Writing
- Does it matter anymore?
With
the increasing interest in spoken English – and the
acceptance now that it can have a different grammar and
vocabulary from its written counterpart – it sometimes
seems as if methodologists, teachers and students are determined
to downgrade writing in the classroom, making it a poor
relation to its productive (oral) sibling. People have suggested:
What many students want to do, above all, is communicate
through speech.
Written grammar is different from spoken grammar, and so,
following on from the previous point, is bound to be less
important.
With the advent of modern technology, the nature of written
communication is changing daily. Email language looks very
different from the letters of the early part of the twentieth
century. Traditional writing skills don't matter any
more.
As speech recognition software becomes more and more common,
speaking will replace writing as a means of electronic communication.
