Speaking. It’s so easy two-year-olds can do it.

That, however, doesn’t mean you should be speaking with the grammar and the word choice of a two-year-old well into high school.

Speaking well and writing well are important to overall success. Whether we like it or not, we are often judged by the way we speak. There’s a cliche: "You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression" and many employers will take how you speak into consideration before they ever think about hiring you.

Colleges will look at your writing skills and decide whether or not they will accept your application. Your speaking and writing skills show your intelligence level.

It baffles me how some people speak. They speak and write as though they haven’t had any type of formal education since second grade. Trust me, it offends your English teachers...and anyone else with a clue.

Sure, some people think that it’s cool to use improper grammar, to make up their own words and to replace every single "g" with an "n," but you have to have some sense of who you’re around when you break out this bad form.

When you’re with your friends chatting on Facebook, then it is perfectly OK to speak like Forrest Gump or to quote Lil’ Wayne but if you communicate like that on the writing part of the ACT, you have some serious issues.

Nobody’s asking you to sit down and read the dictionary, but a few minor adjustments can take you a long way.

Avoid using "ain’t" in a formal conversation. Avoid the use of profanity. It shows your inability to find any other words in your vocabulary.

Another way to improve the way you speak and write is just by reading, whether it’s the newspaper, a magazine or a novel.

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day when he asked, "Why would I need to read? There’s TV for that."

And then it came to me.

That’s the problem with our generation; we have found TV to be an acceptable substitute for real face-to-face communication, something that is essential to our growth as productive members of the community.