Accuracy

I had my vocational technical students/soccer players make a post on Facebook. (It is amazing how a program I thought was just a regional program is very worldwide. The world is flat.) They all have it and it is, until the change they made in format a very easy way to communicate. I am amazed at how accurate they want to be in the use of the language. I am happy they are using the language as that is the way you will learn a language. I don't want them to be just by the book English speakers I want them to be able to carry a conversation in English that will make people say- "Wow " they sure know the idiomaticity of the language. My younger students, in the school district are great kids. At this age I know that vocabulary is a big issue as many will not have the same vocabulary as many of the English speaking students do. They also do not all read well and I feel that is where the problem lies. We must teach every student to read and read well. I know that if they can read (and that involves much more than just saying the words) then we can begin to close the vocabulary gap. What say you?