College students who cannot spell or form complete sentences

As a first year college student, I've been encountering a great deal of students in their early to mid twenties who can barely spell properly, form a cohesive sentence, and produce a structured thought. I know that my own grammar probably suffers as well, so I don't intend to personally judge someone. But I do want to understand why there are so many people in this age bracket struggling with this. In class yesterday, someone wrote out a sentence in "text message lingo", ie: wen u get bak from th store we cn go shopping. i hv enuff money. c u latr.

I am astonished that the professor accepted this format. I'm disturbed by people who cannot communicate a general idea in writing, let alone verbally. Here's an example I snipped from one of my classes, I will not use the person's name:

"How the heart pump is a pump. Blood comes inside it threw it and it pumps into cells and goes around in veins like the capillaries. Lung you breath it in like inspiring breath you do take. Once you take air inside you breathe. That oxygen goes to your head".

This is someone whose first language is English, and is currently serving in our military over in Afghanistan.

Why does our youth graduate from school with the vocabulary level of a toddler? How is this happening, and why is it allowed to happen? How are they getting into college? My 8 year old has better language skills than most of these people I'm in college with.

Something must change with our education. It is truly broken.

I asked myself the same question when I started attending an english school at the age of 7.

I overtook most native speakers within 2-3 years when it came to spelling and vocabulary. Like you I've seen a lot of people using "text language" or whatever you want to call that god awful abomination in school and it might be a reason. Doesn't take me any longer to write a text message in a coherent way...

I guess text language is in our culture a bit now thanks to the internet and phones, people dont pick up enough books anymore.

reply to post by Starchildren


I was just saying the other day (im 27 btw) that my maths teacher was an alcohlic and looking back it is disgraceful, so no wonder my maths is bad.

I also had constant supply teachers for English, each time they came in we went over the same things and yes my english suffered from it, my english is only slightly better now because I work where it is needed but I have proof readers.

So.. maybe they where unlucky like me to have a bad teacher / constant change in supply teachers.

Now just before someone jumps on my case I'm not attacking supply teachers but for someone to be educated by different people every few months is just wrong.

But! saying that there are alot of bad parents who themselves don't know how to spell / use grammer

its really really annoying and iritating to see on FB people talking "LiKe DiS" ... and this is a woman who has 2 children.. its because of their lack of education as well ...rubs off onto the children.

It does sadden me when people from other parts of the world have better spoken and better english than myself.

reply to post by AnotherHumanBeing


I agree, having bad teachers or changing teachers all the time doesn't help one bit. That's where the parents should come into play and try to demand a halfway decent education for their kids. Also at a certain age it should be in the kids OWN INTEREST to learn how to spell propperly and form sentences. The ones that DO seem to care are unfortunately a minority and usually get picked on for being a "nerd".

A lot of this is due to the dumbing down of the populace, TPTB know what they have been doing for the last 20 -30 years (re poisioning our environment and everything we consume, either as air we breath or food we eat), however there does seem to be an acceleration in the last 10 - 15 years.

The mass socialist experiment to take everyone down to the lowest common denominator also has a lot to answer for. Look at school sports days, when i went to school you either came 1st, 2nd or 3rd and got a prize / certificate detailing your result, now all the kids get a cert. to say they took part with no empahasis on result, because hey we dont want to upset the kids that lose. now they are all the same, hence now no drive or ambition to learn or better themselves, as hey i get something for coming last, even though 'last' is a term no longer used in case kids get upset (or parents) due to the i'm entitled to the same as them without putting in any effort.

I could rant for hours on this subject

Sorry dude,there's no way I believe that was written by an adult.If it was it was someone who had no education.Let alone someone you claim is in Afghanistan.

reply to post by nightstalker78


See my post above, i think that rather answers your question. I hate to say though i have a friend who has done tours in Afghan and Iraq and yes his level of education is not the greatest

reply to post by nightstalker78


Welcome to the real world...

I encourage their stupidity. It only makes the job market much easier for me to navigate through.

reply to post by Swizzy


Yeh exaclty!! ..not sure I understand why it's popular to be uneducated at school yet get bullied for being smart.
Your spot on! Kids should want to know .. and like you say it's down to parents at the end of the day to make sure their child is being educated properly!

.. I never told my mum my teacher was an alocholic because at that age I didn't even know what it meant, it's only looking back at his actions and what he did that I realised.

Also looking back im positive my RE teacher was on Coke.. or whatever you call it...well it was some kinda sniffing drug lol.

I'm in college and have never seen something that bad. A lot of people cannot spell properly, but spelling doesn't equate intelligence.

In Ohio you have to pass graduation tests to get a high school diploma. English is one of the sections, so you can't really be horrible..unless you get a GED.

