Hello I’m going to talk about a story about how there once was a girl that came from the cold lands of Canada have a wonderful family wonderful friends and all she wanted to be was a teacher when she grow up she went to school she worked hard and her Dream came true it becoming a teacher luckily enough she found a job right after graduating from the University and to her joy in the light she was launched into the inner city school system that’s where her heart and passion crew for teaching as she felt she was making difference in the lives of children to make sure that they were not forgotten within the school system Ben when is few years with in her career she was at a teacher’s convention looking for ways to fill her learning tool kit she was with her young cousin who they are very close together and who was just finishing his student teaching as they walk the many booths of the teachers convention they come across a booth for teaching abroad in China China they both say to each other we would never go to China are you kidding me right now how we survive in such an unknown country sure enough curiosity one they walked up to the booth where they met the director and before you knew it the young lady was going home at night frantically putting her resume together for she’s already been employed by a board back in Edmonton and had a permanent contract so she had not done her own resume and over 11 years resume was done handed it off and gave it to the director of a school in an unknown city called Guangzhou China Skype interviews began the conversations happened and before you knew it the young woman and her cousin were granted a job for a 2-year contract and Alberta School in Guangzhou China now coming from a very traditional Italian background with Italian parents that you know Lexi keep good tabs on you it took a while and very creative ways to tell their parents that hey we are moving to China to try something new so the conversation went everyone thinks they’re crazy goodbye goodbye parties were had so much shopping because not knowing what we’re going into we arrived in China it was late get picked up at the airport and are driven to our new home what’s in that first year we decided to live together which was really amazing Guangzhou is a beautiful city so many lights huge and so many people what a shock that was the school was great small working towards getting their accreditation from Alberta so it felt really great to be part of this process and just helping the school will grow after year one ended the girls board back home would not give her another extended leave so in a panic she broke her contract and went back home to teach in Alberta now I truly believe things happen for a reason because as I went back home I was able to start a new project a pathway program for students at could just not learn to Conventional classroom

As the screen shot is not quite clear, I also copied the text above. I used the chrome extension of Speech to Text (voice recognition).

  • How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?

There is no punctuation, capitalization grammar and sentence structure, also spelling errors.  It is how my young students write, one very long run on sentence.

  • What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?

Written form is a formal means of communication, where in the message is carefully drafted and formulated in written form. In Orality and literacy, Ong, Walter, J. Taylor & Francis (2002) state that, “written texts all have to be related somehow, directly or indirectly, to the world of sound, the natural habitat of language.” The message is there, a teaching adventure to China, within the mass of words we can see how it is all related and understand the just of the story. Words were interrupted different, the word been is written down as Ben, which is a totally different meaning. Without punctuation to me it sounds robotic. What is an exciting story comes off as confusing and flat when reading it. Without knowing and noticing the nonverbal cues like the body language, facial expression, tone of voice and pitch, etc, makes the communication lost.

  • What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?

Spelling, these are considered mistakes as it changes the meaning of the story, as a different word is written than what was being said. “Writing was invented to solve a particular problem: information only existed if someone could remember it.” Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011). It is hard to solve the problem when there are too many written mistakes to understand what the problem even is.

  • What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?

It would have flowed better, I found myself stumbling over my words, worried about making sure I fill the 5-minute time requirement. Where if I was just reading a script I would have paused, went at a steady pace, articulated my words better to help with the spelling mistakes. Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011) explains that, “a spoken (or mentally composed) message unfolds in time, one word replacing the previous one as it is uttered.” I was too focused on what I was going to say. He continues to state, “writing arranges the message in space, each word following the previous one in a line. Writing is therefore a process of translating time into space. Being spatial, writing is visible.” With it being visible, my story would be clearer.

  • In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling? 

Oral storytelling to me is traditions of the past. It is listening to my nonna talk about stories of her growing up. I find that oral communication is informal which is normally used in personal conversations, traditions, etc. When an often-told oral story is not actually being told, all that exists of it is the potential in certain human beings to tell it. Ong, Walter, J. Taylor & Francis (2002). He goes on to explain, “It would seem inescapably obvious that language is an oral phenomenon. Human beings communicate in countless ways, making use of all their senses, touch, taste, smell, and especially sight, as well as hearing. Some nonoral communication is exceedingly rich —gesture, for example. Yet in a deep sense language, articulated sound, is paramount. Not only communication, but thought itself relates in an altogether special way to sound. Written storytelling is formal communication, which is used in schools, business world, etc. People normally use the oral mode of communication because it is convenient and less time-consuming. However, people normally believe in the written text more than what they hear that is why written communication is considered as the reliable method of communication. Ong, Walter, J. Taylor & Francis (2002) clearly explain, “Without writing, human consciousness cannot achieve its fuller potentials, cannot produce other beautiful and powerful creations. In this sense, orality needs to produce and is destined to produce writing. Literacy, as will be seen, is absolutely necessary for the development not only of science but also of history, philosophy, explicative understanding of literature and of any art, and indeed for the explanation of language (including oral speech) itself.” The important thing to note about both types of storytelling is the people. Whether written or orally what is so captivating is the expression the teller uses. Noticing their nonverbal cues like the body language, facial expression, tone of voice and pitch, etc. This makes the communication between the parties more effective.

 

References:

Chapter 1 (Links to an external site.) of Ong, Walter, J. Taylor & Francis eBooks – CRKN, & CRKN MiL Collection. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. New York; London: Routledge

Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011).“The First IT Revolution.” In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internetLinks to an external site. (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons (pp. 1-10).