7 News Belize

O-M-G!: Texting In Testing
posted (May 31, 2010)
Earlier on we told you about he worrying scores in Mathematics on the PSE where about half of the children who took the test failed. Well, there's one more item of serious note. Remember last year when there was a big flap about the essays describing anti-social behavior and mature sexual themes? Well this year, examiners found that the children were begging for patronage, special consideration, and also that they were using text language to write their essays:....

Yvonne Davis
"What we found though were a number of children writing and asking for help. Little notes we found like 'I pray that I pass this exam', 'my teacher didn't teach me this,' 'please help me to pass this test.' We found a number of little statements on their booklets. Even to the Minister, somebody wrote to the Minister 'please help me pass this test' and that kind of thing. It is strange because we have never encountered that and it's from different parts of the country. It was common. When I walked the marking room every time I moved to a table somebody would say 'read this one' somebody is asking or begging the Lord to please help them pass. We found that very strange this year."

Jules Vasquez
"Is it indicative of anything to you? Any particular social trend?"

Yvonne Davis
"I think what is happening too, the students are very open about how they feel now and so the exam gives them an opportunity to vent and to just say things and they feel that somebody might hear. Unfortunately we are not able to follow all these and we might want to inform the schools that this is happening that a number of the children they come to the exam when they get stuck and they don't know what to write, they make their own little notes and they express how they feel on the exam."

Jules Vasquez
"It might be the rise of the media that in terms you can publicly complain, the minute you are being victimized or being dunned by misfortune, you go to the media."

Yvonne Davis
"Everything is open now and people are free. I think it is a good thing for us, we just need to challenge into something positive. The more children are able to express themselves the better you get out of them, you get all kinds of creativity coming out of them. Another thing that we notice influencing the writing is that the text language. All this text language that they are now using on their cell phone they are bringing it into the classroom and it shows up on our exam."

Yvonne Davis
"Instead of four we see the number 4. This is what we are noticing now."

Jules Vasquez
"Did you see any LMAO or OMG?"

Yvonne Davis
"LOL and all of that. They are all there. We found these on the exam this year. The text language is a part of their everyday life. It sends a signal to us in education; it sends a signal to the entire society. To the teachers I want to say you need to challenge this into something positive. We need to show them the value where the text language is appropriate and where it is not and what is the translation. Everybody has a cell phone now."

Overall Davis says she feels the patronage requests and the employment of text language are good things if teachers can figure out to channel the expressive nature they imply.

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