Spelling a problem for native speakers 英國人，拼字爛！

Right: Vietnamese sometimes struggle with their studies, too. Hanoi, Aug. 9, 2007. 越南人有時也得要奮發苦讀。河內；八月九日。 PHOTO: AFP

A British university teacher is very upset that his students don't spell well. He's going to publish an article with some mistakes they make because he wants teaching at British schools to improve.

Bernard Lamb, who works for Imperial College, will publish the article in the journal Quest. Examples of mistakes he will mention are students writing "effect" instead of "affect" and "sun" instead of "son."

"It's important we draw attention to the issue," Lamb said.

In 1992, Lamb asked tutors at 17 British universities about their students' English skills. Lamb found that the tutors were "despairing" of their students' grasp of English.

Now Lamb says students' English levels have gotten even worse.

Teachers have long complained about falling English levels among native speakers. Many blame a lack of formal teaching in schools.

Text messaging and computer spell checkers are also blamed.

(Staff Writer, with AFP)

一位英國大學老師對學生拼字能力太差感到很沮喪，還將發表文章指出他們犯的一些錯，以改進英國學校的教學水準。

倫敦帝國理工學院柏納．蘭姆老師的文章將發表在《Quest》期刊上。他將提出的錯誤例子包括學生把「影響」寫成「效果」，把「兒子」寫成「太陽」。

蘭姆說︰「多關注這個議題很重要。」

他在一九九二年，問了十七所英國大學的輔導老師關於他們學生的英文技能，發現老師們對學生掌握英文的能力都感到「絕望」。

他說現在學生的英文程度更差了。

老師們長久以來，均抱怨以英語為母語者的程度在下降，許多人怪罪學校未提供正規的教學。

手機簡訊、電腦拼字檢查系統也備受責難。（法新社／翻譯：張愛弟）

TODAY'S WORDS 今日單字 1. publish v.i. /v.t. 發表 (fa1 biao3) 例: Mr Brown published an article about motorcycles last week. (伯朗先生上週發表了一篇關於機車的文章。) 2. despair v.i. 絕望 (jue2 wang4) 例: "Why do you continuously despair?" Roseanne asked. (「你為什麼一直感到絕望？」羅珊問。) 3. complain v.i. 抱怨 (bao4 yuan4) 例: They complained about the food, so I told them to go make their own dinner. (他們抱怨食物，所以我就叫他們自己煮晚餐。)