Question

What factors contribute to the perception that today's high school graduates have poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation skills?

Answer 1

Grammar is still taught in school, but the kids just don't care. They want to stick with informal language, and don't want to bother with formal language... until they are adults facing careers that demand it, and then they are in trouble because they didn't focus in school as a kid.. . If you don't care, you don't learn, no matter how good the teacher is.

Answer 2

I know this question has come up on Answers before, and the answer still eludes me. Truly, it's incomprehensible why students refuse to learn proper English. Some people theorize that the answer lies with the schools, others with parents, but I'm going to bet it's just the student wasn't taught or didn't want to learn the importance of proper English. I've seen IM/text messaging speak filter their way into college essays and have been absolutely appalled. I'm a college student myself and would never think to do something like that.. . Given, my middle school and high school emphasized writing on a large scale - in class essays running at least 1000 words and term papers numbering at least half a dozen pages. There are sophomore and juniors in college who shriek in terror at the thought of writing a 5 page paper. Personally, I'm embarrassed if I forget to proofread a page and miss that I wrote "the" instead of "then." . . I will admit, however, that some of the foreigners that speak better English learned English basics as a matter of construction and weren't limited by hearing/reading improper English from a young age. They are also seem slightly more educated than some of the people whose presence we love on Answers (i.e. access to better schooling that teaches them how to learn).

Answer 3

Because their teachers don't know it. Head teachers were told to ask their English tutors 'what constitutes a sentance?' Most didn't know.. . Welcome to feminisation of schools, only girls get 'marks'; because only girls are the right sex. Little boys, of course, are 'made of slugs and snails and puppy dog tails'. Or so they tell us.. . In maths when we say 2 plus 2 euals 4 we get marked right, but in 'English' when we say it equals 4 they say, 'no it doesn't'.