Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Dictashun

DICTASHUN!
I designed this form of simplified spelling (there are many forms) when I was teaching kindergarten. To encourage them to be creative rather than correct I cut out all the oddities of the English language. Once they could write creatively I introduced T.O. (traditional orthography) though it broke my heart to do it! They could already communicate anything they wanted to say at six years old! Why burden them with years of spelling lists etc.
As you can tell, I am genuinely passionate about the subject but, just for today, I thought we'd have a bit of fun with it! I have adapted it slightly for adults.
Today, children, we will use the following 34 sounds to write a verse.

There will be no prizes for the translation but I will be interested to see who can send me the verse written correctly using the sounds.

First, an example.

'Please write this sentence in simplified spelling.'
'Plez rit this sentns in simplifid speling'

Note: 'a, e,  i, o, and oo' can be either short or long. And 'a' can also  stand for the sort of grunt when we say 'a  pig'.

The sounds

a b c d e f g h i j l o m n p r s t u v w y z ar air oo or ow oy ur sh ch th ng

The exercise

If you use thirty-four sounds
Your joy will know no bounds!
You will write in half the time!
In pensive prose or rollicking rhyme.


More ranting on the topic here:


3 comments:

quilly said...

I highly approve! As a teacher of second language learners (Spanish to English), I learned that content and comprehension are much more important to the cosmetics of traditional spelling.

When it came time to take the National Writing Test, I just made certain to remind them that once they chose their spelling for a word, to use it the same way throughout the paper. It worked beautifully because the ESL scorer's rubric calls for spelling to be marked wrong only if it is inconsistent.

Margaret Gosden said...

As you know I am not on your side for this - whenever I go to the dictionary, I take great pride in having mastered the spelling and pronunciation of the English language. It's true I always got an F in classes, and I was once fired for my spelling, but I ended up writing for a living anyway! Of course, it always helped to have a friend who awesomely wrote a page-a-day diary for years (which I tried unsuccessfully for about 6 months), and that had to have been a great influence on my eventual abilities! Thank you, Brenda!

dnr said...

My English learning is by reading a poem a day :))))