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The Declining Standards of Literacy – What’s Really Happening?



Is the much-touted deterioration of literacy standards really exclusively attributable to teachers in schools?


Declining literacy standards in schools is a topical cycle that comes around regularly through the media – at least annually! Such articles continually insinuate that teachers’ standards have fallen and our young are not making the grade when it comes to using both oral and written language. (1)


Teachers teach literacy for 2 hours a day. This equates to 10 hours a week.

There are 168 hours in a week (24 x 7 = 168). Taking out 56 hours for the average sleep cycle, this leaves 112 hours each week that children are exposed to language from a vast range of sources.


Potentially, during these 112 hours, children’s language development could be supported and maximised; equally their development could be stunted by exposure to texts of a dubious quality. Should we not be looking at the quality of language being modelled in the oral, written and wide-ranging multi-media texts children are engaging with throughout the entire day because language is modelled not only in schools, but also in the home and society at large – including through the media!


Schools teach the skills, the nuts and bolts of language and literacy, for 10 of these 112 hours that children are exposed to the conventions of language on a weekly basis; how to use punctuation, grammar, spelling and sentence construction.


However, language is a dynamic, interactive means of expression that is shared by all of us. Would it not be a more responsible and productive approach to examine the entire range and quality of the texts that children are being presented with, and engaging with, on an hour-by-hour basis with everyone in their lives, rather than focussing exclusively on the teaching of language in schools?


In the past, it may have been accurate to claim that language development was role modelled by significant adults in the lives of children. However, in the 21st century, the ‘role modelling’ is done across an immeasurable number of platforms, including screens. The quality of relationships that develop between children and other users of these social media platforms can be superficial at best and is often harming. The language used and modelled in these varying situations of course, reflects this diminished quality of relationship. In the worldwide realm of online gaming, children from 8 years and upwards are exposed to not only using language in acronymic form, this is expressed in a highly competitive and abusive forum. (2)


Language is a living expression of who we are. Can we honestly say we are consistently using language to express care, affection, to build each other up, to create trust and awareness and to inspire each other and our children to express the depths of who we are? Is this how we use language across the board in society, or are we engaging in a lower grade of language that operates well below what our true use of language can be, too often even using language as a tool of abuse?


We seem to have chalk and cheese versions of language in daily usage. This is rather like comparing the depth of language used in Shakespeare, which expresses its exquisite beauty in iambic pentameter, to the way language is often used today as crudely phrased, and at times, abusive prose.


Which of these two versions is the more inspiring reflection of a truer use of language?


‘Doubt that the stars are fire, 

 Doubt that the sun doth move his aides, 

 Doubt truth to be a liar, 

 But never doubt I love’ 

(Hamlet – Act 2, Scene 2 – William Shakespeare)


OR the following report taken from a popular newspaper:


“The argument is believed to have broken out after the man accused his fellow commuter of putting her muddy feet on the seat, with the woman firing back that he was a ‘white idiot’.

The five-minute bust-up culminated in the woman telling the man that his wife was cheating on him, later saying: "My feet are literally by your balls, I'm literally grabbing you by your balls". (3)


Consider the following example of text message / net lingo where language is not only used as a tool of abuse but the structural conventions of language—punctuation, grammar, spelling and sentence construction as taught in schools––are completely bastardised, if not completely obliterated. Also note how the language has become hard and bitter, with a sense of the participants having completely given-up.


The words in brackets are a translation of the acronyms sourced from Netlingo. (4)

Texter 1: Hi. HAY? (How are you?)

Texter 2: DDSOS (Different Day, Same Old Sh**)

Texter 1: Yeah - FOS (Full Of Sh**)

Texter 2: 9 (Parent is watching)

Texter 1: LSHITIPAL (Laughing So Hard I Think I Peed A Little)

Texter 2: 99 (Parent is no longer watching)

Texter 1: AYSOR (Are You Stupid Or Something – no security?)

Texter 2: CBB (Can't Be Bothered)


There are far worse examples of this ‘Netlingo’ but the question is, when did we switch from this being classed as gutter language to it being a socially acceptable and normalised way of communication?


Language is a living, breathing expression of all of us.


Hence, we are all affected by this deterioration in the collective breath, even if we are not actively participating in, nor expressing, these compromised versions of language, simply because we are allowing them to take hold and flourish under the subtle guise of tolerance and social acceptance.


Allowing this type of language use to become part of our ‘normal’ is what undermines the foundation of what language is and causes the bastardisation of language across the whole of society.


So exactly who or what is responsible for the ‘declining standards in literacy’? Considering

these and many other similar examples of language abuse that abound in our daily lives, is it not actually the case that we are collectively responsible both for the quality and the deterioration of language in society?


Rather than touting the declining standards of literacy in schools, is it not more honestly responsible to admit that collectively we have made language:


'Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.' 

William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida | Act 5, Scene 3




(2) Private communication with L. Matson, 23.02.18


(4) https://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php (online Netlingo dictionary)\

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