A Perspective On Literacy

(via TJA 29, 62, 1979) I M Darveniza writes:

1. What is literacy?
What is literacy and why do we need a perspective on it? The term has been the subject of much debate in recent years but rarely is a definition attempted. First, literacy does not just mean reading. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines literacy as ‘the ability to read and write’. If we add to this the ability to speak our native language concisely and fluently and to listen effectively to others speaking it, we come nearer to the broader meaning of literacy; the mastery of our native language in all its aspects, as a means of communication. The mastery of these four interrelated skills, reading, writing, speaking and listening, is a long term process and an extensive program of training at all ages is necessary.

2. How to read?
Reading a text chapter once is not enough. Most students retain less than 25% of a chapter’s contents after one reading. A better method is to spend a few minutes skimming through the chapter, noting topic headings, charts and italics and reading the summary. This will give an overview of the contents and prepare for a more thorough reading. Next, turn the topic headings into questions and read for the answers. Test by trying to recall the answers. Selectively review by re-reading these sections which are not clear. If underlining is to be done, it should be done at this stage and not during the first reading of the chapter. The final step is the brief outline of the chapter.

Reading Professional Journal
Students should have the foundations of continuing education fostered through the reading of professional journals. But professional journals are voluminous and many, and a word by word reading of the relevant seeming articles is tedious and time wasting. A suggested plan to attack for keeping abreast with current papers follows:

Suggestions For Reading Professional Journals
General
Editorials
1. Preview, title, introduction (paragraph 1). Summary (last paragraph)—quickly.
2. Read: if further interested, read first sentence of the second paragraph for topic, then skip-phrase through paragraph, if it appears worthwhile. Handle remaining paragraphs the same way.
3. Review: look away from the material, verbalize the points of concern to you. Check back if necessary.

Announcements
1. Skim: for topic, if interesting to you
2. Check: for date, place, personnel

Special Articles (Historical), Etc
1. Skim: titles, for each of possible interest.
2. Check: introduction and summary. If it’s any worth to you.
3. ….handle balance of selections as with editorials.

Reviews
1. Check: bibliographic note at beginning; if of possible interest.
2. Skim: concluding paragraphs or sentences for reviewer’s summary. If you wish to know more..
3. Read: rest of review of skim-phrasing.

‘Specific’ (Reports of studies and investigations)

General Approach
1. Evaluate titles: Decide which you wish to know more about; for each.
2. Skim introduction, illustration, summary.
3. If and to the extent necessary for you, read and review article.

Evaluating a study in detail
1. What is the problem? What actually was studied may be somewhat different than the title indicates……restate the problem in your own words, if possible,

2. What type of study is it?
a. Exploratory
b. Survey
c. Descriptive
d. Experimental

3. Developing Listening Skills
Listening is the first input skill of language. In this age of media and muzak in every public place, the adolescent is a very poor listener. He is used to bring bombarded with noise, color, and fast movement and has developed the ability to isolate himself from peripheral sounds. Many of these young people have developed bad listening habits, and can tune out whatever does not ‘grab’ them. They have to be taught listening habits. A suggestion follows.

Listening
Ten bad listening habits
Bad (how to tune out)
1. calling subject uninteresting and tuning out.
2. criticizing delivery (poor organization, etc.)
3. getting overstimulated and tuning out.
4. listening only for FACTS (utterly inefficient), WORST listeners do this and think its good.
5. outlining everything (rigid)
6. faking attention.
7. tolerating or creating distractions (can’t hear speaker, etc.).
8. avoiding difficult material.
9. letting ‘emotion words’ throw you off.
10. wasting ‘the differential between speech and though speed.’ Lecturer 100 wpm; average thinker 400 wpm; Mind wanders while speaker catches up; You are tuned ‘cut for 50 in for 10’.

