How r u writing?

I would argue that chatspeak does not hurt students academic writing or communicating abilities. I felt that the article that argued that chatspeak would was a poor sample of arguments against chatspeak particularly because of the poor sentence strucuture and grammatical errors. I did feel that the counter article made the most important point when the author stated, “English language must be used effectively to understand and to be understood”(2008, p. 9). I think an individuals command over the English language is of ultimate importance in communication. That said, I thnik the aduts main concern with chatspeak was related to their inability to understand chatspeak. We often fear and fight what we cannont understand, and adults are increasingly being cut out of teenage communication due to their inability to understand text speech.

To use the English language to be understood, teachers must learn chatspeak. Instuctors expect their students to know the vernacular of literature and so teachers should expect that to know chatspeak to communicate colloquially. Students understand what times are appropriate and inappropraite to use chatspeak. By simply stating that standard English grammar and language is to be used in writing and in spoken class diction, you are giving students the autonomy to use colloquial language and writing when they please. Students deserve the opportunity to make choices in life, in fact, “Yes, we’ve standardized grammar, spelling, and so on since Chaucer, but kids live to challenge standards”(p. 9). Students are certainly capable of knowing and understanding many different ways to communicate and chatspeak is merely one of them.

After reading the text, I was curious as to how students use chatspeak in their classes. Are they using in essays? Were they told not to use it in essays and use it anyway as a result of inability to use standard English? Should teachers care how student emails read?

Howard, L, & Monfils, G (2007). Is Chatspeak Destroying English?. International Society for Technology in Education, Retrieved August 5, 2009, from http://webct.cuportland.edu/webct/urw/lc9140001.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct?JSESSIONID=tJ4yK5nKDJrWs5hbLy8R1T4G7Q02JjVByBLDzy5821v47kyCBRn2!-544224791!newwebct.cu-portland.edu!80!443.