Readers' feedback: Who’s smarter now?
A reader going through Daily Nation.
I refer to “Who’s smarter now? A tryout for readers on errors reporters make” (Daily Nation, November 19, 2021). I took your test and got 14 out of 17 answers correct. Indeed, an editor’s job is a tough one.
— Harrison Kinyanjui
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I got four questions wrong. It seems I can only join the Nation as a cub reporter.
— Githuku Mungai
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I scored 13/17. I am a proud reader of Public Editor’s Notebook because it makes me improve on my communication skills.
— Anne Chogo
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Mr Mwaura, thank you for your indefatigable fight for quality journalism, accuracy and high quality of language and for pointing out that it’s daunting, due to time constraints, et cetera. I recently checked common writing errors in 10-13th grade children in Kenya (English) and Benin (French) and found them appalling. A common problem is lack of sentence construction. I find this in undergrad and post-doc writing, too.
What can we do to decide the language standards to use? Test the teachers first, document their views on language standards for learners to attain, observe their teaching practices, how they perform and what they do and do not accept from learners, go back to Tusome and CBC Grade 1 and start again. This is a wider issue than the Education ministry, which needs guidance from public policy on language.
Too little attention is given to our multi-models of English. Many educated Kenyans return from USA experience, mixing their North American English unconsciously with Kenya’s England-sourced one. Many of us don’t have time to check acceptable standards of North American English. And we don’t know Kenya’s policy on the acceptability of North American English.
But who cares? We are hurtling down the Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) hill, having ditched the humanities, to our peril, and having neglected to open public debate on language (Tusome, which informed the CBC). And how many curriculum developers are debating Stem or the importance of cropping the curriculum down to a manageable size in upper primary and lower secondary, while ensuring teachers (and curriculum developers) understand the priority learning areas in lower primary? How could CBC have neglected to confront all this? Well, they have. And journalism is one of the resulting casualties.
— Anna Obura
Public Editor’s note: This letter has been shortened to fit in the available space.
