More students at the secondary education level are using abbreviated forms of writing, popularly used for instant messaging via cellphone and in Internet chat rooms, in their school essays, checks by the Sunday Observer revealed.

While the prevalence of this practice is unclear, several teachers acknowledged that many students had been using the shortened form of some words in their essays.

Examples of this chat room slang are the use of the letter ‘r’ for the word ‘are’; ‘u’ for ‘you’ and ‘b4’ for ‘before’. Therefore, “Are you coming before 12 o’clock?’ would be written “r u coming b4 12?”

“The chat room language is getting to us now,” veteran English teacher Doris Mayne told the Sunday Observer. “It is creeping into their writing and is really becoming a problem.”

But surprisingly, the teachers were not worried about students’ use of American spelling, suggesting that it would help them later if they went on to colleges in the United States.

“We don’t mark down students for the use of American spelling,” said public education officer for the CXC, Cleveland Sam. “What we ask is that they be consistent, that is, stick to one or the other. American spelling is not wrong – it’s just another way of spelling. Furthermore, many of our students will be studying in North America where they will use that spelling anyway.”

Teachers were more likely to frown on chat room slang. Mayne, a teacher of nearly 50 years experience who now works at Hillel Academy in St Andrew, said students use chat room slang in essays when they were pressed for time.

She said she had made it clear to her students that this was unacceptable. “I tell them not to do it, but I just hope that it sticks when it comes to exam time, because if they are under pressure and in a hurry, then it suddenly comes back,” she noted.

Executive director of Versan Education Services, Sandra Bramwell-Riley, has also noticed the trend towards use of chat room slang.

“We are seeing a heavy leaning towards the computer language, the letters ‘u’ and ‘r’ for ‘you are’, the abbreviation of words which are not making coherent sentences…We are seeing all sorts of madness in actual essays,” Bramwell-Riley complained.

She said computer language was being used by otherwise capable students aged 15 to 17 “who have ones, twos and threes in CSEC”, the crucial Caribbean Examinations Council’s (CXC) Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate, written by most students after five years of high school.

A teacher with experience in both North America and Jamaica, Bramwell-Riley blames the students’ inability to write properly on their lack of reading.

“The lack of reading is a big problem, be it newspapers, magazines, or novels. If you ask students to read a novel, the first thing they ask is ‘how many pages, Miss? Is it long?’ Everything is about instant gratification,” she lamented.

“You tell them to read the editorials and opinion pages of the newspapers to use in essays, but they are not doing it. They watch HYPE-TV and RETV (local cable TV channels). It’s scary,” she said.

But while the teachers are closely marking the ‘cyber chat’ trend, it is not yet a major problem for the education system, according to CXC’s Sam. However, he insisted that the use of the slang would not be tolerated.

“The chat room language is obviously not something that the CXC condones. That is used in a colloquial environment, as against the formal environment of the exam situation,” Sam told the Sunday Observer by telephone from the CXC’s headquarters in Barbados.

On the other hand, the increasing use of American spelling appears to be acceptable to the CXC as well as to most teachers, as long as there is consistency.

Americans spell a number of words differently from the United Kingdom and English-speaking Caribbean countries like Jamaica. Common examples of American spelling are ‘color’; flavor’; neighbor’; ‘program’ as against ‘colour’; flavour’; neighbour’ and ‘programme’.

Americans use ‘-ize’ instead of ‘-ise’ in words such as realise and specialise.

Paula Feraria, an English teacher at Wolmer’s Girls School, said teachers had come to accept both British and American spelling. “Unless we specify that we want the Jamaican (English) spelling, we can’t penalise students for it (American spelling), Feraria said. “I don’t think it’s an issue for the CXC really.”

If a student spells ‘color’, Feraria, said she normally added a ‘u’ as a reminder that the British spelling was used in Jamaica.

“You can’t do much about it because many of our students look to the United States for colleges and we try to prepare them for that too,”, said Feraria, who has taught CXC English for six years.

Bramwell-Riley, whose organisation prepares mostly high school students for US college entrance exams, said that British spelling was permissible when writing these exams, such as the SAT, the GRE, GMAT, LSAT and SSAT. On the other hand, she said, “I think the British would mark you down for spelling ‘center’ or ‘check’ (American spelling of the British ‘centre’ or ‘cheque’)”.

Apart from spelling, Bramwell-Riley said there were several differences between American and British English which she stressed in her teaching. For example, British writers tend to write run-on sentences, using commas and semicolons to separate parts of sentences, while Americans write shorter, more concise sentences.

An example of this, Bramwell-Riley said, would be as follows.

British English:

The America I believe in doesn’t torture people, however the America I believe in ought not to carry our boorish tactics in foreign countries; therefore I believe America ought to expand its human rights at home and overseas.

American English:

The America I believe in doesn’t torture people. However the America I believe in ought not to carry our boorish tactics in foreign countries. Therefore, I believe America ought to expand its human rights at home and overseas.

Bramwell-Riley said it had been challenging to teach local students the differences between American and British English.

President of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools, Nadine Molloy, said although she had not seen a growth in the use of American spelling in Jamaica, she would not mark such spelling as incorrect. However, she would inform students that British English was used here.

“It’s just as how I don’t say patois (Jamaican language) is bad; patois is one way of expressing yourself. You don’t devalue one language to give value to another,” said Molloy, who is principal of Buff Bay High School in Portland.

However, not all teachers are as tolerant. “For me, the American way is wrong, that’s just the bottom line,” said Donnette Brown, principal of Honours Academy, a private institution in Kingston offering CSEC subjects and secretarial skills.

According to Brown, a number of students, unable to spell for themselves, are relying on the spell-check function on computers to correct their spelling. And because most computers use American spelling, students were submitting work without knowing the British spelling.

“I even had the problem with a media house which spelled the name of my school ‘Honors’ instead of ‘Honours’, and when you point it out to them they don’t see the difference,” Brown commented.