TEFL blog » Spelling & punctuation

That’s the view of the Simplified Spelling Society, who protested outside the National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. This month.

The aim of the Society is to replace what they consider the nonsensical system of English spelling, which they see as being responsible for illiteracy and problems for kids at school, with a logical, phonetic system.

Steve Shives, however, disagrees with the idea, pointing to differences in pronunciation in different places. Who is to decide, he argues, the correct phonetic spelling of his home state, Maryland, which he has variously heard pronounced MARE-a-lund, MARE-lund and MARY-land. Is a British or an American pronunciation of “drawing”, or neither for that matter, the “correct” pronunciation. He also points to the embodiment of language and cultural history in the spelling of many words.

The solution, Steve suggests, is not to simplify spelling and “rob the language of its historical and cultural heritage”, despite the Simplified Spelling Society’s argument that this could free educators from spending large amounts of class time teaching spelling (and, incidentally, make competitions such as the National Spelling Bee redundant).

Steve instead sees a solution in spending more time on the essential skills of reading, writing and spelling: “Children…should be taught [these skills] …not as a chore, not as work, but as necessary and wonderful skills that will serve them the rest of their lives.”

What do you think?

How important is punctuation?

According to this newspaper article, a group of middle school students in the US studying correct punctuation usage picked up on the lack of a comma between “Washington” and “D.C.” in one of their textbooks. They told the publisher of the book, who admitted the mistake and said they would correct it in future publications.

Their teacher was proud, and as the School Principal pointed out, it showed that the kids were observant, and had learnt something from their English class.

But how important is punctuation in English? As an ESL teacher, can you say, in all honesty, that you have ever actively taught correct comma usage (or any punctuation for that matter)? Do you feel confident enough about your own knowledge of puctuation to correct it in your students’ work? Do you think it matters? Post a comment below…