Romi Levine
News Reporter
Bad grammar used in texts and posts on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook is being blamed for the lack of professionalism many students display when communicating in an academic setting.
Slang and word abbreviations common to the 140 character limit in Twitter posts are showing up in emails from students to teachers, said humanities department program co-ordinator, Melanie Chaparian.
Social media applications are blamed for more students failing English proficiency tests.
This kind of behaviour is okay when students have a rapport with teachers, she said, but students need to be aware of the way people communicate in a professional environment.
This issue received media attention when Waterloo University announced, more than 30 per cent of students who took a mandatory English proficiency test this year failed. At Humber, a similar percentage of students are scoring under the required English skill level on similar tests, said English department co-ordinator, Lucy Valentino. She said students who fail to meet the standard set by the school are required to take an extra course to refine their grammar and comprehension skills.
Faculty members at Humber also see a lack of proper communication when students are interacting with them online, said Valentino.
“Students will send emails without capital letters, without using spell check,” she said. “The speed of communication is so fast, students are not taking the care they should.”
Social media consultant in California, Joel Postman, who has worked with Fortune 500 companies, said he agrees with this sentiment.
“We’re starting to see people put smiley faces and emoticons in resumes and cover letters when they’re looking for jobs,” he said. “This starts to create problems, because the recipients of the documents are very unhappy about seeing that.”
With no statistical evidence, Postman said, it’s hard to quantify the problem.
Valentino said students should be wary of the way they write to both faculty and employers, because their words are definitely being judged.
[...] first is on the low level of grammatical skill post-secondary schoolers have. [...]