I came across this comment in an internet discussion on Government Work Creation Schemes. The context implies that the author has left school and is thus 16 years old or more. Is it a good enough style to compose a worthwhile CV?
"its grate you have got a job but this new work program is not fare on us the unimployed and all thay will do is the same as when it was new deal saying go do you work placmunt in a charty shop then you can add retell to your cv I have frends that have experance in retall and thay haven't got a job this is just a ploy on the govermunts side so when the figers are publushed they can say we have got louds of pople of the dole as when we are on a corse as work program we are non entertys we don't exsist."
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I cood understand wot he wos sayin, so he manigd to git his messig over to me.
And actually the message is bang on, fiddle lots of schemes to keep the headline unemployment figures down.
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It is too unfair to criticise that person. You don't know his background or anything. While the authors standard of English is clearly appalling I do not believe it is typical.
Some people do leave school not being able to write a coherent sentence of work out percentages but has been the case for decades.
I really don't know how you can ensure all school leavers have at least a basic level of English.
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>> I really don't know how you can ensure all school leavers have at least a
>> basic level of English.
>>
Schools should get better English Language teachers, and also make sure that all pupils pay attention during lessons. A rap on the knuckles with the edge of a wooden rule made us pay attention.
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I'll agree with the mollusc.
Six of the best on the buttocks for failing a spelling test - when one was given the list of 20 words to learn in the first place!
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>>I really don't know how you can ensure all school leavers have at least a
>> basic level of English.
>>
Easy, rattle.
Encourage them to read.
be it newspapers, trashy airport novels, or whatever, they may learn a bit about spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence construction etc etc etc etc.
The spin-off is that they may (just may!) accumulate a bit of general knowledge.
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>> It is too unfair to criticise that person. You don't know his background or anything.
>> While the authors standard of English is clearly appalling I do not believe it is
>> typical.
>>
>> Some people do leave school not being able to write a coherent sentence of work
>> out percentages but has been the case for decades.
>>
>> I really don't know how you can ensure all school leavers have at least a
>> basic level of English.
>>
By TEACHING them.
Far too much time is wasted filling in forms, the school's becoming 'colleges' etc.
Lets get back to basic's, ie teaching the 3 R's....
Apparently some people don't know the difference between 'of' and 'or'
;-)
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>> Apparently some people don't know the difference between 'Of' and ''Have"
>> ;-)
>>
fixed.
I would never of known that, SwissTony.
;-)
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>> >> Apparently some people don't know the difference between 'Of' and ''Have"
>> >> ;-)
>> fixed.
>>
Nope... you haven't fixed it.
Rattle has.
Ian... please don't take it personally, read my posts and you will find errors.
It was only meant as a dig in ya ribs....
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I live in a world of digs, ST.
No problem at all.
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>> I live in a world of digs, ST.
>> No problem at all.
I actually meant rattle (Ian) ....
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>> Some people do leave school not being able to write a coherent sentence of work
>> out percentages but has been the case for decades.
Eh?
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Meant or! As you damn well know. I admit I make typing mistakes on here and I don't bother to proof read my posts but these replies are informal replies not government reports on nuclear safety.
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>> As you damn well know.
Resorting to an invective won't get you anywhere.
:-D
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>> Meant or! As you damn well know. I admit I make typing mistakes on here
>> and I don't bother to proof read my posts but these replies are informal replies
>> not government reports on nuclear safety.
>>
Doesn't mean you shouldn't treat them as such. There's a difference between writing in formal prose and just taking a bit of care.
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I'd better not comment, in case someone hints that I'm differentiating myself!
:-D
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I want the original post, so I can point out the dozens of errors, and ask why the writer thinks he may be discriminated against - considering that he is an ill-educated sod?
Would I employ him? Probably not. If his mathematical knowledge is as poor as his English, what chances does he have? "wantfrieswiththat?"
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The problem is there will be plenty of 16 year old kids who do have a good standard of English and Maths so I would not employ them either.
I would dread to think what repair reports they would give to customers!.
