Does SACE’s Grammarly debacle spell the end for correct grammar? | Emily Olle

To comma, or not to comma? You can’t allow year 12 students to use a grammar-checking app in their English exams – not given the startling decline in literacy, writes Emily Olle.

As a 20-something sandwiched neatly between Gen Z and Millennial-ism, it feels slightly too early to be leaning into my “grumbling about the youth of today” era.

And yet here I am – shaking fist raised, ready to yell at the proverbial cloud, over one of my biggest bugbears: grammar.

On Monday, it emerged a new computer program used for this month’s SACE exams enabled a commercial app, Grammarly, to be accessed during last week’s English Literary Studies exam.

Grammarly, which offers both a free and paid tool, uses artificial intelligence to identify errors in written sentences.

These include vocabulary, grammar, spelling, punctuation, conciseness and formality.

As all first-rate rants begin, I’ll start with a good ol’ “back in my day”. And by my day, I mean both my high school graduating class of 2012 and my six successive years of university study.

Armed with just a pen, paper and the existential dread of the future, we tackled our English Studies exam with cramped hands and racked brains over whether the language would affect or effect our grade.

Furiously scribbling in the lost art of “handwriting” – although I doubt my teachers would consider what I offered up as any form of legible English – sweat would pour as we pored over our double spaced, A4-lined pages of critical text analysis.

To comma, or not to comma? How does one spell exacerbate? Full stops, tonal shifts, sentence length – oh crap, that’s too long – get the white-out, start again.

This author, regarding the current state of students' spelling and grammar skills.

After three long hours, we would lay (not lie) down our tools. Our ATAR at the mercy of whatever clever language and Atonement quotes we had stuffed into our exhausted teenage brains.

To my English teacher – no, I never did finish the book. And yes, I now realise it ended differently from the movie. Sorry about that.

From could of to could have or they’re, their and there, your grades were decided on nothing more than your written wiles – and then, maybe, your arguments.

The Grammarly issue also transcends just your and you’re – while there is a free version of the service available, the paid version offers additional language analysis including tone and fluency.

This could provide a leg-up for families fiscally able to fork out for the app, or place those without their own laptops or tablets at a disadvantage.

The SACE Board defended the technical error that allowed senior students to access the literacy tool during exams, saying “spelling and punctuation was not as important”.

SACE acting chief executive Michaela Bensley said exams were focused on “higher order uses of language and skills, not spelling and punctuation”.

That rhetoric is somewhat unsurprising, given a recent review of 10 years’ worth of NAPLAN year 3-9 writing results found a startling decline in students’ English skills.

According to the report, a majority of the nation’s year 9 students use punctuation at a year 3 level. And that’s concerning, full stop.

I’m aware that technology has advanced and this rant is the Millennial equivalent of your parents telling you they walked 15km everyday to school with nothing but a quart of milk and three cents for lunch.

Just because I suffered through handwritten exam torture doesn’t mean I condemn my successors to the same ink-smudged fate.

I’m also aware that, realistically, grammar means sweet nothing in many of our computer-driven modern industries and that, one day, an AI journalist will be writing, spellchecking and publishing stories like this in mere microseconds.

But for now, when it comes to subjects graded solely on the use of language, are we really ready to let the art of correct grammar die a slow, online death?

Maybe the youths will consider me a grammatical grandma. But as the old “let’s eat” meme once said, punctuation saves lives – so let’s make sure we keep correct grammar alive.

And before you ask – yes, I was tempted to run a Grammarly eye over this column. Any spelling errors can be graded in the comments.