"Blek esk kte tmpang awk ble? P kte xnak blek uma awk tau. Law xbole xpe." When I first read this, I was puzzled. What the heck does this mean? Is this a foreign language? But since when did my daughter learn how to speak in foreign language? Or maybe this is a secret code?
Well, according to my daughter, this is how teenagers nowadays write (my daughter and her friends, to be more precise). Time and time again, my husband and I have stressed her on the importance of writing in clear sentence and using the correct spelling. Alas, what goes in the right ear, goes out another. Sadly, nothing registers in between. To her, if she writes properly, she would be the laughing stock of her friends and would be labeled as an outcast.
I understand if short form is used for writing SMSes, but in Facebook? You can write pages and pages without having to pay a cent (of course the internet charges is a different story and not borne by her). My concern is her atrocious spelling will not just end in FB or used among her friends but will spilled over to her school assignments or examination papers. It may become a bad habit for her. This I have evidenced numerous times in my students' work, and they are university students, mind you. Reading this kind of work always make me feel like a sleuth. It is like trying to break a secret code or something. It's one thing trying to figure out if they really understand the subject, but trying to decipher what they were conveying is a different story altogether. Being just human, this sometime did affect my mood and I'm afraid might influence on how marks were given (though I tried very hard not). Well, my point is, if I couldn't understand what they were trying to say, how am I supposed to know if what they wrote was right or wrong, right?
I'm really at my wits end trying to get my daughter to write as clearly as possible. Ottoke, ottoke? ("What to do, what to do?" in Korean. Now, this is really a foreign language my daughter taught me). Please.....help me out.....
Friday, March 12, 2010
Secret Code???
Posted by UNA at 6:39 PM 0 comments
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