Chatspeak

Before reading this article, I agreed with Linda Howard when she writes, "When it comes to students and their use of chatspeak, it will be more difficult for many to switch gears to effective and meaningful writing." I have received papers and writings from middle-schoolers that is encoded in chatspeak, and have believed for some time that those students didn't understand how to properly discuss their ideas in more formal vernacular. Howard continues with, "The shortcuts and acronyms that make instant messaging, text messaging, and online chatting so popular have no place in academic, business, and other formal writing settings where it is essential that all individuals involved are using language that is clear and concise." And she does have a point, using chakspeak in a formal business presentation would if not get you fired, it might get you an uncomfortable meeting with the boss.

After reading Greg Monfil's ideas about students use of chatspeak, I felt archaic. Not only does he only argue that chatspeak is not hindering our students ability to use higher English, "nor do I believe that their command of written English would increase appreciably if they would only fore go chatspeak and strive to exhibit a command of written English at all times." His discussion of chatspeak brought to mind my own use of piglatin. As a child, my friends and I would speak in code to each other where the words were backwards. We did this to keep our conversations private. We had big secrets that adults need not know about. I wonder if chatspeak is this generations creation of piglatin. Monfil entertains the idea of chatspeak as their way of rebellion against the stoic ideas of my generation. "If chatspeak is leeching into papers, it’s probably due to a small bit of rebelliousness as opposed to obliviousness," writes Monfil. I like this idea; students know when to use chatspeak and when to use proper English, and if they don't its my responsibility as a teacher to instruct them in the proper place for chatspeak.