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Back in the eighties a friend of mine withdrew his daughter from her school when he discovered she was being taught to write without using any punctuation or paragraphs. Her "teacher" was of the opinion that as long as the pupils got their thoughts across the rules of grammer didn't matter. Himself and other parents kicked up such a fuss that the school had to change it's policy.
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That was the 80's and 90's way of thinking and to some extent is the way I was taught. I believe teaching has now gone back to a more basic and old fashioned level.
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>> That was the 80's and 90's way of thinking and to some extent is the
>> way I was taught. I believe teaching has now gone back to a more basic
>> and old fashioned level.
>>
Oh thats fine then, whole generations condemned to struggle against the odds because some fashionistas thought the experiment in their wooly world valid.
I'll tell you what should happen, those responsible for such stupid arrogant thoughtless ideas should lose their jobs if they are still in a similar role, and if retired they should lose their pensions and the monies available used to reteach the poor blighters properly.
Piece work or paid otherwise by results whatever the system it works, so long as you pay people to dream up rubbish, they will continue to do so.
Another thing while i'm on a run..;)...why didn't head teachers indeed all teachers and professors and examiners of the time raise merry hell from the rooftops, if they en masse had refused point blank to teach children rubbish then it could have been stopped.
Some slaps round the back of the head with a putrid kipper for everyone who colluded in failing our children so badly.
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Teachers and head teachers were only following orders from above. My primary school was just crap in many other ways but the government of that time were far more interested in introducing clause 28 rather then making any actual policy.
I went to the same primary school was Ted and I bet my school hadn't changed that much when I went other than the lack of a cane :D.
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>> the government of that time were far more interested
>> in introducing clause 28
wasn't that the anti-poovery act?
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>> Teachers and head teachers were only following orders from above.
Guards and others stationed at concentration camps were doing exactly the same, and trousering the pay.
Being involved in education at any level (including directing from Whitehall) IMO isn't simply another job, you are nurturing and preparing youngsters for their whole lives, much responsibility goes with it.
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Well that is the case now. I still cannot believe how we used to have to copy stuff of the black board at primary school. If we didn't get it done we would have no break they kept us behind.
I learnt sod all as it was just a manual exercise. While the teacher was probably following orders surely they should have stopped to think about what they were doing. The problem is primary school teachers of that generation (in my case some of them qualified in the 50's!) you didn't actually need that many qualifications to come on.
I think things have certainly improved a lot, but you cannot always blame teachers for lazy students.
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So Rats, what's the current learning model ? Please don't say it's learning through play or some such garbage.
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My course doesn't really touch on primary education much as its more about adults, (Pat did the same course to help with with her lorry driving training) but from what I have studied I believe it is a much more interactive experience now.
Pupils are encouraged to discuss what they are being taught. This happened quite a lot at my secondary school, my Geography teacher always did this and I learnt so much from him.
I remember studying BSE in Geography and we had lots of debates and discussions about it. Many teachers would have just said this is what BSE is etc.
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>> >> Teachers and head teachers were only following orders from above.
>>
>> Guards and others stationed at concentration camps were doing exactly the same, and trousering the
>> pay.
>>
>> Being involved in education at any level (including directing from Whitehall) IMO isn't simply another
>> job, you are nurturing and preparing youngsters for their whole lives, much responsibility goes with
>> it.
>>
and to add GB hopefully preparing them for the workplace so that they could be a part of the community and contribute their share too.
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hopefully preparing them for the workplace so that they could be
>> a part of the community and contribute their share too.
Indeed Martin, most people can make a contributory, fair and constructive life for themselves if they have nothing more than the ability to read write and spell well, and a basic grasp of simple maths and a decent work ethic, much harder to make headway if you can do none of those things reasonably.
As some others have pointed out some parental involvement helps long before school, unfortunately many parents are themselves the results of poor parents and experimental teaching, and on it goes.
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>> My primary school was just
>> crap ...........
Dear oh dear!
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>> That was the 80's and 90's way of thinking and to some extent is the
>> way I was taught. I believe teaching has now gone back to a more basic
>> and old fashioned level.
>>
Which of course means LESS basic and from a previous era when things were done properly.
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>> the rules of grammer >>
*grammar*
What was that quote?
