| In recent years, much attention has been given to the digital revolution and the many innovations that have emerged for obtaining information and communicating with others. Some negative attention has focused on the language of instant messaging and texting that is prevalent in society. The following phenomenological study explored the perceptions of four faculty members from a small private college and two faculty members from a medium-sized university in a Midwestern metropolitan area regarding the ability of students enrolled in teacher education programs to switch discourse between social writing and writing for academic purposes. The education department faculty participants were invited to bring samples of students' work at various levels of proficiency to discuss during a one hour interview, which also included questions about the general writing ability of students in the teacher education programs at both schools. Throughout the six interviews, the faculty members expressed a belief that writing is a process that develops over time with continued practice, articulating that errors in conventions were a common problem, but not a new one. Overall, the study found that pre-service teachers can code-switch easily from digital language to academic writing, but may need to be instructed on purpose and audience. It was the faculty's contention that through direct instruction and high expectations, the potentially negative influences of digital language may be mitigated. The participants' more critical concerns about the digital age were in relation to lack of depth in students' writing and decreased attention span.;Keywords: code-switching, digital language, digital generation, writing... |
