An “Aha!” moment on orality and literacy
I have to admit that I have found this set of readings to be quite challenging, and that is why my post is coming this late in the module. I found it difficult to grasp the idea that there are cultures that exist in our modern world that do not have writing. I’ve Googled the idea numerous times. I’ve discussed it with some colleagues and my husband, and though we had spoken of native groups with oral cultures whose traditions and laws are passed down by word of mouth, I just could not seem to grasp how this could relate to my teaching. We live in a literate society. My students must learn to write. How can I possibly think about preliterate societies and change my teaching?
But tonight, I finally hit on a piece of writing (how ironic) that put things in a different light for me. Oddly enough, this piece was written by Ong, and no doubt spoke of many of the same ideas as our assigned readings, but this one just managed to switch on a light bulb for me. Here is the link, in case there is anyone else who can benefit from this perspective. Literacy and Orality in Our Times
In this piece, Ong states that “writing is completely and irremediably artificial, and that what you find in a dictionary are not real words but coded marks for voicing real words.” He also says, and I know I did read this in our assigned reading as well, that all in all cultures, provided there is no physiological or psychological reason not to, everyone learns to speak, and it is a fairly natural occurrence. It does not require extensive, direct instruction. Children learn to speak merely by mimicking sounds they hear around them. They piece together phrases and sentences without anyone telling them explicitly how to do so. Writing, however, requires instruction on its contrived rules, beginning with the formation of letters or symbols, to the making or words and sentences.
And this is where my epiphany this evening occurred! We do not really even write in the way we speak, well at least not in formal writing situations. When I respond to a question that my students ask, I do not state the answer and respond in a full sentence. However, in school, we are asking students to do this, even in the early primary grades. We want them to write as though they are speaking to someone who is not even present for the conversation. Writing is not merely a transcription of the oral word. “Like it or not, we are teaching a technology, for not only print, but also writing itself is a technology” (Ong, 1978).
This helped me to recognize some of the problems that my students are having with writing. One of my students has some learnin
g difficulties, particularly with reading and writing. She is quite able to respond verbally to most of my questions, but then when it comes to putting it on to paper, has a great deal of trouble. I wasn’t really seeing why she did not just write what she was thinking, but now after reading Ong’s work, I can see that what she would think does not really fit into the rules of writing, and therefore was not as natural as I was presuming it to be. I have another student who has written things numerous times this week and when reading it back to her, I’ve asked her if what she’d written sounded right. It did not to me, as I was following the rules of writing, but to her in her predominately oral language, it sounded right as rain!
Writing allows us to organize thoughts analytically and sequentially, but this is not true in oral language. For young children, writing must be taught in a way whereby they can learn to organize their thinking on to paper in a way that can be read by someone else. It is not a natural phenomenon that should or will come easily to all. It is something that teachers need to teach, explain and model. Learning this difference between oral language and written language can help teachers see this need more clearly.
Ong, W. (1978). Literacy and orality in our times. Retrieved from http://www.ade.org/bulletin/n058/058001.htm
Hi Jenn…it seems like we have both travelled down the same path this week. I was/am challenged with the reading and found myself supplementing the chapter with external sources (in my attempt to make sense of it all). I still haven’t written my full post as I am still unsure if I have anything new to add or even if I have sorted the ideas out for myself. With this in mind, I find your “light bulb moment” very interesting.
Why is there such a divide between expectations of oral language and expectations of students written work? I find it fascinating that you are teaching children and I, adults, yet we are instructing the same skills (probably at different levels) of organization of written ideas and clarity. Maybe we do this because this is an unnatural phenomenon?
Thanks for your thoughts. I may get to writing my post soon!!
After reading this weekend, I kind of feel for my students a little more! I feel like I’ve spent the whole year telling them they must use periods, capitals and full sentences, but it hasn’t been sinking in! Now I see that it is because that is not really how we speak. Writing is really very different and I never thought of it that way before. They know if I read something back to them the way they wrote it, that it doesn’t sound right, but they don’t really see it themselves. I think this will definitely affect my teaching from here on in!
I’ve also been thinking a lot about an ESL child that I have in my class, and how difficult it must be for her. She had very little English when she arrived. I find now that she is trying to write what she says, but of course, as she doesn’t yet have all the oral language yet, this is even harder to write. Difficult for sure!
First of all, I would like to acknowledge the struggles you had with the reading as I shared them with you. The chapter was verbose and at times difficult to understanding. However, I found the headings and examples provided eventually helped me come to better understanding of what his point was. I guess that was my literacy training that helped me out.
For me, I struggle with trying to understand a purely oral world and I think this is because I have spent the last 20 years teaching reading, writing and media skills. Your comment about “We do not really even write in the way we speak” really struck me. The students today have a really hard time deciding when and how to write or to speak in a specific way. Maybe there are too many contexts or situations to manage, but it is very clear when a student writes in way that ‘sounds’ like they are talking to me. I generally do not accept things written this way because it is, as you pointed out, informal. The idea that writing is an artificial construct is interesting because it is so true. Where in life do we talk in a five paragraph essay format or style? When do we speak in such a way that we introduce a topic, create a thesis and then support it?
