Pan-African Journal Of Humanities And Social Science SMS LANGUAGE INTERVENTIONS ON STUDENTS' NOTE-TAKING SKILLS: NEW INSIGHTS FROM DIGITAL LITERACY (original) (raw)

The negative influence of SMS style of language on the Standard English language writing skills of students have been at the front burner of academic researches on digital literacy. Findings have revealed that students adopt non-standard usage and contracted forms of English words which characterize this language style in their formal writing. This premise being a fact, however, from every lemon, comes out lemonade. To this effect, this research set out to identify ways this textism can be harnessed to impact the students" study skills and thus improve their reading and learning outcomes. Effective note-taking enhances students listening skills and participation in the learning process. To maximize this benefit, the student would have to multitask and as such needs to use those abbreviations that are familiar to him. The paper then posits that students" habitual use of SMS language; which is characterized by personalized and special abbreviations, can intervene in their note-taking skills. Therefore, it advocates that teachers in teaching note-taking skills should encourage students to incorporate these features in their note-taking to enhance active participation in class and improve their learning outcomes. At the same time, the paper suggests that teachers should constantly remind the students not to use them in their formal writing.