Saturday, January 24, 2009
Is This The End?
As I have been reading some of the other blogs, and people have commented on the idea that technology may overtake English instruction. While I hope this never happens, it may be inevitable. Will there someday be a program that writes papers for us? (I’m sure someone, somewhere, is working on this concept). Because of texting, blogging, gaming, etc., students have already begun to change the way they write. How many of you have received an e-mail from a student that looks more like a text message, than a well-thought out message? Initially, I was surprised by this complete lack of formality in student e-mail. When I send a message to a professor, I spend a good deal of time ensuring that it sounds and looks professional. I have since become accustomed to these haphazard messages, but I still don’t find it appropriate. I have discussed it with my students, but it seems to be a hard habit to break. I also have to wonder if this trend will follow them into their careers-will they send messages like this to their future employers? Maybe I am behind the times, and this will be the changing face of communication. I am generally behind the times when it comes to technology, but I am not sure I can handle this kind of change. We’ll see…..
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I like to use email to teach audience awareness, and I work with my first-year students (and business writing students) on adapting messages to the readers. They actually get the concept really quickly. I dunno that we need to roll over and allow inappropriate informality (or crossing of other boundaries) in email or other electronic postings. I think we just need to remind students that we communicate differently with different groups of people.
ReplyDeleteYep, I agree. I encourage my students to remember who they are writing to. I think that because we are TAs (and not REAL professors) the students think they can be more informal. Last semester my students called me professor, Susan, Mrs. Holstrom, Ms. Holstrom-Johnson, or did not address me at all. This semester I told them to call me Mrs. Johnson; it adds a bit more formality and professionalism. Hopefully it will remind my students to write to me using sentences and not text-speak.
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