December 4, 2012
In the process of getting together a collection of our work for
Routledge educationalist series I came across this list contrasting learning of
oral and written language written in
1983. And I was struck by a remarkable change made possible by the digital
revolution that blurred the distinctions between oral and written language.
1. While both oral and written language
are transactional
processes in which communication between a
language producer and a
language receiver takes place, the
interpersonal aspects of oral language are more pervasively evident than those of
written language. Productive and receptive roles are much more interchangeable in a speech act of oral language than in
a literacy event of
written language. The contribution of listening development to speaking development is easier to identify than the similar contribution of reading to writing. One reason
is that oral interaction
is more
easily observable than written.
2.
Both reading and writing
develop in
relation to their specific
functions and use. Again there is
greater parity for functions and needs of listening and speaking than for reading and writing.
3. Most people need
to
read a lot more often in their daily
lives than they need to write. Simply, that means they get a lot
less
practice in
writing than reading.
4. Readers certainly
must build a
sense
of the forms, conventions, styles,
and cultural constraints of written texts
as
they become more proficient and flexible readers. But there is no assurance that
this
will
carry
over into writing unless
they are motivated to produce themselves, as
writers, similar types of
texts.
5. Readers
have
some
way of judging
their
effectiveness immediately. They
know whether they are
making sense of what they are reading. Writers must
depend
on feedback and response from potential readers
which is often quite
delayed. They may of course be their own readers, in fact it's impossible to write without reading.
6. Readers need not
write during reading.
But writers must read and reread
during writing, particularly as texts get longer and their purposes get more complex. Furthermore, the
process of writing must result
in a text
which is comprehensible for the
intended
audience. That requires that it be relatively complete,
that ideas be
well presented, and that
appropriate
forms, styles,
and conventions be used. As writing proficiency improves through
functional communicative use, there will
certainly be
a pay-off to reading since all
of the schemata for
predicting texts
in
reading are essentially the same as
those used in constructing texts during writing.
7. Reading and writing do have an
impact on
each
other, but
the
relationships are not simple and isomorphic. The impact on development must be seen as involving
the function of
reading or writing and the specific process in which reading
and writing
are used
to perform those functions.
(Goodman and Goodman 1983)
The gist of this is contrst
is that what makes learning oral language different was that in oral language
there is a continuous alternation of roles as speaker and listener. But in
written language reader and writer are seldom in the same place and time.
Think about how
widespread text messaging has become. Anybody, child or adult, with access to a
cell phone can engage in a written conversation with someone across the room or
across the world. Social networks make it easy to connect with “friends” on a
computer, a phone or an ipad. The distinctions I carefully drew no longer
apply. In the digital world readers and writers alternate roles as they do in
oral language.
What’s more it appears that very young
children, digital natives, are learning these new forms of literacy often
before they come to school. And certainly without any instruction..
Julliette my great-grand daughter at 2 ½
took control of my ipad and was looking at pictures and listening to music in
about 2 miinutes.
Let’s put this all into a
theoretical framework. The most significant characteristic of the human species
is our ability to create language. We alone among the animals can think
symbolically. That makes language possible. And we need to connect with each
other for survival. This need to connect with each other is rapidly increasing
and is being met in more and more varied
ways.
New technology makes
possible new ways of connecting but the need to connect is what causes the
development of the technology. Historians like to say Gutenberg’s invention of
the printing press made mass literacy possible. But if there had not been a
need for more widespread access to literacy there would have been no market for
a printing press.
The notion form
architecture that form follows function applies equally well to language. New
functions lead to new forms. But the reverse is also true, For example the
computer was originally created as a device for crunching numbers. But this
technology made new language functions possible.
And in the 30 years since
I laid out the list above, as technology has become more and more facilitative
people are creating new functions and adapting the technology into highly
efficient means of connecting with each other. We can not only “talk” with each other through our thumbs as we
“text” on our phones, we can send pictures while we talk or we can see each
other as we connect. We can hold conferences or fall in love without being face
to face.
Some linguists have
argued that oral language is innate and that written language is a technology
for transcribing speech. But now it is clear that what is universal is not oral
language but the ability to create language using any of the senses. We argued
for several decades that language is easy to learn when it is useful –even necessary-
and functional. It is hard to learn when it serves no personal need or function for the learner.
And we have argued that all forms of language
are essentially learned in the same way and for the same reasons .With the new
technology both oral and written forms of language are becoming both accessible
and socially necessary. That makes
equally easy to learn.
So here is a new reality
for our schools. Schools have always resisted new technology- whether it was
the typewriter, the ball point pen, the slide rule or the calculator. But the
changes in access to literacy require a much more pervasive change in literacy
education. We cannot educate 21st century learners with 1980’s
curriculum.
We need to welcome and
use the new technology- cell phones, ipads ,laptops but we also have to build
on the literacy even the youngest of our students bring with them to school.
That means s
curriculum that does not treat literacy
as an autonomous skill to be learned before it can be used but as a natural part of
language development. It means expanding on the social functons of literacy
that motivate learning outside of school to honing that literacy for learning
inside of school.
It also means making the
instruments of the new literacy widely and inexpensively available. In our capitalist
society access to technology is controlled by multinational corporations. The
air we breathe belongs to all of us. Sending messages through that air should
also belong to all of us. If some
children do not have access to the technology that makes the new literacy
connections possible they will not be able to develop literacy. Access is key and schools must provide it if it is
not in the homes.
It is an exciting time
for literacy. Quite literally we can stop teaching kids to read and write
in school. Rather we can expand on the literacy they learn out of school, and
help them to connect through their developing connections to literature, to the
access to information , and to full participation in the digital age.
But what a time: the
common core embodies an anachronistic
view of literacy learning which treats literacy as a difficult abstract and autonymous skill. Children happily texting
on their cell phones will be failing skill sequences and remediated for their
inability to do what they already know how to do.
Maybe someone can convince Bill Gates that instead of
meddling in schools he could make the technology universally available to all
kids and jump start easy to learn literacy.
Article quoted: Goodman, KS and YM Reading and Writing Relationships: Pragmatic Functions, Language Arts 60:5 May 1983 pp 590-599
.
