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Press releasesPress releasesPosted Dec 8, 2011 10:56 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524)In reply to: Press releases by dlang Parent article: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 released
That's really not true.
If your job is to write text that is then published, i.e. intended to be read by a large audience, then your spelling and grammar should be good, or you'll be judged by it.
But if you hire someone for such a position - then you *should* look at their english-grades (or other demonstrations of written-communications-skill). It does not make sense to say: This person is bad in physics because he'll sometimes misspell light as ligth.
Your grade in physics, should reflect your demonstrated skill in physics. Language is a nessecary component of that, because it's what you use to demonstrate skill. But other than that, it should not matter.
Consider the case of the foreign student.
Should I get a poorer grade in *every* subject I take in a US-university, merely as a result of my english being worse than the average of natives ?
If my english is poor - give me a poor grade in *english*. Let employers who care about english-skills, judge me on that basis. (maybe that's most of them, maybe not - it depends on many things, such as where I apply for a job!)
But don't tell them: "this guy sucks in math", when that isn't true.
Language is location-dependant anyway. If I apply for a job in USA, my english would be rated as sub-average. If I apply for a job here in Norway, my english is considered substantially better than average.
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Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 11:04 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
Other than possibly your very first job where they _may_ ask you how you did in school. No employer cares what grades you got in school.
The only thing that matters is "did you graduate".
If you were the top of your class, you get a slight benefit, but only if it's a large, known school, so that's about 1 person in 100,000 or so. For everyone else, it doesn't matter if you graduate with a A+ average, or with a C- average, the diploma is the same.
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 11:09 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]
While that's true, it's beside the point of "should you get poor math-grades for low English-skill".
You can argue that grades generally don't matter and thus that the answer to the former question doesn't matter. That's fine, but that argument doesn't really influence the answer to the former question.
In my specific case, not only has no employer ever cared about my grades. I've not even yet ever had any employer even asking me to substantiate that I graduated at all. (when applying for a job here, you generally just state that you did, and that you'll bring evidence along for the interview - I did, but no employer ever even asked to look at it)
If you apply to continue educating yourself, grades matter. If you apply for a popular masters degree, or want to get a stipendium to peruse a ph.d, they very much *do* care about your grades.
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 12:10 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
if you are going after an advanced degree, you are by definition going to be publishing to a wide audience. That's part of what you have to do to get those degrees.
A PHD by definition is supposed to result in you publishing something that in a significant advancement for the field.
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 12:04 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Consider the case of the foreign student. I was talking about high school, not university. I agree that at the university level, teachers should take into account the student's first language and the subject matter. When I was in university, I had a friend from Vietnam who was hired as a proofreader for a local TV magazine because his meticulousness in learning English made his English skills better than most native-born Canadians. So we can't generalize about foreign students. :)
Press releases Posted Dec 9, 2011 14:47 UTC (Fri) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link] Ah, but that's typical for the languages you've learned to *read* first; I don't make many spelling errors, for example, but my pronunciation is frequently atrocious (and my command of the English grammar the tenses especially is at best shaky).
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 12:07 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Your grade in physics, should reflect your demonstrated skill in physics. Language is a nessecary [sic] component of that, because it's what you use to demonstrate skill. But other than that, it should not matter. I could not disagree more strongly. In just about every job I've worked at, communication skills were vital. Even in technical fields like computer programming, being able to communicate with other people is supremely important. And if you interact with customers, poor spelling and poor grammar reflect very badly on your employer.
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 12:19 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]
Communication is more than written English, it may not even happen in English at all.
Furthermore, it's fine for lots of employers to care about your English-grade. If they care about that, let them look at that.
Why force everyone, even the people who do -not- care about English-skill, to consider it anyway, because you put some fraction of it into every other grade ?
I'm not saying English-skill should not count. For a lot of jobs, especially in English-speaking countries, it obviously should count for a lot. I'm saying that your level of English-skill, should be reflected in your *English* grade.
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 12:30 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
it's not your english that's being graded in these other classes, it's your capability to communicate clearly and unambiguously.
we've all seen the humorous results of computer spelling and grammar checkers, where the computer has 'corrected' something so that the statement now means something completely different.
not correcting it means that you are playing russian roulette with your communication. It may mean what you intended it to mean, but it may not, and you don't know enough to realize this.
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 12:53 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]
I already said that:
If the answer is not understandable, then obviously points are subtracted, but even then you don't subtract for poor english, you subtract for the fact that the student did not succeed in demonstrating knowledge of the subject area.
So yes, obviously. If your English is such that it prevents you from communicating clearly and precisely about the subject-area, then you will indeed get a poorer grade, and that's perfectly fair. In that case you're not being punished for poor English as such. You're being given a lower grade because you did not succeed in demonstrating that you deserve the higher grade. (you use English for this demonstration)
I also picked examples specifically to not fall under this. If I write an answer about optics, and write about refraction of ligth instead of refraction of light, then it's perfectly clear what I mean, and I should get full credits. (not "minus a few percent")
Most minor mistakes in spelling and/or grammar fall in this category, for example in this very thread, we have one commenter who says he suffered because of differences between New Zealand and US english. Giving someone a lower grade in physics, math or history on account of "uses New Zealand spelling" is nonsense.
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 13:21 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
the problem is that in english, many misspellings of one word end up being a different word, which can change the meaning.
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 12:42 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] Once you're past elementary school, your grades in English are unlikely to be based only on your mastery of English spelling, grammar and vocabulary. It turns out that the farther you advance in your education, the more English classes tend to be about things like literature, cultural history, and philosophy, and the more actual command of the English language becomes part of the »infrastructure« which is as essential to taking part in these classes as it is in math, science, or history classes. Given this, if you're in charge of the school system and it is important to you that students have good English, it doesn't make sense to penalise people for language mistakes only in advanced English classes but not in the other subjects. (People from countries where English is not the primary language tend to disregard this since their English classes tend to be much more focused on the language as such. Just substitute your primary language for »English« in the paragraphs above.)
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 15:38 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Communication is more than written English, it may not even happen in English at all. Feel free to substitute $YOUR_NATIVE_LANGUAGE for English in my arguments. Why force everyone, even the people who do -not- care about English-skill, to consider it anyway, because you put some fraction of it into every other grade ? Because communication in $YOUR_NATIVE_LANGUAGE is vital. You can be a brilliant physicist, but if you can't communicate your ideas and discoveries, your brilliance is wasted. I'm saying that your level of English-skill, should be reflected in your *English* grade. Yes, of course. But if your communication skills in $YOUR_NATIVE_LANGUAGE are poor, you should lose some marks in all subjects that require communication in $YOUR_NATIVE_LANGUAGE.
Press releases Posted Dec 8, 2011 12:07 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
> If your job is to write text that is then published, i.e. intended to be read by a large audience, then your spelling and grammar should be good, or you'll be judged by it.
the problem is that even if you are not being formally published, you are going to be writing things intended for a reasonably wide audience, even if that audience is just your company management as you try to convince them to do something.
If you are not in a job where this matters, you are not in a job where your grades matter at all.
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