English students of all ages love learning slang and abbreviations! Language learners always want to know the current, modern way of speaking and writing. This week our Spotlight lesson is The Test – Simple Future Reading, which involves a phone conversation between two students, so I thought I’d extend the lesson from talking on the phone to a very common communication method nowadays: texting! One of the most popular activities I’ve done with my students (of all ages, at one time or another) was to go over and practice using text message abbreviations and acronyms.
Hand out this free, printable list of text message abbreviations and go over them with your students, and then practice by having students text or write out messages back and forth with a partner. Personally, I like having my students brainstorm text abbreviations on the board before handing out the list—I’m always amazed by what they already know (and I usually learn a few new ones from them). Another follow-up activity could be to brainstorm and go over popular texting symbols and emoticons (such as the ones from Wikipedia’s list of emoticons). This works well in a multicultural classroom where students can compare the similarities and differences between countries.
Do you think texting is ruining young people’s grammar? I agree that using these abbreviations and acronyms could be seen as “lazy,” but I feel that they also bring an awareness to the language. English language learners may think about words and sounds more thoroughly when presented with a list of abbreviations. This Washington Post article, Text-messaging isn’t actually ruining young people’s grammar, presents some interesting research on this topic. What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Find The Test – Simple Future Reading lesson in the Library – Simple Future Stories.
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