Spontschbob and the Minjens. How exposure to English writing on the internet influences the writing skills of primary school students’ online vocabulary

Abstract

The author deals with the question how the daily use of English written language on the internet influences German elementary school students’ orthography of the online vocabulary. This is done by an exemplary empirical study that can be assigned to foreign language didactics. The study uses a dictated text containing everyday German vocabulary and chosen English terms from the online lexis to show the connection between the use of online media and spelling. One can see that the results vary strongly among different students, but all in all there is a clear correlation between contact with the English language on the internet and a better orthography of these terms.