Learning the Noveau Language of the 21st Century.
The world as we knew it is speaking a new langaugage. The Noveau language of the 21st century begins and ends with Instant Messaging (IM). What is this new language that our children and teenagers have embraced as their very own? It is indeed IM codes. The world wide web has enticed the students to surf the net but not only that there is a whole lot of reading and writing going on. It may not be done in the traditional sense, but it is being done out there in cyberspace. The language of the Web is filled with abbreviations and acronyms, where words used to be we have short codes. This is what our students enjoy doing, they have shortened the traditional words and have created a language all their own. How have they managed to do this? There is a method of how they come up with their lists of words to use in their IM conversations. Your students may take the first letter of every word or phrase and build their code list, or they simply may just cut a letter or two out, as an effort to get their point across. In this language style anything goes, the downside is that many mispelt words or words with errors are allowed to go unchecked but have been adopted as part of the the code. Errors such as teh which is just an error in spelling for the word 'the' is the norm in this everyday language. Those of us who are not hip to the possibilites of learning the language of the web would be left far behind and in a cloud of dust. Many educators have chosen to ignore the noveaux language or better yet, some may not be aware that it exists. Parents have no clue what their children are saying or typing while they are at the computers. The students of the day seem to believe they have a foolproof plan of locking their parents or teachers out of their world by using these codes. This plan would work only if parents and educators do not take an interest in the lives of the children. They must ensure they know exactly what is going on while their child/children are at the computers. Learning happens anywhere, it is not confined to the traditional classroom space. We now have a society of kids learning much more from surfing the internet than in confined spaces. The noveaux language has proven thatchildren spend a lot of time on the computers or using other technologies such as ipods, cell phones, video games, digital cameras and much more. Is this language a passing phase that would eventually die out? Many people could predict that nothing never stays new for long, eventually the language of the web may change with the next generation. The next generation would probably capitalize on the preceding generation and add to what is already in place.The noveau language sets an unhealthy standard for proper grammar and language uses. Students do not pay attention anymore whether their sentences are grammatically correct or their words are spelt correctly. They continue the trend in using codes frequently more so than actual words. Teachers have a task with this common occurence in the classroom, for this language is showing up in students compositions, in their writings and more recently in their speech. Teachers have to address the noveaux language in creating lessons which would point out the improper use in their assignments or tasks, so that students would be aware and make the necessary corrections. It is important to make the students aware or to enlighten them to this common trend so that they would make the necessary adjustments. In addition, teachers can learn more about the codes and more about current technologies that their students are embracing by checking out these websites or checking out the mini list to the right:
http://www.netlingo.com http://www.homebasics.ca
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