|
|
Do Americans lose to Britons in English competency?
As English is spoken as the only first language across the Atlantic in both America and Britain, it should be assumed (or people outside the English-speaking world in general do assume) that both Americans and Britons be equally competent in using English as a vehicle for communication.
And Shuimo, as a non-native speaker of English, has indeed come across quite a few outstanding users of English from either of the two countries , among the multidudes of native English speakers whom I've had the fortune of communicating with through various channels and on various occasions, including forum communication like what we have here on Antimoon.
Nontheless, my extensive contact with users of English as a native tongue has left me the IMPRESSION that, other things being equal, Britons in general seem to gain an upper hand over Americans in English competency, by demonstrating a higher sensitivity to linguistic usages like wording and variety and rhetorical devices! (Jimmie oldie, Eunited.....even Figure boy on the EC forum and Damian on this forum are excellent case in point)
Do you ever happen to make similar obervations like me regarding what I wrote above?
I'm in a rush right now, Shiumo - first, thanks for your compliment, but I can't let this pass without saying this: from my experience of scanning through internet forums of all kinds, including this one, the standard of written English, including grammar, spelling and construction, is generally noticeably higher among the Americans than it is the British. Far too often the overall quality of the British postings is sloppy, to say the least.
I'm a wee bit ashamed to admit this, but in my opinion it's true.
Just examine the examples in this Forum if you want proof of what I say.
Shiumo, the trouble is that there is not a single standard for correct grammar, construction, or spelling to which to look.
Ideas in the United States about correct punctuation, spelling, and sentence construction are different than they are in the UK. For example, the Oxford comma is more widely used in the United States than it is in the UK, and indeed you'll notice the tendency for much less use of commas, in general, in the writings of an Englishman than in his American counterpart. And we all know that the spelling is different.
It is my own belief that there is no real difference in the level of competence between US and UK students.
I understand what Jasper is saying but, being the stubborn Arian that I am, I STILL maintain that the overall standard of written English, all things considered, IS generally higher in the American postings than in the British, I'm sorry to say.
From my experience of reading posts in a number of international internet forums (including this one!) drawing contributions from both the USA and the UK, I seem to find fewer errors made by the Americans - be they grammar, punctuation or in spelling (aside from the two countries' recognised spelling differences).
You would think that the Americans would litter their postings with slang terms and all kinds of weird expressions, but that's not the case it appears. Just look at many YT postings made by some of my fellow countrymen, for instance- I reckon they're either still in primary school or have only just come back home from the pub.
I've been posting here in Antimoon for about five years now and like everyone in here it's easy to tell the difference between a genuine typo and an error made through basic ignorance I reckon.
This past week has seen the publication of all the A-Level (Advanced Level) examination results in England and Wales, equivalent to the Highers back home in Scotland, which have already been published.
These examinations are undertaken by students at the highest level of education in schools prior to university entry....normally called Sixth Form Colleges....average age being 17 or 18 at the most. They showed yet another increase in passes sufficient for minimum university acceptance, continuing the steady upward trend over the past few years. It's not clear whether this <perceived> steady improvement is due to the students themselves becoming more proficient, whether the quality of the teaching has improved, OR, as many cynics of more advanced years comparatively speaking constantly witter on about, the exams are becoming easier!
At the same time we hear of complaints from the UK universities who interview all these successful Higher/A-Level candidates hoping to be accepted by them as students for all their courses are surprisingly inadequate when it comes to writing essays of an acceptable standard, and some actually appear to be unable to function without a calculator to perform a basic arithmetical exercise.
Maybe I'm speaking from an English perspective here as all those complaints I mentioned came from universities in England! Now isn't that a surprise.....
What is the relevance of British exam results to a comparison between US and UK standards of English?
It's also possible that a much greater portion of the US population is illiterate, and doesn't participate on internet forums. We keep hearing how the typical US high school graduate can't read their diploma, and there are lots of people who never graduate high school at all.
Perhaps we're comparing the top 50% of the US population with the top 80% of the UK population when we look at internet postings. If only 50% of the UK population posted, perhaps you'd get a truer picture of relatiev language skills?
>>It's also possible that a much greater portion of the US population is illiterate, and doesn't participate on internet forums. We keep hearing how the typical US high school graduate can't read their diploma, and there are lots of people who never graduate high school at all. <<
Um, that isn't typical at all. There are problems with our public education system imo, but you simply don't graduate high school without being able to read. Where the hell did you "hear" that?
I went to a podunk school *if you sneezed you would pass my town*- yet I can read perfectly.
And I have yet to meet a person who dropped out of high school because they were illiterate.