"I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse"
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I was a 60's child, and was one of the poor sod's who was involved in the ITA experiment.
ITA = Initial Teaching Alphabet en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_Teaching_Alphabet
It has taken me the last 45 years to get up to a reasonable level of spelling, although I do still struggle over some words, and end up using other words when I just can't suss one out.....
Being taught one form of spelling, then being told that's wrong, and now learn the correct way? STUPID!
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This thread really interests as me as some of you may know I have been doing a basic adult (PTLLS) teaching course and I may take things further. While I may not end up being a teacher I do want to end up with a job in the education sector.
From what I have learnt so far I have been quite shocked at some of the methods used to teach me English in primary school. Such as copying of the black board.
While as a result of all that I may have near perfect hand writing but my spelling is still very poor.
The problem is if you have a kid that just doesn't want to learn what do you do with them? They do teach 'Key Skills' or 'functional skills' in the further education sector but the modules tend to be far too basic.
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>> the rules of grammer ....... Himself ........ change it's policy........
>>
Come on! At least put a smiley in there!
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"Is it a good enough style to compose a worthwhile CV?"
Probably not as most employers will be put off by the spelling. However correcting that and adding a little punctuation we have:
It's great you have got a job but this new work program is not fair on us the unemployed as all they will do is the same as when it was new deal saying "go do your work placement in a charity shop then you can add retail to your c.v."
I have friends that have experience in retail and thay haven't got a job, this is just a ploy on the government's side so when the figures are published they can say we have got loads of people off the dole as when we are on a course or work program we are non- entities, we don't exist."
Clearly the writer is intelligent and is able to express himself and has put some thought into what he has written which as, Zero points out, is an accurate summary of the situation.
The lad deserves a break I think.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Sat 7 Apr 12 at 15:12
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>> The lad deserves a break I think.
>>
The lad deserves an apology from those who have let him down.
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Possibly but should he be thrown on the scrap heap because he can't spell? Somewhere around 20% of the population of all ages are practically illiterate. The lad who wrote the cv is far from illiterate, he just can't spell which is a very different thing.
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>> Possibly but should he be thrown on the scrap heap because he can't spell?
Absolutely not, but his choice of careers is narrow and advancement within will be difficult, i hope he makes it but it as at a distinct disadvantage from the start.
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The system just needs to recognise he needs help and he needs to go do a basic course and learn how to spell. I will join him :).
I am the same, I am capable of writing very complex and technical reports but I can't spell. It took me weeks to proof read my dissertation because of all the spelling mistakes and missed out words!
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May be worth listening to Any Questions/Any Answers that was broadcast today some remarkable views.
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"The system just needs to recognise he needs help and he needs to go do a basic course."
The realisation that people do judge you on spelling and the realisation that he needs to check everything he writes with a dictionary would be a start.
Actually I worked of a guy for many years whose spelling was little better than that lads and he was pulling in a six figure salary. The difference was he had a secretary.
At the ends of the day self-confidence and determination is a bigger asset that the ability to spell "entity" correctly
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I guess that I am of the old school where English language education is concerned.
I was taught the old fashioned way, with grammar being important enough to be analysed, with instruction and examples of parsing, sentence construction and the correct usage of verbs, adverbs and adjectives.
Over the years all this basic stuff has, I am sure been diluted by idleness and familiarity - I could not now define many of the verb tenses and so on which I use without concious thought.
I really believe, however, that reading decently written books, not necessarily "classics", does help not only in literacy, but also is a wonderful source of general knowledge.
Last edited by: Roger on Sat 7 Apr 12 at 16:05
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>> The system just needs to recognise he needs help and he needs to go do
>> a basic course and learn how to spell. I will join him :).
>>
>> I am the same, I am capable of writing very complex and technical reports but
>> I can't spell. It took me weeks to proof read my dissertation because of all
>> the spelling mistakes and missed out words!
>>
Out of curiosity, how much do you read now, and how much did you read when you were a child?
This is about the only way you can improve spelling because not only do you learn new words, your mind learns how the words should "look". When you do make a mistake, you can spot it at a glance because the picture is "wrong".
