Students at Imperial "unable to write English accurately"

Dr Bernard Lamb, a reader in genetics at the Biological Sciences department of Imperial College, made national news this week after revealing that overseas students are significantly better at spelling and grammar than their British counterparts.

After becoming exasperated by the increasing number of corrections he was forced to make to basic errors in coursework, Dr Lamb, who is chairman of the London branch of the Queen's English Society, decided to statistically quantify the literary ability of his students. Lamb compiled a list of common spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and recorded the proportion of students whose work featured the inaccuracies employing the two-paired chi squared test to assess whether there was any significant difference in ability between British and overseas students. The study was based on data from several years of submitted laboratory reports from a sample of 650 biology undergraduates, of which 503 were home students and 147 were students from overseas. Alarmingly, in almost all cases the home students' grasp of the English language was inferior to that of the foreign students.

Over half of the British students sampled were unable to spell "separate", and more than a quarter struggled to differentiate between "complementary" and "complimentary "; none of the overseas students made these mistakes. Whilst many words were universally misspelled, the overwhelming majority of errors were made by British students. The students' grasp of grammar was no better, with 78% demonstrating incorrect usage of the possessive pronoun `its' compared to just a quarter of foreign students. The undergraduates' carelessness was further highlighted by their inability to spell scientific terms or names. Whilst only a small percentage of overseas students failed to utilise the terms correctly, some 79% of British students incorrectly spelled "Mendel's" and almost one third misspelled "Hardy-Weinberg".

Felix met up with Dr Lamb to discuss his research further. The lecturer was quick to highlight that "students at Imperial are not uniquely poor," explaining that poor literary skills have become commonplace amongst university students who have "not been made to realise that inaccuracies matter".

When asked whether he felt students' language skills were progressively worsening, he replied that for some time the situation had been "steadily bad", a phenomenon he blames on the reduction of reading and the rise in television viewing. Another significant factor that has been blamed for the problem is the strong emphasis on exam assessment. In the recently published Oxford-based Nuffield Review, the current exam orientated system was heavily criticised for encouraging "spoon feeding rather than fostering of independence and critical engagement with subject material." The relentless burden of school exams has also been condemned for promoting an attitude amongst students that "if it is not assessed, it is not important".

With the increasingly casual use of language in email correspondence and text messages, coupled with the fact that written coursework is almost always typed and can be corrected using a spell checker, it is hardly surprising that students' language skills are suffering.

Lamb cites "poor standards of teaching and spelling in schools and a woeful lack of correction of errors at the primary and secondary level" as the main cause, underlining the need for "more emphasis on grammar and spelling... with teachers routinely picking up on mistakes." In contrast to nationally educated students, those from overseas have benefitted from "more grammar teaching, more correction of errors and more emphasis on correctness than British students" and as a result take more care in their written work.

Felix questioned whether spelling or grammar inaccuracies were taken into account in the mark scheme and were told that marks were not deducted unless "bad English led to bad science". However, in practice, this is frequently the case; Dr Lamb highlighted the commonly confused use of "effect" and "affect", a mistake which regularly leads to misinterpretation, iterating that "errors can be very significant," particularly in the field of science where related compounds and species can have very similar names.

It is not just students who fail to use the terms correctly. According to Dr Lamb, the standard of spelling and grammar amongst other staff members is often no better, citing this as the possible reason why his colleagues often leave literary errors uncorrected in coursework.

Dr Lamb's own fervour for correcting students' spelling, grammar and punctuation is not always well received. Many students complain at his corrections: "They say their English was not corrected at school and some even say that it is unfair of me to highlight their errors because I should be judging the science."

It is not the first time university students have come under criticism for lacking basic skills. Earlier this year, Felix (1343) reported that graduates were being labelled `unfit to work' by recruiters who criticised employees social and communication skills and repeatedly found that despite attaining good degrees, many students were graduating with poor spelling, grammar and mathematical abilities.

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