4 ms·

From the 1916 article: "These teachers knew better than any one else how much valuable time was wasted in getting by heart long lists of words." This is perha

• tzs 10y ago
  It's not clear that it would give much of an advantage nowadays. English has become the de facto international language for now, and so currently the difficulties of learning English, such as spelling, are also being inflicted on students around the world. For most of them English is a second language and thus they have to deal with the spelling on top of the difficulty of dealing with a foreign language. I think that makes it so English spelling is a bigger hinderance for them than it is for students where English is their first language (such as the majority of the US), and so spelling reform would help them more than it would help US students. In terms of competitive edges, spelling reform would lessen the edge of US students. Of course, that doesn't mean that would be bad. As you note, less time on spelling is more time for other subjects. If spelling reform led to US students getting, say, 1% better in science or math, and led to foreign students getting 2% better, yes that worsens the US position relative to the foreign students, but looked at another way everybody improves.
  • thaumasiotes 10y ago
    > For most of them English is a second language and thus they have to deal with the spelling on top of the difficulty of dealing with a foreign language. I think that makes it so English spelling is a bigger hinderance for them than it is for students where English is their first language (such as the majority of the US), and so spelling reform would help them more than it would help US students. What negative effects do they suffer if they misspell something?
    • rahkiin 10y ago
      The same as US students: lower grades, bad interpretation, not making oneself understandable.
      • thaumasiotes 10y ago
        US students may get lower grades from spelling errors, but they're not going to suffer from people misunderstanding them. Foreign students are much more likely to actually produce something unintelligible (regardless of spelling!), but also much more likely to be unaffected by it because they're not trying to communicate anything of any importance.
  • tjl 10y ago
    I think a bigger problem than spelling is people using the wrong words. They'll use defiantly instead of definitely, heal instead of heel, too instead of to, and a number of similar mistakes.
    • aries1980 10y ago
      Indeed. But also strategy instead of tactic, culture instead of way of working, engineer, architect and many other have a ambiguous meaning these days, so if you want to precise, it is better to use something else.
• barry-cotter 10y ago
  I really doubt if there's a competitive edge to be gotten. Chinese characters/hanzi and Japanese ones/kanji are a great deal more complicated than the spelling rules of English and less consistent. It doesn't appear to hurt academic achievement at all in either case. Nor is there a difference between countries using simplified hanzi and the traditional ones. Earlier learning has amazingly little effect on later outcomes. Half of Europe have all play all the time kindergarten with almost non-existent academic instruction. Half of them have academic instruction. If you compare academic achievement of communities on opposite sides of borders but with very different numbers of years of education the differences are tiny.
  • posterboy 10y ago
    Obviously, if learning to spell works, whether complex or not, something else could be learned instead. I assume you don't mean spelling would be an exception, but I don't think that's relevant to the made argument.
• barry-cotter 10y ago
  I really doubt if there's a competitive edge to be gotten. Chinese characters/hanzi and Japanese ones/kanji are a great deal more complicated than the spelling rules of English and less consistent. It doesn't appear to hurt academic achievement at all in either case. Nor is there a difference between countries using simplified hanzi and the traditional ones. Earlier learning has amazingly little effect on later outcomes. Half of Europe have all play all the time kindergarten with almost non-existent academic instruction. Half of them have academic instruction. If you compare academic achievement of communities on opposite sides of borders but with very different numbers of years of education the differences are tiny.
• debacle 10y ago
  What if the act of memorizing the spelling words in K-5 has a positive impact of memory-based learning in later years?