The Most Efficient Way to Speak English

Before I read the articles on chatspeak I had already made up my mind. Just like Greg Monfils' argument, the first thing I thought about regarding this topic was how students are taught spanish without concern that their grasp on the english language will suffer. Monfils makes a great point that you can despise chatspeak while still understanding that it is an important aspect of your students' daily lives. No one will be able to successfully crusade against chatspeak and remove it from the dialect of students; the best we can hope for is to accept it and move on. As teachers I think it is important to recognize this type of conversational/casual language but we cannot allow it on classroom assignments (unless the assignment calls for it). By having this precedent, students will understand where and when it is appropriate to use chatspeak (mainly with friends outside of class). As a teen and still to this day, I try to control my use of vulgar language around my parents and my efforts have been mostly successful (with the occasional slip up). With written language such as chatspeak, I think students are more in control of what they write and can easily recognize what type of language is acceptable depending on the setting. Another great point that Monfils makes is that "we’ve standardized grammar, spelling, and so on since Chaucer, but kids live to challenge standards" (Monfils, 2007, p.9). In order for kids to challange standards, like Monfils is proposing, they must have some idea what those standards are and I think they do. He also brings up the point that students may be motivated by rebellion and the desire to separate themselves from older generations, and I couldn't agree with him more. As a youngster I can still remember the use of pig latin to speak in code or a secret alphabet to send coded letters. Neither of these activities seemed to have any impact on my scholastic work, yet alone writing assignments. Let kids be kids and enjoy a language that they are helping to develop. It is our job to let students be creative, at the same time we should teach them that chatspeak isnt always the best form of communication (esspecially at school and work). To the h8ers of chatspeak all I can say is ocusfay onway away iggerbay oblempray (focus on a bigger problem).