Edit: My brother's Mac spellchecks everything he writes in the browser; there's probably a Chrome or Firefox extension to do the same on Windows.
Last edited by: Fursty Ferret on Sun 8 Apr 12 at 12:10
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He also cannot create paragraphs or use punctuation. In 2010 30,000 pupils left school with no GCSEs of any sort and 50% did not achieve 5 "Good" GCSEs. Is this down to poor teachers, inept students, lack of parental support, libraries being closed, poor government policy, some, all or none of these?
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Some kids are just lazy. Some of those will also have major health issues. I went to a school where 11% got 5 A*-Cs not including English and Maths. It was amazing how much my grades improved at A level then university.
So in my case it is fair to blame the school for a lot of it, but I also didn't realise the value of education then and I COULD have worked harder if I wanted to.
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That Chaucer lad was doomed to a life on the dole. ;-)
WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, 6
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.
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One of my young nephews can barely write his own name at 9 years old and neither his school, nor parents seem very interested in doing what needs to be done to help him.
So thats one young criminal on advanced order then. He is frustrated and angry now, come his teenage years heaven help him.
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nor parents seem very interested in doing what needs to be done to help him.
And that, is the nub of the problem - parents who have abdicated responsibility to the teachers, education is just another service for them, no responsibility.
Last edited by: R.P. on Sat 7 Apr 12 at 16:43
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>> nor parents seem very interested in doing what needs to be done to help him.
>>
>> And that, is the nub of the problem - parents who have abdicated responsibility to the teachers, education is just another service for them, no responsibility.
>>
Totally agree. It is all too much effort. Who do I send the cheque too? seems to be the answer to everything.
I taught my daughter to read well before she went to school. It obviously took effort but it was fun for both of us. I taught her my way and I had no idea what the "proper" way was but of course she avoided what ever was the in method at that period.
Then we got other problems with the other kids getting up to speed while she was bored.
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My son is reading with enthusiasm at 5 and his school seem to really push the reading and spellings, but its supposedly a highly rated school.
While his mum did a little preliminary work, the school seems to have a rigid structure for how they teach reading and writing - apparently they dont like parents doing their own thing, I saw the guidance! I guess though, if it works, go with it.
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Be fair CGN! That was the English used by everybody who could read and write, which was probably not many, between 1343 and 1400. It was the language of the time and I remember having to translate it at school! English Literature O Level The piece I quoted was an "educated" person's attempt to express himself, and failing badly, in the 21st century
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I have found another recent English gem, by the same author, who says he was in school year 1980 at a school in Bristol. That would make him 50+?
"I think that we should be abule to email are ancers in to thew show for comps.
as phone lines are all ways bisey,"
I wonder what he does for a living?
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>> I have found another recent English gem, by the same author, who says he was
>> in school year 1980 at a school in Bristol. That would make him 50+?
Blimey he milked the education system if he's just left school, a seriously mature student..;)
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I wasn't being entirely serious Meldrew hence the smiley. I think made my view clear in earlier posts.
There is however a sort of analogy though between the lad's writing and that of Chaucer. Both are difficult to understand mainly because of the odd spelling. In both cases a conversion to a standardised/modern spelling makes the meaning clear.
Of course there was no standardised spelling in the fourteenth century so Chaucer didn't have to defend that aspect of his his writing . We can blame the printing press for the birth of pedantry.
It is interesting to note how the pronunciation of words has changed in the last 600 years. The "Engelond" in the passage I quoted has more in common with a chant from the football terraces than the accepted modern pronunciation
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Apologies - I missed the smiley. Shame we can't make them bigger or bold!
Last edited by: Meldrew on Sat 7 Apr 12 at 17:26
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I imagine, about the same standard as school leavers' teachers now.
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As I teach engineering, I suppose I'm at risk from GB's putrid kipper (or worse!)
Being new to teaaching, the bane of my life is the mandatory teaching course I have to do. I will have to write about a number of theories of education all of which I find confusing and worse than useless.