Finally, I think that one of the ways our education system is trying to help the issue that you pointed out (about the student not being able to write, but can say the response) is the whole concept of differentiated instruction (I know, a buzz word/phrase). In theory, there are multiple ways of demonstrating your understanding, knowledge and so forth. Needless to say, we all have different strengths and some are better communicators verbally than through writing. However, I do think that there needs to be some standards met with respect to writing and reading. But, who determines those standards and when is differentiated instruction/assessment not the answer?
You’ve raised some interesting points and I am not sure the answers are easy to find.
I wish I had come across this post earlier! These readings were such a challenge for me and I was feeling very isolated in the endeavor. The irony is literally hitting me as I am typing this post. Chapter 3 from Orality and Literacy was the toughest hurdle. It was often difficult for me to understand, connect to, and as a result to question. Any strategies I have to process a difficult text were not helping enough and as a result, I needed to be able to talk about the reading. To hear what other people think and deepen my understanding as I verbalized my thoughts, questions, and ideas. I could not effectively troubleshoot on my own. Focusing on the written word exclusively was not working for me. I need to incorporate orality. Any “centrism” or exclusivity does not work for me as a learner.
Now I can connect to Chapter 3. 🙂
Allison and Jody,
I am also glad to know that I was not alone in my difficulties! I often find that the best learning happens through the discussions in our courses as much of the literature is very wordy! Some people are good with the wordy stuff, but not me so much! 🙂
Cheers!
It was such a relief when I read your post! I almost cried! haha Can you tell it’s June!?!?!?!? 🙂
I do agree with your comment that we don’t write the way we speak. One of Ong’s arguments to explain why writing can be difficult is the need for writers to write logically, so that no matter who comes along to read the writing they are capable to make complete sense of what is being written (1978). Unlike an oral conversation, asking questions can clarify misunderstandings while when writing you do not have that communicational context (1978).
I, like you have a student who struggles with their writing especially in making sense to the reader. One of the programs I was introduced to this year was Kurzwell, which is a ‘screen reading’ computer program that combines text to speech technology with some other writing tools (Kurzweil Education, 2015). The best attribute that I have been witness to in the ability of this program to read out the writing to the student. When a comma or period has been missed the student in my case was more likely to pick up on it then if he just reread his own work. So his capacity to review, edit, proofread his work vastly increased. His output for expository writing and writing responses was much greater using this technology than writing with pencil and paper.
The major disadvantage is that the program we use can only be installed on one computer, so that computer is kept with the resource teacher so many students can access it however it was used minimally in the classroom. My resource teacher is very familiar with applications of this software and many of the tools that are available with this technology. In order for me to implement more than just the basic tools I would need some time and professional development in this area.
Kurzweil Education.(2015). Kurzweil: An Integrated Literacy Solution for Life. Retrieved June 3, 2015 from http://www.kurzweiledu.com/default.html.
Ong, W. (1978). Literacy and orality in our times. Retrieved from http://www.ade.org/bulletin/n058/058001.htm.
Hi Rebecca,
I’ve heard of Kurzweil but have not used it in my classroom. My sister is a special education teacher and uses it with many of her students. Is it suitable for young students? Last year I had a similar situation where a student had a great deal of trouble with writing. I tried using a speech to text app on the iPad with him but his speech impairment caused the iPad to be unable to pick up what he was saying. There is another app called Read and Write Gold which you can train to the student’s speech (maybe Kurzweil does that too?), but for young students the text used to train the app is often to difficult for them to read. It is great that there are so many technologies that can help students now, but as you said it is often frustrating that we do not have more access to them.
I have mostly worked with intermediate students with this program. Perhaps in the later primary years if the student was familiar with using Word then Kurzweil could be appropriate with some guided practice.
I had similar problems with a speech to text app of not being able to pick up a student’s speech. However, the student did continue to practice with it and it helped him improve his annunciation of words. I’ll have to look into Read and Write Gold, thanks for the tip.
Hi Jenn and fellow classmates;
This was a heavy duty reading to have at the beginning of a course. I can see myself revisiting it later in the course.
“Children learn to speak merely by mimicking sounds they hear around them. They piece together phrases and sentences without anyone telling them explicitly how to do so. Writing, however, requires instruction on its contrived rules, beginning with the formation of letters or symbols, to the making or words and sentences.”
I think speaking; the art of conversation has its only set of ‘contrived’ rules. Could it be that we have become slack in demanding a higher level of attention to these ‘rules’ in our oral expression? The movie ‘My Fair Lady’ and elocution comes to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_Lady_(film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQo34bVcALA
Terry
I think you are right Terry. There is certainly a more proper way to speak, but we have become slack in the way we do so. I was thinking that just a few minutes ago actually as my son was telling me a story that contained the word but about ten times in one extremely long sentence! lol! There was a kick a couple years ago on this speaking component in our language arts program. They wanted students to also focus on responding correctly using oral language. It seems to have gone by the wayside again, but just as there is a difference in texting rules and more formal writing rules, so there is with our speaking rules for different situations. I think it is important to discuss this with students to show them the difference!