The Linguist On Language

We know from cognitive science research that the brain learns best from experience and example. For most people with poor literacy skills, simply reading more is the best way to improve reading skil s. Mostly this requires the motivation of the person involved.

We know from experience that it is easier to read content that is of interest and where the context is familiar. We also know that we can read words that are total y misspelled and jumbled if we have heard these words before, know them, and are familiar with the context.

Research has shown that there is a close connection between listening and reading. From an evolutionary perspective, our brains have been listening a lot longer than they have been reading.

So, it seems to me, for the vast majority of people with literacy problems, making available a large library of reading material for the learner to choose from, and making audio files of that material available, will be an inexpensive way to improve literacy skills. Some efficient way to look up new words, and to keep track of them, would also help. Dare I mention LingQ?

Literacy as ideology

Teachers and professors involved in literacy teaching sometimes find the task of helping students to learn important language skills is less worthy of their talents than challenging certain mainstream social values. Here is what some teachers had to say on a forum on literacy.

The fol owing are extracts from discussions on an Internet forum of language and literacy teachers. While the heavy use of jargon makes it hard to understand what they are saying. It seems that they are more concerned about social injustice than how to improve people’s level of literacy. I think this is unfortunate.

"I believe that social change will continue to be hindered until society as a whole begins to recognize, value, and celebrate marginalized literacies & practices. I see part of my job as an instructor to make cracks in that which we "know" to be "Literacy". To keep an open mind and to encourage students to see the significance of their primary discourses. Just my 2 cents."

"Here's how I see it. Any notion of "L" (capital L) Literacy is a social construct, invariably tied to structures of power and inherently political. I choose to believe that there are many literacies tied to social/cultural transactional practices. Yet only certain ones are deemed valuable enough to be taught/reproduced in formal educational sites--typical y those that mirror the language-use norms of historical y elite populations.‖

"A critical issue has to do with reading the political cultures, including the politicization, of students that give shape to the formation of adult literacy programs and agencies, and the ranges of potentiality in working through the dynamics of critical adaptation (accepting the broad paradigms as broadly normative, but with the potentiality of substantial change within them (e.g. Obama) and radical change as implicit in the rhetoric (I'm using this term descriptively in the classical Greek sense rather than pejoratively) of your post which reflects the language of radical pedagogy.

"While I do not advocate illiteracy I advocate for a type [of] literacy that helps people to question, to think critical y, historical y, contextual y and a literacy that promotes care and respect for other human beings as brothers and sisters. Any attempt to teach literacy as a neutral instrument is essential y advocating the status quo. If you agree with it, then you are promoting that ideology. In preliterate societies where people are living without the introduction of industrialism, religion or other Eurocentric values, we should leave them be."

Literacy as an exercise in academic hair-splitting

Here are some more comments from the literacy practitioners, this time on the definition of literacy. To me it is quite simple. Literacy is the ability to read and write. Here is what a group of teachers had to say. Again, I am troubled by the focus of these literacy practi tioners.

"In my paper on postpositivism, I linked Popper's concept of "verisimilitude," approximation to the truth (and he uses the lower case t word) to recent work on balanced reading theory. Clearly in that paper I did not provide an evidence-based research report in that the paper is intentional y theoretical in design. However, toward the end of the paper I laid out a 19-point hypothesis, which could serve as a basis for a more grounded book-length research study, linked in turn to an examination of the underlying precepts of the recent research on balanced or integrated reading theory. The 19 thesis statements are grounded in the fol owing four categories:

 Literacy facilitates knowledge acquisition in the grappling with and mastery of print-based texts.

 Literacy is enhanced to the extent to which individuals gain the capacity to read and write print-based texts.