Grammar and Punctuation !

Exactly what language do we speak and write in Australia ?  It could be said that what we use is the Australian dialect formed from the language that is commonly called " English " as is written and spoken in the British Isles.

An interesting test.  Try and read - and understand - some of the letters that have survived the voyages of Captain cook.  The spelling was vastly different in that era and the style of writing  different from today. An enormous number of new words have joined the language to illustrate the developments that have taken place since Cook.   The automobile.  Flight.  Space exploration.  The computer. The nuclear age.

All that didn't change in the twinkling of an eye. This change is constant and we are probably experiencing the fastest change ever with the advent of the mobile phone.  Texting has made abbreviation an art form and the prime abbreviators are our young people.  Punctuation has been a casualty of the need for speed.

NAPLAN was a clever idea to judge the reading and writing ability of our school children and compare age levels with those in other countries.  It has been mired in controversy from the start and the latest hold-up concerns the comparison of NAPLAN tests held in written form and those performed on computers.

These tests were not identical.  The written tests contained a series of easy questions to " build confidence "  and these were missing from the computer based tests.  There was a big difference in the ratio of tests between these two methods which must complicate state to state comparisons of results.  In Canberra all schools did NAPLAN online.  In the Northern Territory, none did.   In Queensland twenty schools participated online and in New South Wales more than five hundred held the computer version.

Some states are thinking of pulling out of NAPLAN because it is failing to deliver the results promised.  We are fast reaching the stage when communication comprehension between the children of today and their parents may be facing a widening gap because they both have a very different understanding of what constitutes our common language.

The language kids use between their peers seems to be a form of shorthand based on texting.  We are seeing some kids leave school without attaining the ability to construct a letter containing the text required in the business community.  This is not helped by having the school curriculum set on a state by state basis.   English/Australian is the language of this country and without a commonality there is the risk that it can subside into a form of dialect.

NAPLAN is too valuable to be allowed to fail.  It is high time the planners put their differences behind them and sorted out the problems to get this system working !