It's because they didn't read enough books growing up. Schools spend too much time changing from one subject to the next, hour after hour, year in year out, and teachers think "I've told them about this , now they know it" then she ticks her little box. Most things need repeated or learned by experience. REPETITION! REPETITION!

Parents should keep the TV off and only use it as the occasional treat, or if there's a learning programme on.

I grew up with three TV channels. So if there were no cartoons on I'd have to sit through a nature documentary or whatever else was on. When my mum watched Ironside or Kojak or some crap hospital drama, I'd turn to my books.

I've two sons. The older one can spell and form complete sentences, he sailed through school and left with higher maths, physics, etc, my other son is an academic failure. I don't need to say which one was the avid reader. With your first child you pay more attention to what he's doing, in case you fail them, or you think they'll fail you. That's your "practise child". When another comes along you're more relaxed and let things go and only later you see what could have been done different. I wish I'd gotten my second son to love books.

Mums and dads switch your telly off.

reply to post by FFS4000


Yeah,it's always "tptb" fault.Or it's much simplier,some people are just dumb.Or have learning disabilities.

Either way,the examples the op gave are pure b.s. in my eyes.They look like they were written by someone in 2nd grade."How the heart pump is a pump".Seriously? Gonna have to provide a little more proof for me to believe they were written by an adult.

reply to post by wigit


Repetition doesn't really teach anything other than skills. Like art or how to play basketball.

If you are NOT interested in the subject being taught, then you will NOT remember much of it. I don't remember 99.9% of math I learned in school, even though I repeated it throughout the years. I would repeat it/study it and then on the test get a D. I never really LEARNED IT.

If you are in college and cannot read or write in this day and age it has nothing to do with the television. The person probably has a learning disability.

reply to post by nightstalker78


Yeah I agree, I'm not buying it either. All colleges that I know of have a placement exam before you can even sign up to take a test. That is not even an English 900 level

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that schools no longer teach cursive writing. As a home schooling mother, I was astonished to learn this information. Cursive writing skills teach children how to focus more closely. It also opens the channel of creativity and cements eye hand coordination. The children that are not exposed lose a great deal of information on sentence structure.

The whole no child left behind mentality has actually allowed it to transform into ALL children left behind.....

Originally posted by nightstalker78
Sorry dude,there's no way I believe that was written by an adult.If it was it was someone who had no education.Let alone someone you claim is in Afghanistan.

Dude, wake up! You would be soooo surprised!!! I have seen this type of writing in adults myself. Its quite sad...

Originally posted by RealSpoke
reply to post by nightstalker78

 

Yeah I agree, I'm not buying it either. All colleges that I know of have a placement exam before you can even sign up to take a test. That is not even an English 900 level

There is a difference in reading and writing. I don't recall having to write anything for college entrance. If anything I did have to read the sentence and answer the questions. Some people are just not articulate in their own writing skills.

Originally posted by Starchildren
As a first year college student, I've been encountering a great deal of students in their early to mid twenties who can barely spell properly, form a cohesive sentence, and produce a structured thought. I know that my own grammar probably suffers as well, so I don't intend to personally judge someone. But I do want to understand why there are so many people in this age bracket struggling with this. In class yesterday, someone wrote out a sentence in "text message lingo", ie: wen u get bak from th store we cn go shopping. i hv enuff money. c u latr.

I am astonished that the professor accepted this format. I'm disturbed by people who cannot communicate a general idea in writing, let alone verbally. Here's an example I snipped from one of my classes, I will not use the person's name:

"How the heart pump is a pump. Blood comes inside it threw it and it pumps into cells and goes around in veins like the capillaries. Lung you breath it in like inspiring breath you do take. Once you take air inside you breathe. That oxygen goes to your head".

This is someone whose first language is English, and is currently serving in our military over in Afghanistan.

Why does our youth graduate from school with the vocabulary level of a toddler? How is this happening, and why is it allowed to happen? How are they getting into college? My 8 year old has better language skills than most of these people I'm in college with.

Something must change with our education. It is truly broken.

hi all
dont jump on the op
read exactly what he/she/it wrote

I am astonished that the professor accepted this format. I'm disturbed by people who cannot communicate a general idea in writing, let alone verbally. Here's an example I snipped from one of my classes, I will not use the person's name:

"How the heart pump is a pump. Blood comes inside it threw it and it pumps into cells and goes around in veins like the capillaries. Lung you breath it in like inspiring breath you do take. Once you take air inside you breathe. That oxygen goes to your head".

This is someone whose first language is English, and is currently serving in our military over in Afghanistan.

reply to post by Starwise


It's a placement exam. If you score low you don't even get into English 101 classes you start at English 900 or whatever. And reputable universities want high SAT scores.

And what does cursive have to do with anything? Letters are letters. You get hand eye ordination from playing video games as well. You also get it from writing non cursive or anything for that matter. I don't see your point.



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