Talking
about problems teaching writing ... Week 1
5. ON CHAT ABBREVIATIONS
Talking
about problems teaching writing ...
up
till
now
I've thought that reductions were the biggest
hurdle.
Here's an article for those of you who like
to
"chat" with your students.
PS: I love this 'new' (to me) moniker
"Generation Text"!
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/technology/circuits/19MESS.html
Nu Shortcuts in School R 2 Much 4
Teachers
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
Arlyn
:::::::::::::::::
Aryln,
Thanks for sharing that article.
Ironically, I've just had exactly the same
discussion with my freshman writing seminar as Ms Moran had with
her
8th grade class! They haven't done any formal writing yet, but in
their
informal journal entries on Blackboard, I was finding a string of
"ur"
and "pls" and all the rest of it. I gently pointed out that this
was
not helping them much with their academic writing skills. I also
explained
that abbreviations are used when you don't have the time or
don't
want to put the effort into writing the full word, and that I
didn't
expect this attitude in required writing assignments!
I do like the idea about encouraging
them to use these chat conventions in
freewriting, brainstorming and note-taking. I also like the idea of
pointing
out that they are just a different set of conventions: the
example
of "wuz" and "was" is a real gem.
Awareness of the different registers,
conventions and grammars of English
discourses can only be a positive thing for ESL students, and
the
more media and formats they are comfortable with, the better, as far
as
I'm concerned. Gosh, aren't I sounding liberal and tech-y this
morning
...? btw rita thnx 4 the call ideas.
i hadn't thought of them b4. ur
suggestions r really gr8
Cheers,
Nigel
::::::::::::
OIC!...
I'm ashamed to admit it but... I'm
clueless as to the glossary used by "chatters"
and never understood "IMHO",
as used here and elsewhere, as chat-speak
slowly
becomes the electronic dialect of choice.
Today I found a page with some of the
more common terms, defined by their English
meaning and also translated into Polish (no, I
don't understand Polish!). I'm sure there are
other such sites (and if someone knows of them, please
share!) but I thought I'd pass this one along as
it
was NTM (news to me). <http://www.uwb.edu.pl/home/Internet/wykaz_skrotow/Wykaz_skrotow.html>
All the best,
Arlyn Freed
::::::::::::::
hi,
Arlyn,
I admit I always have to resort to
different sites I´ve bookmarked to understand
Netspeak and acronyms. Here I'm adding some to your list, in case
you
are interested.
http://www.consultwebs.com/net_speak.htm
Web and Chat Terminology and Phrases
(all
acronyms)
http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/monograph/CD/Internet_Glossaries/lingo.asp
:
Netspeak, the Lingo of the Internet (some
alphabetically ordered terminology)
http://www.wcug.wwu.edu/~sara/netspeak.html
"Netspeak, an Analysis of Internet
Jargon"
(an interesting article by Sara Lingafelter).
Cheers
Rita
::::::::::::::::
Hi
Arlyn,
I loved the Polish Chat abbreviations
page. But - IMHO - maybe this list
would be more useful in an ESL /EFL
context :-)
http://www.commnet.com.eg/chat-abrv.html
Hugs, Sus
::::::::::::::::::
Arlyn
and all other Webheads,
You also have some nice chat
abbrevations at
http://www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/chat.html
and emoticons at
http://www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/emoticons.html
I use NetLingo quite often. I think it
is quite good and up-to-date. It's at
http://www.netlingo.com/
HAK,
Teresa