I was trying to fit a message into the 140 characters limit when I realized that while some academics and intellectual snobs have bemoaned the quality of English used on services like Twitter and the bastardization of the language, I realized that Twitter can actually help us improve our English.
Remember all those summaries you had to do in Secondary School? Well, Twittering with proper English words forces you to learn how to say what you need to, or want to, as succinctly as possible. You might be compelled to improve your vocabulary by learning synonyms and antonyms.
Of course we can just continue to use lol, wtf, rofl, omg or just make up new ones. However, I think the use of such services, while condescendingly referred to as symptomatic of our snacking culture, might help us if we allow it to.
Any teacher planning to create a course syllabus around the use of Twitter as a tool to teach English? Imagine a game being played with Twitter where players actually improve their English at the end of the day.
Hmmm…
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