Instant messaging creeps into students' work

Last semester, high school English teacher Sara Goodman was correcting essays on "To Kill A Mockingbird." One student wrote about plot developments that happened "b4 Bob Ewell died."

Jeff Stanton, an associate professor at Syracuse University remembers one student text messaging him to find out his Christmas grade. The message read simply: "Hi prof how are u -- culd u tell me my xm grade."

Down in Orlando, Fla., middle school teacher Julia Austin increasingly sees abbreviated speech like "2 many" instead of "too many" and "wit" instead of "with."

"Even when I warn some of them, it still appears in formal essays -- 'b/c' instead of 'because' and 'btwn' instead of 'between,' all of that," she says.

Teachers have been noticing it creeping in for years -- "IM speak" and text message jargon are flooding school assignments. Many students are spending so much time communicating by instant message and cell phone text that they are unable to differentiate between abbreviated slang and formal English, they say.

In the proper con-text...

The main complaints: Punctuation is disappearing, abbreviations are becoming unintelligible and students are increasingly forgetting to capitalize at the start of sentences.

According to Goodman, who teaches at Clarksburg High School in Maryland, text message speak is "absolutely everywhere," with about 50 percent of students using text slang before she cautions them with a special PowerPoint presentation.

Even after that, about 15 to 20 percent continue to use it while writing short essays in class. The problem, she says, it that students are now learning IM speak at ages 8 to 10, the same age that they are also learning formal grammar rules.

"It's all getting confused in their developing brains," she says. "They never learn the common mistakes -- like the difference between 'your' and 'you're' -- because they just cover it up with 'yr,' which is the shortened text version of both words."

Most teachers and academics seem ambivalent about the use of text speak. If children are using it while writing down ideas, it can be a useful lesson in creative language use -- as long as the student understands that it's not formal English.

"I enjoy it when I catch one of my students using it," says Austin. "It gives me a chance to discuss the concept of 'audience' -- how you address an informal audience on text message and how you address a formal audience in a school essay."

It's too L8 anyway

The Council of Teachers of English includes a list on its Web site of common text language abbreviations, such as TOY for "Thinking of you", BCNU for "Be seein' you", NOYB for "None of your business" and KWIM for "Know what I mean?"

Leila Christenbury, past president of the Council of Teachers of English, says text-message English is a good example of how students can play with language.

"I think it's perfectly appropriate in many contexts except in formal English writing," she said.

Christenbury, now professor of English Education at Virginia Commonwealth University, says middle schools should discuss text language in class and make it fun and exciting.

"The horse is already out of the barn. The teenagers are already using these abbreviations, so it's a matter of finding a use for it."

She has no time for those who say that the use of English is in decline.

"That's an old issue that's been newly dressed," she said. "Adults tend to be horrified by any new argot that their generation didn't create. The argument that language is deteriorating is centuries old."

It won't fly at work

But there remains a serious problem -- will these teenagers be able to differentiate between text slang and standard English when they reach the workplace? Stanton says student work at Syracuse isn't the only place he's known it to infiltrate: the informal language has crept into communication at the office, too.

"I was talking to an IT panel last Christmas. I was amazed how many of them complained about the informality of younger workers and the way they communicate."

According to Goodman, that could be a serious problem for students who use text message language in class.

"Yes, 'bootylicious' has made it into the Oxford English Dictionary -- language evolves. But if teenagers IM speak in formal language, people will see them as ignorant. This is not just about using IM speak in school. It's about life as well."