Resources: Quick guide to... Youth speak

1. There's something adrift when one of the UK's major employers decides to introduce a leaflet to explain young people's use of language. It suggests that communication is not happening. Why doesn't the company just encourage everyone in a workplace to talk to each other? It also misses an essential point of teen speak - it is fast changing. By the time the supermarket's communication experts have designed a pack and tested it out, young people will have moved on and be talking some other way. But it does point to an area that youth workers can do something about.

2. Help young people practise different styles of language for different settings. Do mock job interviews, and encourage young people observing to spot language that might not be recognised, or considered appropriate by older people. Perhaps take a simple phrase that young people might say to each other - talking about a celebrity or a film or a television programme they saw recently. Invite them to "translate it" into something understandable by a parent, a teacher, a young child, a bishop, or an MP. Examine what's different. The idea is to build up young people's skills as multilingual.