Overseas students are better at English than the British

[nick]

British undergraduates are nearly three times more likely to make errors in English than those from overseas, according to new research.

A study of written work produced by final-year students revealed that, on average, they had 52.2 punctuation, grammatical and spelling errors per paper compared with just 18.8 for the international students.

The research is disclosed today by Professor Bernard Lamb, reader in genetics at Imperial College London, and president of the Queen's English Society, after studying the written work produced in the year by his students. It will be published in the society's journal, Quest, next month.

Spelling errors included "flourescence" for "fluorescence", "alot" for "a lot", "seperate" for "separate", "yeild" for "yield", "relevent" for "relevant", "introduications" for "introductions" and "pail vains" for "pale veins".

Full story here (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/overseas-students-are-better-at-english-than-the-british-1797470.html)

[Kaleidoscope Eyes]

HAH! Take that, all you Brits who say I can't speak English because I'm not actually from England. xP

And those are undergrads, as in students at university. Admittedly, some of the common spelling errors listed are just tricky words, using an "e" instead of an "a" and so on. Things like possessive apostrophes, colons vs semi-colons, subject-verb agreement, etc. are things I think we all should just know by that point. Some people never really grasp when to use a semi-colon because it's not used all that often, but possessives have pretty simple rules. Does the word show ownership? If it does, use an apostrophe. If not it doesn't need one.

It's unfortunate that some of these students aren't learning that; these are things my mom is teaching and reviewing with her 5th grade (year 6) students this year.

I'm fortunate to have always had a pretty decent understanding of grammar. I know I make mistakes, especially when typing like this versus for an assignment because I don't proofread these things for errors. I've always just sort of understood the rules, though. A lot of people aren't like that, however, and we really need to make sure that they learn these things in school.

[ShatteredWings]

"PAIL VAINS" for "PALE VEINS"

Even I don't make that sort of mistake.


What's being counted as "final year" in england though.. because in US up until 12th grade is considered compulsory(yes, you can drop out, but it's made to be a pain in the ass to do)...where as isn't going to sixth form optional?

[mrmcdonaldduck]

what, you brits dont know your english, eh?

[Delusion15]

Well maybe it is because there they were taught English like in English class for example i take Spanish in school and they teach us how to spell read and write Spanish. However in english i don't really pay attention and when it goes up agaisnt someone who had to learn english by punctuation it seems better. I don't know if that made sense or not

[ShatteredWings]

True. I've noticed the same thing with my french. On forums/websites in french, I'll be annoyed of errors, even though I'm barely proficient in the language.

[Sage]

Yeah, I had a conversation about this with a friend of mine in Sweden some time ago. He figures it's because people who learn english outside of normally english-speaking countries have the grammar and rules bashed into their heads every class.

[Kaleidoscope Eyes]

I always had grammar lessons in elementary and junior high school even as a native English speaker... We went over that stuff all the time. Subject, verb, direct object, indirect object, prepositional phrase, appostive, etc. We had grammar books that we would do exercises out of, even. I always thought most English/Language Arts classes did that sort of thing, at least through elementary school and hopefully junior high. When people think English class they usually think reading and writing, but grammar is a big part of writing and you can't just not teach that.

Also, this is just talking about British students, not all native English speakers such as those in the US and Canada. I'm not saying the US and Canada are clearly going to be better, but they weren't included in the survey and thus the results don't reflect the capabilities of English-speakers "across the pond", just China, Singapore, and a single Indonesian student.

What's being counted as "final year" in england though.. because in US up until 12th grade is considered compulsory(yes, you can drop out, but it's made to be a pain in the ass to do)...where as isn't going to sixth form optional?
I think it's after what we would consider high school altogether. In the US, Undergraduate students are college/university students, and I believe it would be the same there as well. You're an undergrad while getting your Associate's and/or Bachelor's degree, and to get your Master's or PhD beyond you apply to graduate school. So, I would assume that these are university students.

[Jean Poutine]

As a native French speaker, I generally make fewer than 10 errors per English paper (~1000 words).

In almost every forum I have been a member of, I am generally used to make people spell better ("this guy is French and he spells better than you do lolol"). I'm not failproof, but I'm quite happy with my performance.

By the way, I make more mistakes when I write in French.

I have three theories :

1- English speakers only read picture books
2- English speakers SMS too much
3- English speakers are lazy in class

Because honestly, I can't say I've been bombarded with grammar rules in English classes.

Also, Asian students that studied English in their home countries are basically branded grammar onto them by their teachers. You wouldn't believe how ruthless English language education is over there. Their only goal is to get good scores on standardised English tests like TOEFL and the like. English classes over there consist of mercilessly drilling grammar and spelling points over and over because the TOEFL is only a written test with no oral part. That's why it's pretty rare to meet an Asian person that is good conversationally even with 11+ years of English classes. They don't study English to actually speak it, they study it to ace the test and get into a good university.

[ShatteredWings]

1- English speakers only read picture books
2- English speakers SMS too much
3- English speakers are lazy in class


I think 2 and 3 are probably both quite true....

Especially with the lazyness

[Hyper]

Indeed ''text/internet talk'' has already turned a generation into retards

[Sage]

Indeed ''text/internet talk'' has already turned a generation into retards

Retards who SAVE A LOT OF FREE TIME!

/sarcasm

[Whisper]

Well first of all I'd like to take a look at the research method used and the demographic picked
and i doubt this has been peer reviewed yet
I'll keep a look out for the journal on my University's database

Even if it is correct in that demographic area
There's still allot of other factors; you're always more confident in your first language and as such are more prone to slang and you're less likely to look up every long word in your essay in a translation dictionary.
At my school we have a ton of international students, mostly from Asia and one thing I've noticed is they all carry around these huge dictionaries and are constantly looking up words because they aren't as fluent or comfortable in the English language. This doesn't mean that the English student's are "lazy" or incompetent, it simply means they aren't copying directly from a dictionary.
I'm not saying that IS the contributing factor but it is a possibility
What I'm trying to say is there are allot of variables here.

Personally I always spell check

[scuba steve]

it's simple really because the English language is always changing native speakers develop with all this new slang. But a foreign speaker say Swiss would know all the language in its "proper english" form. Meaning they would learn precise grammer.

Also remember they are undergraduates, alot of them can barely speak the language as it is.

[Jean Poutine]

it's simple really because the English language is always changing native speakers develop with all this new slang. But a foreign speaker say Swiss would know all the language in its "proper english" form. Meaning they would learn precise grammer.

Also remember they are undergraduates, alot of them can barely speak the language as it is.

That's just a ginormous fucking generalisation. I'll show you proper fucking English when Jesus H Christ kicks the goddamn bucket for our sins again.

: D

[Bougainvillea]

I think people need to just study a little more. I started school early. By the time kids were barely learning their ABC's, I was reading full books. (Junie B. Jones ftw.) :P

It's all this texting, and emailing that all the darned chilluns are up to.