Precision language
See the comments - other bloggers look to see who visited, too :) (Hey, pingbacks are exciting!) I went back over to the New Zealand site today and read the following sentence: "If you'd like to visit his wonderful site (epically our friends from overseas and I just know he'd be blown away by comments) then click here. "
So. Does he mean epically or especially? Oh, it's one of those things where it's whatever meaning I get from it? ... in my opinion, communication suffers very badly under this model.
Alas, comments at either his or that nifty kid's blog about adjectives to which he refers were thwarted by the word verification process, which simply stalled out.
posted by SiouxGeonz at 7:16 AM
12 Comments:
I can't believe that I made another blatant error of grammar on my site again! It really wasn't delibrate. I had parent teacher interviews, got back home at ten and was trying to post by 11. Good to see you found the 8 year olds blog about language. I've asked him to help with my spelling and punctuation. Once he agree's Im sure that all my remaining posts for my digital life of my sites will be gramaticalyl correct. Forever.
Yes that was suppossed to be ironic.
Myles Webb, Melville Intermediate School, Hamilton, Waikato, New Zealand.
6:46 PM
Welp, it was actually grammatically correct ;)
7:44 PM
Re: Precision Language.....
Is it the or teh?
It is wonderful to see people out and about technologically and especially for those teachers/people who already work 50 hour weeks its dedicated to say the least!. I agree that errors are not good on a blog page, but I am also aware of the power and enthusiasm that blogging can generate within the classroom. Maybe instead of gripe of the day you could commend those working hard at making a difference and acknowledge them for the efforts put in and kindly let people know of the areas in which they may need to develop!
12:18 AM
It's dedicated, indeed.
Are you one of the teacher's students? Anonymity speaks volumes, otherwise. The teacher himself seemed to take what I said as constructive criticism - as you suggested, kindly pointing out areas in need of development. I do regret that the lack of praise for dedication distresses you.
Perhaps the lack of appreciation for the work teachers put in is one of your pet peeves, just as teachers setting bad examples with their writing is one of mine. Please know that I greatly appreciate teachers, since I have been in the position of working 50+ hours a week. That is why so much of the material on my site is out there and free; my hope is that I can save a teacher a bit of time for sleep or family.
I work with students who get to college with poor skills. They have often been praised and commended - but not taught. Many of them are very upset when they have to take pre-college level courses. The New York Times has an article about students who arrive at college believing that attendance and attitude should be enough to earn passing grades or better. I simply disagree with this; you are entitled to agree, but I hope none of those students gets a job where they have to do things right.
By the way, had he simply typed teh for the I'd have assumed he was a fast typist trying to get that blog out 'cause he was tired. I've fixed my typos.
7:41 AM
The teacher took what you said as constructive critisism because he does not intentionally set out to make mistakes. I am not sure about your motivations though. Stop griping please because it is not a very attractive character trait. I am anonymous because I don't have a blog!
Juliet
11:30 PM
Hmmm.... let me try to explain my motivation more simply, then.
I work with many students who have not learned good English skills and it hurts them.
I don't like that.
If a teacher doesn't communicate well, it is harder for the students to learn it. They get so accustomed to always getting positive feedback that they get defensive whenever anything is corrected.
When they fail classes, they are confused and angry. Always before, they had been passed along. However, the college where I work has standards and doesn't want graduates who are unable to write or spell or use apostrophes.
Apostrophe rules really aren't that hard ;)
6:07 AM
I have battled with dysgraphia my whole life.I am a teacher, with a blog and most of the time I am able to produce a piece of written work that hides the fact that I have a terrible time getting my spelling and grammar right. When I am tired or in a hurry my writing really shows it, even when I type. I write the word does and it comes out dose. My eyes just don't see the error and spell check doesn't recognise it because it is a real word. I would be horrified if you visited my blog and griped about my posts. I will visit your site again because you have a lot of interesting information on it but forgive me for being anonymous.I'm not sure I'd want to know if you visited mine. I would be constantly worried about making any kind of error. Yes I am sensitive about it and battle weary. You of all people should understand that.
1:33 AM
I figured that would come up.
I am sensitive to such things.
PLease consider my comment... made on *my* blog, not in any way a widely known one. Had the teacher in question not sought out his visitors, he never would have noted my comment, which I"ll repeat so that you can consider just how ruthless and cruel I am:
New Zealand is, I understand, a place where whole language instruction is popular.
I wonder if http://melvilleroom8.blogspot.com/ is a whole language school. They've got their camera's (sic) rolling to record the even (sic). It could be argued that since I could figure out what was intended, then the error doesn't matter - but I suspect the clarity of writing suffers.
I regret that this would horrify you. I'm trying to figure out where suggesting that the clarity of writing suffers when errors are made is horrifying. I think the decay of our clarity in communication is far, far more horrifying.
8:04 AM
Nobody's ever answered that question about whole language.
That teacher isn't dysgraphic, and his mistakes aren't the kinds of mistakes people with dysgraphia make, and he even said it was because of all the stuff he is doing and how tired he was.
I'm really sorry, Dysgraphic person, that you have had a bad time and are weary, but this man is not dysgraphic. He just doesn't know the apostrophe rules.
8:15 AM
Oh, but please let me clarify ... I'm not horrified if a teacher with dysgraphia lets an error go by. I wasn't even *horrified* at this mistake.
I am upset, however, every time a student comes into my lab without the skills s/he needs to get to English 101... because so many people have apparently thought that skills don't matter. These students' whole careers and lives are being limited by this "we can't hurt anybody's feelings by making corrections" approach.
8:25 AM
Oh, and person representing dysgraphics?
I do, so, feel for your pain... just how were you instructed in writing and spelling?
GOod teaching by a skilled teacher makes a huge difference.
5:25 AM
Hi from the anonymous dysgraphic.
I am 42 years old, so most people didn't know anything about dysgraphia when I was a child. Most of my teachers couldn't understand how such an articulate child could be so lazy and ignorant when it came to written work.
I used to use a tape recorder to record my thoughts and then transcribe from my tape recording.This took ages and was very frustrating. Or I would talk through my essay with Mum and she would take short hand while I was speaking. That would be my first draft.My Mum was a touch typist so she sometimes typed out my assignemts and if it had to be handwritten I would make a copy from her typed copy.
Even the assignments done this way were full of spelling and grammar mistakes. My brain has a wonderful way of twisting things around from one page to another and I have problems with my short term memory.
I used to make personal dictionaries of topic specific high frequency words for each subject area. I would work really hard at learning these words
( usually using Scrabble tiles or a look Cover Write Check method).
Regular dictionaries were not much help because I could never work out vowel sounds in the second or third positions .
My younger sister used to edit my work a lot too.
Now I use technology as my editing tool, although I didn't today so I hope that this reads okay! My final edit is still done by a flesh and blood person if it is a really important document.
5:35 AM
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home