One of my colleagues in the English department here
forwarded me an article from the Toronto Star on the use of “like”
by Canadian teens. It’s shorter than the WSJ article, and may be useful
as a discussion-starter in lower grades. I’m pasting the link below.
NOTE: Links to newspaper articles typically expire in two weeks; if you want to
use the article, it may be a good idea to save a hard-copy.
Of course, now I’m wondering if any Canadian teen ever
ends a sentence with the sequence, “…., like, eh?”
– Bill Spruiell