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2005 Conference Report Founded 1908 in London, England the simplified Working for planned change in English spelling for the benefit of learners and users everywhere spelling society Spelcon 2005 Conference Report International English for Global Literacy University of Mannheim – First International Conference, 29th–31st July 2005 Report compiled by Bernadette Hughes, SSS Business Secretary This report was intended to be Journal 33, but was not published. Contents 1. List of Attendees 2. Speaker abstracts 3. Opening of the conference 4. Papers presented 4.1 ‘The worst aspects of English Spelling’ Mrs. Masha Bell 4.2 'Why the Internet age will not accept simplified English spelling’ Dr. Christopher Rollason 4.3 ‘How to prepare for, select and implement a reformed spelling scheme for global English’ Mr. Niall Waldman 4.4 ‘The German spelling reform – An example for the Simplified Spelling Society’ Prof. Gerhard Augst 4.5 ‘Challenges with English spelling while teaching English in Germany’ Mr. Adrian Alphohziel 4.6 ‘Spelling in Indian English – English spelling simplification activity in ‘my’ country: The classroom experience’ Dr. Jenny Bayer 4.7 ‘Strategies for implementing spelling reforms’ Mr. Christopher Jolly 4.8 ‘Centre of power in educational change’ Mrs. Isobel Raven 5. Final announcement by the Chairman 6. De-Briefing session 7. Additional papers 7.1 ‘An alphabet for English – XVIII’ Dr. J Conrad Crown 7.2 ‘Strategies for English spelling reforms’ Dr. L. Devaki 7.3 ‘A practical plan for achieving spelling reform’ Mr. J. Carter 7.4 ‘How systematic repair is possible’ Dr. Valerie Yule, SSS Vice-President 7.5 ‘The case for an International Commission on English Spelling' Dr. Valerie Yule, SSS Vice-President 7.6 ‘Working Party for an International English Spelling Commission (IESC)’' Dr. Valerie Yule, SSS Vice-President 1. List of Attendees Those present at the conference travelled from 11 countries (UK, USA, Australia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, India, France, Canada, Germany, Japan and Ukraine) Name Country Background / Interest Jack Bovill UK Chairman John Dalby UK Committee member and trustee John Gledhill UK Hon. Treasurer & Membership Secretary Masha Bell UK Committee member Isobel Raven Canada Society member Niall Waldman Canada Society member Ze Do Rock Germany Committee member Robert McGhee Czech Republic Society member Christopher Rollason France Speaker Gerhard Augst Germany Speaker Adrian Alphohziel Germany Committee member Chris Jolly UK Committee member and trustee Gilbert Jolly UK General interest Roy Blain Germany Society member Jenny Bayer India Speaker Ursula Nicklas Germany Conference Organiser Nicholas Cole Australia General interest /Speaks several languages Jason Embley USA Student /Thesis on English language Parag Mehta Germany Conference helper /Saispel Bernadette Hughes UK SSS Business Secretary Gabbie Blain Switzerland General interest Esther Blain Switzerland General interest Edward Marchant UK Society member Ishi Yasuko Japan Student / Studying English writing reform Skye Hendrix USA Business Student Ruth Ann Hendrix USA Society member Terje Hetland Nigel Hilton UK Society member Jeanette Richeer Germany Student Regina Baitnik General interest Anna Germany Student Mrs Haberling Germany Graphic Designer for Spelcon Age Analysis Below 20 years 1% 20–29 years 2% 30–49 years 40% 50+ 57% 2. Speaker Abstracts Mrs. Masha Bell, Keynote speaker Writer and researcher, author of ‘Understanding English Spelling’ (2004), is a European who had to learn English as a third language. Dr.Christopher Rollason, European Parliament official – Works in the Translation Service of the European Parliament. Published a considerable number of articles Mr. Niall McLeod Waldman, author of ‘Spelling Dearest’, spelling reformist Prof. Gerhard Augst, Chairman of the German spelling commission and writer on psycholinguistics-language and languages-orthography and spelling – German language, orthography and spelling and graphemics. Editor of New trends in graphemics and orthography, 1986. Mr. Adrian Alphohziel, Translator, Englishman teaching in Germany Dr. Jenny Bayer, Research officer of sociolinguistics language and educational institutional development department in Mysore, India. Writer and author of 26 books. Presented seminars and given papers in international linguistic conferences in over 15 countries. Mr. Christopher Jolly, Former SSS Chairman, Publisher of the Jolly Phonics programme Mrs. Isobel Raven, Teacher, writer, author of The Future of Fonics (2005) 3. Opening of the conference. Saturday 30 July 2005. 