I've never understood people who say that they are going to burn their notes after a course finishes, but, I fully grasp the idea now. As it happens, the fellow who runs the hateful teaching course at the polyversity is a big noise in the union. Perhaps I might ask to borrow his brazier for the bonfire of my notes?
In teaching engineering, the drill is quite well defined. Talk about some theory. Relate it to practice. Ask the students to do some work on the application of this theory. Mark the work, and give them some idea where they went wrong. Move onto next topic......
It turns out that I'm usually in contravention of some polyversity edict or other.
The latest nonsense is that in order to make our courses look good to idle prospective students, we're stripping out the coursework. This isn't going to help the students learn, as I've seen the only way to get students to read about the subject is to set some marked coursework on it.
I have reduced the number of coursework tasks, but, ssshhhh, I've increased the number of coursework sub-tasks, so, overall, nothing has changed!
I really pity those who will be paying for this rubbish, and will be graduating in 3 year's time with worthless qualifications.
It's interesting that A levels are being passed back to universities. This is OK, as long as the only unversities involved are in the Russell Group - polyversities should be kept well away!
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>I really pity those who will be paying for this rubbish, and will be graduating in 3 year's
>time with worthless qualifications.
Yes, but there's a reasonable chance that they'll be potty trained by then :-0
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Try not to knock them.
Some people grow, some don't. The person will improve themselves when the opportunity arrises. I know a few people who left school and the school had abandoned them. They realised this after a few years and went to night school and now have upstanding jobs.
One guy I was at school with left school with no "O" Levels or GCSEs.
He is now significantly wealthier than I am and now that he is retired (20 years early), his pension is more than I make a year which is more than twice the national average.
He is also a really friendly guy.
When I was at junior school I was taught phonetic English as an experiment. This lasted for about four years and as a result I still cannot spell properly. I now write reports for a living - thank goodness for spell checkers!
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My mother trained as a teacher 1945-48, and taught hundreds of children to read successfully between then and 1982. The LEA would introduce new methods from time to time but, in reality, what happened between the child being unable to read and reading on their own was entirely in her control and if she didn't think it helped, she ignored it (including the Initial Teaching Alphabet news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1523708.stm ).
That sort of autonomy isn't possible now. The problem with that is that the objective ceases to be getting the children to read, write and do sums and becomes compliance with the system and filling the forms in. The result is that learning suffers. More interference is the next step, and the vicious circle continues.
It's a consequence of excessive bureaucracy. If the 'experts' were all fired, or confined themselves to teaching the teachers and then letting them get on with it, literacy and numeracy would improve again.
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"It's a consequence of excessive bureaucracy. If the 'experts' were all fired, or confined themselves to teaching the teachers and then letting them get on with it, literacy and numeracy would improve again."
Not true I'm afraid. In the seventies teachers had a huge amount of freedom to teach as they pleased. It resulted in the lowest standards of literacy and numeracy ever.
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Quite a few things happened in the seventies, including a wave of comprehensivisation that turned the well-regarded grammar school I attended into a sink school.
I can't substantiate my views on the causes of the apparent deterioration in standards of literacy and numeracy, and I wasn't really watching for a while after 1971 when I left school, and 1981 when my daughter was born. Since then I have perceived standards to be falling while the measures say they are going up.
In tandem with increasing prescriptiveness we have also seen the introduction of the measures. Again more internalisation of the objectives, performance against which takes the place of doing the right thing. The same well-documented syndrome that results in police massaging their detection rates for crime type A by classifying the difficult ones as type B. In the end, the performance tables are worthless as a trend.
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Has the ever really been a truly 100% literary population? There have been numerous tales of people of all ages who have never had the ability to read or write. Most went on to do jobs where such skills were not required, or merely managed to hide such failings.
In a way, teaching has failed a percentage of the population since education became compulsory, regardless of what system, schema or corporal punishment was used.
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 8 Apr 12 at 12:47
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>> Has the ever really been a truly 100% literary population? There have been numerous tales
>> of people of all ages who have never had the ability to read or write.
>> Most went on to do jobs where such skills were not required, or merely managed
>> to hide such failings.
>>
>> In a way, teaching has failed a percentage of the population since education became compulsory,
>> regardless of what system, schema or corporal punishment was used.
