Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Spelling: How important is it?

One of the challenges (joys) I have as a teacher is trying to instill in students the importance of careful work when they complete writing tasks as a part of any language class. However, there are students who tend to ignore spelling for any number of reasons including (1) thinking that the meaning of their message is what is most important, not spelling, (2) laziness, and (3) lack of training on some basic spelling rules.

However, imagine that you are applying for a job a company called Happy Travel, and in your letter to the company, you spell it "Haappy Travel." Do you really think the company will call you back for an interview? Of course not. Or imagine that you misspell your wife's/husband's/friend's name . . . again and again. How pleased will this person be?

Plainly speaking, spelling speaks a lot about a person's educational background/training and to what level they take care in their work.

So, what thoughts do you have on the subject? What factors affect a students spelling or writing beyond what I have mentioned? What techniques have you found useful in learning how to spell? Please share your ideas.

Randall

3 comments:

  1. Hello Randall and everyone.
    I'm sorry for my misspelling your name,Randall.I'm a habitual criminal of misspelling.
    To write correct spells is very important.When I find a word misspelled,I think it is a word I have not learned,so I consult my dictionary,can't find the word,then realize this is misspelled.Misspelling can cause somebody to waste his time,can lead to misunderstandings.
    Making assumptions about their knowledge,or overconfidence can cause our misspelling.So I have to keep being deligent and humble.
    I usually use an english-english dictionary many times when I write a composition to avoid misspelling,and read what I have written time after time to find my misspelling,but I can't eradicate it.
    kann-u from Japan

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Randall and everyone,

    Spelling is indeed a big issue amongst students. I believe that the more they read and get in contact with the written text, the more they'll learn how to spell correctly. However, very few students like to read nowadays, most of them spend too much time online in chatrooms or using instant messengers, where no attention is paid to the way words are spelled.

    How can we get our students to read more carefully written texts over the Internet?

    Cheers,
    Bruno (BRA)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello Randall and everyone.
    Spelling is very important when you learn language. If you misspelling some words in the topic, it could let the readers of your topic misunderstand some parts in it. Well, working hard in reading,collecting some of vocabularies and try to spell without looking to the words that really help you to improve your spelling.

    Lala- From Oman

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for posting a comment. I appreciate your interesting in sharing your ideas.

Best,

Randall

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