10:20 hrs The Chairman of ‘The Simplified Spelling Society’, Mr. Jack Bovill, welcomed everyone to the conference and thanked Ursula Nicklas for all her efforts in organising this three-day event. He commenced with an overhead entitled ‘Reform – The fight for the 1832 Reform Act’ (Edward Pearce). He briefly spoke about the Reform Act before presenting a message from the President of the society, Prof. John Wells. “I am sorry not to be able to attend the conference on International Englsh for Global Literacy in Mannheim. I am convinced that all users of English, whether as a first language, a second language, or a foreign language, would benefit from the rationalization of English spelling. Our traditional orthography enables us to infer neither the pronunciation of a written word nor the spelling of a spoken word. This imposes an unnecessary learning burden on everyone who uses English. We need to change our spelling.” John Wells. Professor of Phonetics, University College London. President, SSS The Chairman then drew a parallel with the ‘Rosetta stone’, which was discovered during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt. There are three levels of writing systems on the stone, at the top is Egyptian hieroglyphics, middle demotic script and at the bottom Greek. The undecipherable written system at the top based on a centuries-old unreformed format had to be accompanied by a demotic script so that less educated people could understand it. The Chair asked the question, “Do you wish the language to be the master of you or do you want it to be your servant?” He noted that in Germany it is the latter. He then passed the floor to Masha Bell the keynote speaker. 4. PAPERS Saturday 30 July 2005. 10:30 hrs 4.1 Masha Bell – Keynote Speaker The Worst aspects of English spelling I chose this title some time ago – but when I started to prepare for my talk today, I realised that I could not possibly say all that I would like to say about the worst aspects of English spelling. There is just too much wrong with it. So even explaining just the worst parts would take hours. So, I decided to concentrate on two related issues: 1) Why has English Spelling not been reformed since 1700? 2) Changes which are needed to give spelling reform a better chance of success. But before I start on those two themes, I want to explain briefly how I became interested in English spelling and spelling reform. I first began to think that English spelling needed reforming 46 years ago – when I was 14 and when I first started to learn English in Lithuania. In our first English lesson, our teacher explained that English letters were not like Lithuanian and Russian ones which made just one sound per letter. She explained that the English letter A, for example, was called AY and that it sometimes made the AY-sound, but was mostly pronounced as in ‘a cat and a hat’, and sometimes also as in ‘ask’ and ‘answer’. This made me worry right away. I could immediately see that such alphabetic unreliability was going to make learning to read English very difficult. It meant the teacher would have to tell us how to pronounce every new word we met. And I did find learning to read English very difficult. And while trying to do so, I was constantly puzzled why English speakers put up with such a system, and especially, HOW THEY COULD BEAR TO PUT THEIR OWN CHILDREN THROUGH SUCH TORTURE? The second time I thought that there was something seriously wrong with English spelling was when I was 20 and I became an au-pair in London in 1964. The family had 3 boys: aged 6, 10 and 14 – and at least one of them was always preparing for a spelling test. Before coming to England I had lived with my uncle and his wife in Germany for a while. They also had 3 young boys, but spelling had been no big deal. It was just something they learned at school. The English boys and their parents, by contrast, seemed be obsessed and dominated by spelling. Twelve years later I became a teacher of English and German in an English secondary school (the equivalent of a Gymnasium für Mädchen), and I found out again that English spelling was a very big problem. – The younger pupils, aged 11 and 12, all still made lots of spelling mistakes. Quite a few of the older still did too. But what really surprised me was that quite a few of the teachers regularly made spelling mistakes as well. I am letting you into a well-kept secret here: it is not a well-known fact that school reports in England are checked several times for spelling errors before they are sent home. – In that grammar school they were checked at least 3 times: by the form tutor, the deputy head and the head teacher. Each checking picked up a few errors, and some reports had to be completely rewritten. – So even for teachers spelling is a problem, and is recognised as such. In all English schools, teachers have regular discussions about improving pupils’ spelling. At such meetings I began to suggest that this was perhaps because English Spelling was rather illogical and that reforming it might help. – This idea was treated with complete disbelief – as something utterly outlandish and inconceivable. – I was even told that it can’t really be all that bad, because even a foreigner like me had managed to cope.
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