her name - to gain a 2:1 result for year 2.
the reason was she had scored so high through out the year her exam result was not relevant to her grade.

the 16% would only gain a pass when added to earlier coursework etc.

Riiiiiigggghhhhhhttttt. Doesn't that make the coursework grades rather suspicious? :suspect:

well, to get back to the original topic of spelling and the young generation, as a French native speaker, i obviously learnt English in a different fashion. I experienced teaching French and German here in three secondary schools, of mixed abilities, and i have to say that what made my job difficult was the lack of knowledge for English grammar and syntax. I do agree that this should not be a basis to insult or reject anybody, but don't you think it is somewhat sad that a not negligeable proportion of pupils do not possess the most basic gammar knowledge or spelling rules?
I know education has to be fun (that was the official guideline in a way concerning languages), but to get to Year 10 or 11 and still have not the faintest clue as to what a verb or an adjective is, sends a shiver down my spine.
I do not blame the culture of text messaging, rather the idea that reading something where words are fully spelt and grammar fully used is the uncool thing to do!