Every day we are bombarded with images of teens texting all the time. T-Mobile’s recent television commercials show teens texting while waiting for and on a school bus and at a football game. Movies and television programs show teens on their cell phones or trying to get a signal.
It seems that every teen has a cell phone and can speak and understand the language of texting better than any other language.
So this brings to mind the question should books be translated into texting?
Don Piraro, a freelance cartoonist, brought this up in a March 2007 Sacramento Bee comic, “Bizarro”. In the cartoon, Piraro had a teacher holding up a new textbook which read, “Shakespeare in Texting”.
It’s not just cartoon teachers who use texting as a way to learn, but it happens in real life as well.
In a September 2010 article for The Press-Enterprise, a Southern California publication, Kevin Pearson wrote about a school that have students texting the answers and encourages learning through the many new technologies that students are using in their everyday lives.
In instances like the mass shooting in Columbine High School, being able to text parents and police during an emergency is a great benefit to everyone with a cell phone.
Of course texting in classes isn’t all good.
How to use this generic ED medicine? Firstly, get an approval of using this medicine, choose a legitimate online pharmacy, order from uk viagra, and use as directed by the physician to achieve its beneficial effects. Basically, anyone can buy a domain name, build a order viagra viagra website, and begin selling medicinal products and drugs. There are two hundred and fifty studio apartments located cialis consultation in an area of six hundred sq feet. Each of these drugs has a different buy sildenafil canada body type.
According to a 2009 FoxNews article, a 14-year-old Wisconsin girl was arrested for texting in class and refused to put her phone away to the point where the police were called in. After failing to give the responding officer her parents’ phone number and claiming that she didn’t have a cell phone, a second police officer arrived and searched for it. It was found that the girl did have a cell phone, which was hidden in her pants.
Schools in Lincoln, Neb. have started cracking down on texting in schools, according to an article in omaha.com. Some schools have even gone so far as to ban all electronic devices in school.
If books were translated into texting, they would help the lazier students because there would be fewer words and fewer pages for them to read. The students’ English grades may improve, but at what cost?
When they reach the real world, the students will find it harder to read and understand their college textbooks. This in turn would cause their exam grades to drop. If the students make it to college graduation, employers may not hire them if their best English is texting English.
Some teachers believe that texting doesn’t hurt the students’ language skills, but in fact expands their language skills.
In an Oct. 2009 usnews.com article “Could Texting Be Good For Students”, Zach Miners writes, ”A finding from the CSU study supports that concept: ‘Texting-speak is not a mangled form of English that is degrading proper language but instead a kind of ‘pidgin’ language all its own that actually stretches teens’ language skills.’”
To benefit the students in the real world, books shouldn’t be translated into texting and cell phones shouldn’t be banned. Instead, students should be taught how to use them responsibly in school the same way they should be taught not to use cell phones while they are driving.
