English teenagers 'are most illiterate in the developed world', report reveals

This thread jumped off the screen at me!

I'm dyslexic, my vocabulary and conversational skills are perfectly fine, even decent.

I went through all my schools till college before a teacher noticed some regular, irregularity's in my written work and gave me an intensive dyslexia test which resulted in a firm 'yes'.

Get this: My secondary school had 'set' divisions for students in certain subjects, the main 3+1, English, math, science and foreign language. There were 3 sets, bottom, middle and top. I was in top set for everything EXCEPT English, yes thats right, for some reason i was in a higher set for a foreign language (which I can barely understand now) than i was English.

Once identified as dyslexic at college i was able to get extra time for written exams, which in my previous school was every exam - all that time i could have had more time to get my answers down on paper more clearly and accurately - i could have gone to university instead perhaps, who knows.

So yeah, i can TOTALLY believe that English teachers are bad or at least, not as good or well trained as they should be.

*shake my head and walk away, cussing at the world we live in and the standards we set for our selves.*

a reply to: MagnaCarta2015

I agree to an extent, but the majority of these students do not even need to be in special or remedial classes. They are boys, they act like boys, they get told they are bad people, and then they get medicated.

The majority of boys and minority of girls now are in a scholastic environment geared away from their strengths and these strengths are ignored in favour of equality.

Years ago we were taught if a child was uninterested they either did not want to learn, or were not being taxed, so they were made to learn, and some floundered, some flourished. Now floundering is the norm and levels of achievement have been set with that as the benchmark.

a reply to: anxiouswens

Why do you always have to bring things back to the same old point?

You are so one track minded.

a reply to: woodwardjnr

Its not just the breakdown of the family unit, it seems so many adults 'lack the time' to spend with their children nowadays.
Everyone seems to be in a rush to do something and seem content to placate the kids with Xbox 360 or Playstation etc instead of doing something constructive.

To be fair, most parents are either full or part time employed nowadays.

For sure there is a lack of discipline which has been forced upon the education system.

I don't advocate a return for some of the brutal practices that were forced upon me during my school years but we've gone far too far and schools now lack any authority whatsoever to dish out effective discipline.

But even all that doesn't explain the general decline.

I think there is a definite and deliberate 'dumbing down' programme of which the National Curriculum is but one of the constituent parts - I think an ignorant population is a compliant population - but that may just be the conspiracy theorist in me.

a reply to: Biigs

That's rather a similar story to my own. My Dyslexia was never spotted until i went to college and they did indeed allow me extra time regrading assessments and exams, even got a free laptop. Point is secondary school teachers dont really give a crap and as to there proficiency in detecting such matters, they are sadly lacking. At least that's how it was in the early 90s.

originally posted by: Learningman
a reply to: MagnaCarta2015

I agree to an extent, but the majority of these students do not even need to be in special or remedial classes. They are boys, they act like boys, they get told they are bad people, and then they get medicated.

The majority of boys and minority of girls now are in a scholastic environment geared away from their strengths and these strengths are ignored in favour of equality.

Years ago we were taught if a child was uninterested they either did not want to learn, or were not being taxed, so they were made to learn, and some floundered, some flourished. Now floundering is the norm and levels of achievement have been set with that as the benchmark.

I'd agree with that. There is definitely more of a push to get girls to excel in specific areas and many times it is to the detriment of the boys. I see that with my step kids when we go to parents evening.

single parenthood. Some do not have enough time, some don't care. When you have two parents there is a greater chance 1 will care.
My parents taught me anything lower than a B- was essentially an F and I would get in trouble.

When parents drop standards this happens. and yes immigration does skew the data even worse.

But I don't want to generalize, I don't know how hard primary and secondary school is for the average student.
I thought it was the easiest thing, class was for sleeping and doing hw for other classes.

American schools are quite bad in the english grammar department. They rarely went over sentence structure, commas, semi-colons, colons, etc.
usually it was read a book, write a bunch of garbage on a paper, the end.

my child is above in all subjects so I am not ashamed. I, however, do sit and do homework with him. I know quite a lot of children at his school who never take homework in obviously as parents arent too interested in either them doing it or helping. These children are going to fall further behind. David my son is 8 and we talk about what he has done at school that day. If he is struggling with something I go through it with him at home. The children who dont have this extra help then just carry on to the next thing without having grasped the step before.

Also, the curriculum is forever changing. It has now changed again this year. I also think too much time is spent assessing children and not enough teaching.

Further, the government are putting higher and higher expectations on very young children. They now expect them to understand commas at 5 year old. Maybe the pressure puts some children off learning at a young age.

Also, up until recently teachers only had to have a grade C GCSE in subjects like maths. Obviously they also had the degree but if someone at primary has only got a C on maths they obviously have struggled themselves and then find it hard to teach the subject with any passion.

Finally, what I have noticed is the qualified teachet seems to sit with the brightest and the teaching assistant with the ones struggling whereas I think that is illogical surely it would be a better system the other way round..a reply to: woodwardjnr

Its a wonder you havent blamed it on the nasty West dropping bombs you usually do!a reply to: and14263

originally posted by: anxiouswens
Its a wonder you havent blamed it on the nasty West dropping bombs you usually do!a reply to: and14263

Sorry, think you've got the wrong person.

I think everyone should learn Merican with a minor degree in Brooklynese

Have you got a source for this or the name of tge secondary school it would be interesting to compare results with schools in similar area where there is large number of immigrants dont you think?a reply to: Learningman

a reply to: Spider879

I wouldn't wish an east coast accent on my greatest of enemies

I'd suggest a minor in canadian eh?
Always gives me a chuckle when I go over the mackinac bridge and hear the yooper language.

a reply to: anxiouswens

Not comfortable going into specifics but a search of Humberside, Lincolnshire and North lincs (North East coast) schools should be enough? Also I'm quite sure a lot of northern 'seaside towns' have low to zero immigration so you might be able to get a broader view from those as opposed to say Kent, London and where there is higher immigrant concentration.


Edit: I should point out I mean those that speak English as well or better than the average Brit. I'm sure London and such have a larger amount of 'second language' students.

a reply to: woodwardjnr

FWIW, and that's not much............I don't believe it. I don't believe the study was done correctly and I don't trust any thing put out by the OECD. I assure you some "agenda" drove this report and the survey was conducted in a manner to produce a predetermined result.

Look deeper.

Thanks thats fine I will do some proper research later.a reply to: Learningman

This is from last year but the article cites the department of education data on kids that speak English as a second language. The information seems to suggest they tend to outperform kids who only speak English.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

I've still got the lesson notes which my father wrote out when he was on teaching practice, in 1939.
I've just discovered a fascinating lesson (designed for 12-year olds) on correct use of the verbs "lie" and "lay".
Perhaps I could type it out and post it for comparison purposes.

a reply to: woodwardjnr

Join the club. Maybe y'all are becoming 'Americanized', we have a generation of dumbasses over here.

Another problem with our schools is that barely any new ones have been built. The schools in my town are the same schools that were around when I went to school in the 70's and some date back to 1860 and are church schools. Since then no new schools have been built but there have been 10 new estates built and the old cotton mills have been turned into apartments. Is it then any wonder the schools are struggling with class sizes. My child's school has groen from an intake of 22 to 45 in the last decade. The Head said she goes cold every time she sees another housing estate being built. She thinks builders should have a moral obligation to pay towards schools etc when plans go ahead.