TXT language allowed in exams.

[Squeak the Rat]

I heard on the radio this morning that NZ is once again leading the world by allowing TXT speak in school exams.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3854612a10,00.html

It's not often I say this about a policy but I am disgusted.

[James Deuce]

For those of you who go "big deal, the world changes, get over it", in 20 years NZ will be one of the poorest Pacific Rim countries because we removed the one common frame of reference the region uses for communication. Written English.

Can't compete if you can't communicate. Written Asian languages are incredibly formal and you don't dick with them. If you do you are regarded as stupid. We already struggle to look clever in writing, and this will be seen as a typical lack of discipline and will become another point to be exploited.

Good luck txt generation. You'll need it, but it isn't going to help.

[Wasp]

saw that on a paper this morn when i got maccas!

im 18 and i think its bloody rediculous, if students consider themselves too dumb to write properly then they should have left school well before the exams.

this REALLY disgusts me. txt speak and 1337 speak are not languages they are not a part of the english language. students are just using it as an excuse so they dont have to learn how to spell properly.

mind you if I was still at school i'd probably be thinking "sweet now if i dont know how to spell a word ill just write it in txt/1337" i mean its not like the teacher can pull out a dictionary for txt/1337 speak and say I spelt it wrong can they? no, which means i get everything right making ncea even easier.

althought, knowing the teachers at my old school (especially the english ones) they will probably threaten to fail the students if they write like that.

[Dooly]

Fucking bizarre and ridiculous!

[Squeak the Rat]

At present it is only secondary schools, so Universities will hopefully not adopt this too. So, what's going to happen?

Rich educated people will continue to use the english language, while those in lower socio-economic groups will start developing a seperate dialect, written and oral. Long term we get ourselves a nice little class system going, easily identified by the way you talk, know wat i mean geezer innit?

If any person working for me uses txt speak in written communications at work, guess what - that is not effective communication and you will be FIRED. Not really fair when that's what they teach you to do at school though is it......

[slimjim]

its a sad sad day, this is bloody way wrong, shit enough of the young poeple now have reading problems ,when will the "PC" stop,

[bugjuice]

f'in stpd. wtf is teh wrld cumin 2?

actually really appalled by this. make the lazy fuckers use the Queen's fucking English. If I were marking papers, I'd fail every single one that was uing that fucking stupid lazy lingo. On phones, fine. In exams, hell no.. My sister sends me text messages, and it's like some secret German code!

[Cookie]

I have recent experience of a person with an “IT degree” from one of these places that renamed themselves a “University” in the past few years. Her written English was absolutely abysmal.

A recent parent evening at my son’s school was also disheartening. The teacher explained that they were not going to punish kids for not doing homework because they “could not legally require children to do homework”!

[Wasp]

If any person working for me uses txt speak in written communications at work, guess what - that is not effective communication and you will be FIRED.

hah, i remember when i started using the computer based records system here, I was told it doesnt really matter how bad my spelling was in our notes so long as I didnt write in txt/1337. invoices have to be full english

[Flatcap]

Rich educated people will continue to use the english language, while those in lower socio-economic groups will start developing a seperate dialect, written and oral. Long term we get ourselves a nice little class system going, easily identified by the way you talk, know wat i mean geezer innit?

We are already there Mr Rat - don't you watch Bro Town?

[Ghost Lemur]

We've got to keep this news from Hitcher. He'll have a coronary.

Truely worry about the world sometimes. Worry even more as there is no way I want my sons to go through an education system that thinks this is good.

[pervert]

Haha...what the fuck is 1337 speak?

[sAsLEX]

At present it is only secondary schools, so Universities will hopefully not adopt this too. So, what's going to happen?

Rich educated people will continue to use the english language, while those in lower socio-economic groups will start developing a seperate dialect, written and oral. Long term we get ourselves a nice little class system going, easily identified by the way you talk, know wat i mean geezer innit?

If any person working for me uses txt speak in written communications at work, guess what - that is not effective communication and you will be FIRED. Not really fair when that's what they teach you to do at school though is it......

01010111-01100101-01101100-01101100-00100000-01101110-01101111-01110100-00100000-01110010
-01100101-01100001-01101100-01101100-01111001-00100000-01001001-00100000-01101100-01100101
-01100001-01110010-01101110-01110100-00100000-01101101-01101111-01110010-01100101-00100000
-01101111-01100110-00100000-01110100-01101000-01101001-01110011-00100000-01110100-01101000
-01100001-01101110-00100000-01000101-01101110-01100111-01101100-01101001-01110011-01101000
-00100000-01100001-01110100-00100000-01010101-01101110-01101001-01110110-01100101-01110010
-01110011-01101001-01110100-01111001-00101110-00100000-01010100-01101000-01100101-01111001
-00100000-01100011-01100001-01101110-01110100-00100000-01100100-01101111-00100000-01110100
-01101111-01101111-00100000-01101101-01110101-01100011-01101000-00100000-01101100-01100001
-01101110-01100111-01110101-01100001-01100111-01100101-00100000-01100010-01100001-01110011
-01100101-01100100-00100000-01110011-01110100-01110101-01100110-01100110-00100000-01100001
-01110011-00100000-01100001-01101100-01101100-00100000-01110100-01101000-01100101-00100000
-01000001-01110011-01101001-01100001-01101110-01110011-00100000-01110011-01110101-01100011
-01101011-00100000-01100001-01110100-00100000-01101001-01110100-00100000-01100001-01101110
-01100100-00100000-01111001-01101111-01110101-00100000-01100011-01100001-01101110-01110100
-00100000-01110010-01100101-01100001-01101100-01101100-01111001-00100000-01110101-01110000
-01110011-01100101-01110100-00100000-01110100-01101000-01100101-01101101-00101110-00101110
-00101110-00101110-00101110-00101110

translated
Well not really I learnt more of this than English at University. They cant do too much language based stuff as all the Asians suck at it and you cant really upset them......

[Drum]

It is our duty to use correct langauge at all times, and to refuse to communicate with anyone using these bastardised sub-langauges.

And what is this 1337 you speak of??

[Flyingpony]

This is a terrible. NZ will definitely become 3rd world if our workforce can't write proper English.

I've read posts here on KB written in TXT. Sometimes I can workout what they are trying to say, but most times it is like "WTF are they on about!".

Would love to be an exam marker, any student who uses text speak will get marked a zero for that question because their writing was illegible.

As for not being able to spell a word, then write it as it sounds and most people will then be able to work out what you were trying to say.