What a marvelous thought!!! Bypassing the need to write them and the elimination of a necessary skill! I teach pre-literate Liberian senior citizens here in the US and they have had such a difficult time learning to write the letters. I would have thought learning the keyboard was one more skill, and a challenging one at that, but it may just be easier to recognize and locate a letter than to form it with a pencil. I must try this!!!

Thanks Narema.

Jean Marrapodi
Director of Education
Providence Assembly of God Learning Center
Providence, RI (USA)

PS. Is anyone capturing this content on the ALE Wiki?


-----Original Message-----
From: Hann, Naeema <N.Hann at leedsmet.ac.uk>
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Sent: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 4:03 am
Subject: [SpecialTopics 610] Re: text communication




Janet, your observation on how literacy manifests itself i.e. the difference in richness of communication from person texting or writing is interesting. 

At a basic literacy program in Bradford, we found that adult learners were able to ‘write’ (create texts) sooner when word processing on a laptop. Could this be because they bypassed the different motor skills needed for each letter of the Urdu alphabet and just needed to remember the shape of the letter and its position on the keyboard? For the Urdu script, Urdu as a Second Language learners have remarked on this being the easier option.

 

Are there any L1 literacy programmes in English speaking countries? I would love to hear from people who have experience of these.


Naeema B.Hann




 

-----Original Message-----
From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Janet Isserlis
Sent: 12 September 2007 13:36
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 599] text communication

 

Juliet and all

I've observed, among participants in a Deaf literacy program here in Providence that people use sidekicks (a T Mobile phone?) extensively.  I first became aware of it when a Deaf learner showed up at my office, which is not far from the building where classes are held.   We didn't know the room # of the building, and as I was using the regular land line to try to call someone at the university to find out where the class was held, this learner was using his side kick to send a text message to the program coordinator.

I was particularly struck by his fluidity and fluency (if I may use those terms) with generate the text message (I can't bring myself to say "texting") -- particularly after having seen his hand writing, which was very much that of a basic basic level writer.  Made me really stop and think about what "writing" is and how literacy manifests itself – as we know – in so many ways.  Also puts me in mind of work that Glenn Young and others are doing in figuring out ways to utilize technology in service to people whose literacy abilities may seem limited, but – with the use of technology – are not.  In other words, the specific skills of spelling, decoding are subordinate to the larger abilities of thinking and expression.

Other thoughts?

Janet Isserlis



From: Juliet Merrifield <j.merrifield at zen.co.uk>
Reply-To: <specialtopics at nifl.gov>
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:06:20 +0100
To: <specialtopics at nifl.gov>
Subject: [SpecialTopics 596] Re: Community Literacy

Re. technology:  there is, of course, a lot of experimenting with e-learning in the UK, but it’s probably not very different from what’s going on in the US.  More intriguing is an example from the Gambia (it’s in the Language of Literacy chapter in our Oxfam book) on how mobile phone technology has transformed communication for deaf people.  This was incorporated into a programme of sign language and literacy.  I hadn’t really thought about the importance of texting versus voice phone, and of course it is a very particular literacy. Anyone else know something similar/
 
Juliet
 

Juliet Merrifield

-----Original Message-





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