Effects of Text Messaging to the Spelling Ability of Grade 7and 8 Students at Sampiro Integrated Senior High School

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Texting adds to peoples' laziness when it comes to writing. It's an alarming fact that the popularity of text messaging among students has become increasingly marked. The researchers discovered that text messaging really affects the spelling skills of the students in making simple sentences correctly by using the shorthand method of writing.

METHODS

In determining the effects of text messaging on the spelling ability of the respondents, the quantitative research design was used to form a questionnaire. By using the Rao soft formula, the researchers come up with a total number of 148 respondents. In the three (3) sections of Grade 7, the researchers got78 respondents and 70 from the two (2) sections of Grade 8. In connection with the descriptive method, a survey questionnaire and wordbook were used to determine the effects of text messaging on the spelling ability of Grade 7 and 8 students at Sampiro Integrated Senior High School.

RESULTS

Out of 148 respondents, the researchers found out that aged 12-13 years old are the premier users of mobile phones for the reason that it became their habit and served as their happy pills. Most of them are using a mobile phone within 7-8 hours. As a result, when the researchers got the weighted average of the respondents in English in the first semester, most of them got a weighted average of 73-76, meaning they indeed took longer time in using their cellphones. Simply texting their family/ loved ones and listening to music are their foremost reason for using a mobile phone. The researchers found out that text messaging has a really negative effect on the student's writing skills for they are always using the short-hand method in writing and it resulted in poor spelling ability.

DISCUSSIONS

Based on the calculated result, the use of cellular phones affects student's spelling and grammar proficiency negatively, as evident from their usage of abbreviated words. Text language often confuse the learners to write the correct spelling of the words leading to usually misspelled words, produced worse assignments and incorrect usage of subject-verb agreement.