I think the first bit at least is a pretty fair summary. We never ever had anything near 1005 literacy. Folks got by down the pit, on the line or in the weaving shed without or with the support of co-workers.
Anybody who deals with the public today will soon come across folks of all ages who've 'forgotten their glasses' or otherwise struggle with even straightforward forms etc. Some of those can be helped but for others it may still be a step too far.
The focus on measuring schools by those achieving A*-C passes in 5 or more subjects is no hep either. Whatever the commentariat say about falling standards A-C are broadly O level equivalents. It's quite possible to be literate and numerate without having the capacity to achieve 5 (or even 2-3) such qualifications.
The school's efforts are too heavily rammed into turning marginal Ds into Cs and not on helping the E/F grades to grasp the basics.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sun 8 Apr 12 at 13:00
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"Has the ever really been a truly 100% literary population?"
The Bloomsbury Group?
:-)
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Number_Cruncher’s comments on teacher training brought back nasty memories of my own course. We were told that the college concerned was not about “tips for teachers” and we were taught theory instead. In the context of a one-year course, “tips” would have been far more useful. Two years later, students of the college actually went on strike over the curriculum and the quality of the staff. Shaw observed that “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach”. Education students added, “Those who can’t teach, teach teachers.”
On the other hand, I am puzzled by Zippy’s comments on phonetic teaching, the method generally taught up to the “progressive” era in education. It enabled me to decode English well enough to read by myself from age six or so and, at 16, to make sense of the Chaucer extract shown above, as well as the rest of the “Canterbury Tales”. According to a Speech and Language Therapist I know, many more young children started to present to her with learning problems when phonetics gave way to Look And Say, requiring pupils to guess the sounds of whole words at a time. Worse was to come with Emergent Learning when they were required to absorb displayed words an somehow fit them into a schema. This she describes as like being set down in a strange city without a map. (I don’t know her views on the ITA.) Our government has now reverted to making phonics the official method.
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>> “Those who can’t teach, teach teachers.”
+1
I had a problematic class on my second teaching practice and the college despatched a senior tutor to provide answers. He sat at the back of the room quivering like a spinster, and conceded 'he could see the problems...'
Couldn't come up with any constructive advice though, could he ?
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>> Our government has now reverted to making phonics the official method.
>>
>>
AFAIK the current stuff is "Jolly Phonics"
jollylearning.co.uk/overview-about-jolly-phonics/
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Manatee has posted pretty much what I was about to. My Mother was also a teacher, she specialised in reading at special school for those with moderate SEN. She would mix/match phonics and look/say lead by the child's responses.
I learned mostly at home with the Ladybird 'Key Words' scheme - based IIRC on look and say. My own two differed. Daughter was look say, son found constructing words phonically helped. The current rush to phonics and synthetic phonics, which look to me like ITA's cousin. will backfire. But of course the teachers will be to blame not the media/political circus that imposed the thing.
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The therapist I quoted approves of Jolly Phonics and I find my young granddaughters are learning this way.
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Girl was keen to read and learned at home. Ladybird books mainly, and we sounded the letters to start with, c - a - t etc, which I suppose is phonics, and look and say takes over naturally. You can see it happening - they'll read a few words fluently, then get stuck on one and start sounding the letters to work it out. We couldn't buy the blasted ladybirds fast enough, and she'd read anything she could get her hands on before she started school.
Encouraged by this, we tried it with Boy. He wasn't interested, but seemed to pick it up at school easily enough. He never read for fun though, until he discovered Terry Pratchett.
One conclusion from this sample of two is that they read when they are ready. Maybe some people are never ready.
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>> One conclusion from this sample of two is that they read when they are ready.
>> Maybe some people are never ready.
IIRC 'reading ready' was a recognised concept for teachers of my (our?) Mother's generation.
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One of the problems with the modern education system, is that it assumes that boys and girls are on the same academic level. Its frequently not the case, with boys being somewhat behind girls. But education has to be shoehorned into a fixed timesacale with no room for flexibility.
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Standards of School Leaver's English - Zero
