One thing I discovered going back to college was that most current students, straight out of high school, don’t understand English. For that matter, most of them don’t use it. As part of one course that I took online, students would post discussions to an online discussion board. Postings to this board were graded as part of the course, and the instructor made it clear that grammar and spelling would be scrutinized.
I have two daughters. One is 16 and one just turned 20 and is currently in college. Based on this, I felt that I had a pretty good grasp of how students communicated. To my relief, my daughters must be the exception to the rule.
I guess that’s why it surprised me to read other students’ posts to the discussion board. If the instructor asked for a 300-word response, not including restating the topic, at least half of the posts would be one or two lines restating the topic. Another twenty-five percent would meet the 300-word requirement … restating the topic. Amazingly to me, around thirty percent of all submissions would be written in “text message” format. OMG! WRUD!
It kills me! I don’t claim to be an expert on grammar and spelling, but I would be generous to say that twenty-five percent of all student posts to that board were college level responses.
Now, I know that many adults text as much (or more) than their teenage counterparts. I just hope that if you are considering going back to college, you know the difference between an assignment and a “tweet”.
There exist many barriers to communication and these may occur at any stage in the communication process. Barriers may lead to your message becoming distorted and you therefore risk wasting both time and/or money by causing confusion and misunderstanding. Effective communication involves overcoming these barriers and conveying a clear and concise message.
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