From the article: >>Literacy is absolutely essential for the success of any society. In America, however, one in five high school graduates cannot read his or her diploma. Fully 85 per cent of unwed mothers are illiterate and 70 per cent of Americans who get arrested are illiterate. An estimated 21 million Americans simply cannot read and the costs of illiteracy are estimated to be $225 billion a year in lost productivity.<<
This makes me laugh, quite literally, out loud. I don't know where or how this person got their statistics (one of the most easily manipulated forms of scientific measurement) but I can tell you for sure that none of this could possibly be right. This whole article seems to be an extremist and inflammatory piece of writing bent on getting people to realize that there are some major problems with the education system here in the US. No one's denying this, but seriously... there is no way in hell 85% of unwed mothers are illiterate. I've met many who are very literate and sometimes even rather intelligent, so either my life is continually defying probability or the statistics presented here are skewed beyond belief.
The only part that MAY be right is the 21 million Americans... however, that would mean they are counting all the estimated homeless and probably some illegals in which case it is not very accurate anyway. Most homeless people have mental disabilities to begin with, not to mention all those who do have mental diseases/issues... I mean, when you start to look at this like a rational person you can see that these oversimplified statistics are outrageously inconsistent and could in no way account for all the exceptions, special cases, and large regional differences that make up the USA.
My roommate is a Chicago Public Schools teacher (one of the worst school systems in the US) and he says he's only had two actually illiterate students, and they were brothers from a very rural part of Mexico who had never gone to school before they came to Chicago at 14. Mind you most of his students read below grade level, but they're far from illiterate.
I have met maybe two or three people in my life who can't read. Virtually everyone in the US can read and write.
But the stats that are being quoted here appear to come from this:
http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/estimates/index.aspx
And the 14% number refers to people with LOW LITERACY SKILLS IN ENGLISH.
That's important to remember, because it includes people who might have been literate in other languages but not this one and people who could read and write but tested poorly on reading comprehension.
"Adults in the Below Basic group and those not able to take the assessment because of a language barrier are classified as lacking Basic Prose Literacy Skills (BPLS). The percentage of those who lack BPLS reflects the magnitude of the adult household population at the lowest level of English literacy. The literacy of adults who lack BPLS ranges from being unable to read and understand any written information to being able only to locate easily identifiable information in short, commonplace prose text in English, but nothing more advanced. For the indirect estimates, adults who were not able to take the assessment because of a language barrier are included."
The methodology was reported as follows:
"Trained interviewers, some of whom were bilingual in English and Spanish, visited households to select and interview adults. Each study participant was asked questions about his or her demographic characteristics, educational background, reading practices, and other areas related to literacy. These questions were available in English and Spanish. Participants were then presented with either the NAAL or NALS literacy assessment, which contained a series of diverse English literacy tasks for them to answer. With the exception of certain core assessment tasks, the instructions for these tasks were presented in English only. The literacy of adults who lack BPLS ranges from being unable to read and understand any written information in English to being able to locate easily identifiable information in short, commonplace prose text, but nothing more advanced. The estimates include adults who were not able to communicate in English or Spanish and could not be tested, classifying them as lacking BPLS. These estimates therefore differ from the estimates of the percentages Below Basic published in NAAL and NALS reports: adults who could not communicate in English or Spanish are excluded entirely in the calculations of the latter estimates."
And there is a whole cautionary page describing the limitations inherent in the study.
http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/estimates/Cautions.aspx
One of the cautions is that the final figures were not obtained by direct sampling, but by extrapolation using a number of demographic variables. And that renders it susceptible to a great deal of uncertainty:
"Credible intervals have been computed to indicate the levels of uncertainty in the indirect estimates of the percentages of adults lacking Basic Literacy Skills (BPLS). A credible interval is a posterior probability interval, used in Bayesian statistics for purposes similar to those of a confidence interval in traditional statistics. A 95 percent credible interval for an estimate of the percentage of adults lacking BPLS in a county gives the range for which there is a probability of 0.95 that the interval contains the true percentage of adults lacking BPLS. For example, suppose a county's estimate for the percentage of adults lacking BPLS is 12 percent with a 95 percent credible interval of 5 to 25 percent (as in this example, the intervals are generally asymmetric around the estimate). This indicates that there is a probability of 0.95 that the actual value is between 5 and 25 percent."
So, are a lot of Americans completely unable to recognize writing, which is what most of us think of as being illiterate? No. Are some poor readers? Yes. About 14%. And remember that that includes people with mental handicaps and learning disabilities and illnesses, as well as people from other language backgrounds.
>I've met many who are very literate and sometimes even rather intelligent,<
Lucky unwed mothers, to have you for an advocate.
Uh huh....? I don't believe I said anything about advocating in one direction or another the efficacy of being an unwed mother. I actually dislike strongly mothers who pop out children due to immaturity or negligence. But since every case is specific and I try not to generalize or hold prejudices, I was just stating the fact that, yes, I have met intelligent mothers who were mothers due to those reasons.
I've even worked with a couple who I especially came to admire, and mind you I'm picky about whom I choose to like.
yeah, I'm picky with words.
1. You're clearly defending unwed mothers from the accusation of being illiterate.
2. Stating that unwed mothers are 'sometimes even rather intelligent' means nothing else than 'usually they're completely unintelligent'.
3. If someone is very literate, they can't be completely stupid.
4. You're contradicting yourself. So, you're being a lousy advocate.
|