Good (how to overcome)
1. Can I use it? Sift, screen, bear down on subject.
2. Dig out what’s needed. Responsibility on you, not lecturer.
3. ‘Withhold evaluation until comprehension is complete’, ie. hear him out before judging.
4. Listen for ideas and concepts. Facts then arrange themselves. Helps retention.
5. Mostly you can’t. Use flexible techniques. (list of ideas and facts a good technique)—precise, abstract, etc.
6. Concentrate (who are you kidding?)
7. Eliminate them. Be aggressive about it.
8. Try it.
9. Be aware some words throw you. Don’t be thrown. Tolerate.
10. Use the time—gap to concentrate.

Three ingredients of good concentration:
- Anticipate what he’s going to say and then compare what he said with what you thought was coming.
- Identify his evidence. (This is where facts come in)

4. Lecture Notes
Taking good lecture notes is an essential component of learning a subject. However, so often this important skill is thought to be learnt by osmosis and not be teaching. A suggested plan for lecture note taking follows.

Taking Lecture Notes
There are many reasons for taking lecture notes.
- Making yourself take notes forces you to listen carefully and test your understanding of the material.
- When you are reviewing, notes provide a gauge to what is important in the text.
- Personal notes are usually easier to remember than the text.
- The writing down of important points helps you to remember them even before you have studied the material formally.

Instructors usually give clues to what is important to take down. Some of the more common clues are:
- Material written on the blackboard
- Repetition
- Emphasis

1. Emphasis can be judged by tone of voice and gesture.
2. Emphasis can be judged by amount of time instructor spends on points and number of examples he uses.

- Work signals (eg. “There are two points of view on…. The third reason is…..In conclusion…)
- Summaries given at end of class.
- Reviews given at beginning of class.

Each student should develop his own method of taking notes, but most students find the following suggestions helpful:
- Make your notes brief.
1. Never use a sentence where you can use a phrase. Never use a phrase where you can a use a word.
2. Use abbreviations and symbols.

- Put most notes in your own words. However, the following should be noted exactly.
1. Formulas
2. Definitions
3. Specific facts

- Use outline form and/or a numbering system. Indentation helps you distinguish major from minor points.

- If you miss a statement, write key words, skip a few spaces, and get the information later.

- Don’t try to use every space on the page. Leave room for coordinating your notes with text after the lecture. (You may want to list key terms in the margin or to make a summary of the contents of the page).

- Date your notes. Perhaps number the pages.

4. Developing Competence In Writing And Speaking
Discussion is as basic to good writing as it is to good oral language activities. Speaking is one of the outputs of language, the other is writing. Through talk students can develop the easy use of technical words and the fluency of expression that supports fluent writing:

- Talk gets ideas flowing
- Talk familiarizes vocabulary
- Talk provides opportunity to set out sentence patterns of constructions
- Talk promotes organization for clarity
- Talk establishes cause—effect relationship
- Talk organizes sequence of events

Quality of expression is tied to quality of input. Just as children pattern their oral language on what they hear during oral exchanges so students will absorb from their listening and reading the pattern of technical language. Academics should draw students attention to clear well written technical language.

The conventions of writing develop as students write and are interested in others reading their product. The conventions of handwriting, spelling and punctuation help to facilitate communication with the reader. Proof-reading is an essential component of good writing. Spelling of technical jargon words has to be learned, always remembering that spelling is a visual skill not an oral one (unless to confound small children).

The look of a word and the practice of writing it is important. Reading and spelling are often confused and there is concern for the ‘good’ reader who is a ‘bad’ speller. Reading is recognition while spelling is selection, e.g., pain, to spell the sound could be ai, ae, a….e, ei or ay.

Some of the points to avoid in technical writing can be itemized as follows:
1. Ambiguity: make sure writing has one meaning only.
2. Monotony of sentences: vary the length and construction of sentences.
3. Pretentious writing: do not use exaggerated expressions when simpler words will do.
4. Cliches, colloquialism, slang: look for fresher turns of phrase.
5. Unfamiliar words: do not use words if you do not know their meaning.
6. Circumlocution: be concise and to the point.
7. Unnecessary repetition: do not repeat the same word or phrase too soon. Read each paragraph as it is finished and any repetition will be noticed immediately.