Building a literate nation to anticipate globalization

Helena I. R. Agustien, Ph.D, Lecturer, Postgraduate Program Universitas Negeri Semarang, Semarang

Literacy education covers both the development of spoken language (oracy) and written language (literacy), as both imply creations of text in different modes of communication.

These two modes have a lot of bearing when it comes to planning literacy education due to the fact that although spoken language and written language share a lot in common, they are different in some respects.

The different communicative purposes they serve and the different communicative contexts they are created in give impetus to the utilization of different linguistic features or resources at the learner's disposal.

These differences can be substantially more significant than many people think, although they may be aware that written compositions are not simply spoken language written down.

This is what might cause extreme problems, such as "speaking like a book" or "writing in a colloquial style".

If that is the case, then, the main goal of literacy education is to ensure that language learners become proficient language users in various communicative events. The question is: how do we plan such a literacy education program?

One way of answering such a question is by examining what some experts have to say regarding how children normally acquire language in a natural setting.

Cameron (2001) is one of the authors who suggests that it is difficult, if not impossible, for a child to learn to write in a language before he learns the spoken form.

This coincides with our common experience that children learn their mother tongue by imitating adults around them and writing comes only when they start school.

Consequently, it would be rather irrational if we expected children to express ideas in written form before they were able to speak the language.

Even if they do speak the language, there is no guarantee that they can automatically write well without sufficient training because the two modes imply different uses of linguistic resources.

It follows from here that if we want our children to be competent users of the Indonesian language, spoken Indonesian should be given the first priority in the early years of schooling.

If they are to be introduced to the written form at all, the introduction should be focused on handwriting, spelling, basic reading and so on.

This approach can also be used in the teaching of English or other foreign languages in this country.

The reason why we need to pay special attention to oracy is that because, so far, many people think that when we learn Indonesian, our target is to speak or to write the "correct and standard" Indonesian.

And by that, many people understand it as the standard written form.

A truly competent user of a language is the one who can carry out language communications in different contexts and modes, including carrying out casual conversations in which "spoken standards", characterized by features such as gambits, slang etc., are used.

A competent speaker knows what words to choose when he speaks to his peers or to someone older or respectable; he knows how short or lengthy interactions are structured; he knows how to give a monologue to explain things etc.

For example, when a person asks for information regarding where he can find rubber bands in a supermarket in Indonesia, and a shop assistant gives the information, the person simply leaves upon receiving the information, without thanking.

It is not that the word "thanks" is not available in the language; it is, I suppose, because the structure of such a small interaction and other small interactions, often escape the attention of materials writers or teachers, who might have thought that such interactions were not important.

The structure, "Asking, answering and thanking", is often disregarded and not many people remember the thanking part when communicating with other people, especially, of a lower social status.

Many do not realize that failing to comply with a simple structure can have a serious impact on how people think about a person.

Being a polite communicator is not only a matter of choosing the right words or grammatical structures; knowing what moves should be made to create a desired interaction structure is also a significant part of politeness strategy.

Thus, being orate means being able to participate in the constructions of various spoken texts covering many different interaction structures.

Our children need to be made aware of and exposed to different interactional experiences, starting from the early years of formal education, if we want them to be competent and confident speakers.

The pedagogical implications are obvious: language education needs to be placed within a literacy perspective in the sense that language education prepares learners to become proficient in participating in various communication events.

This starts from the development of oracy to make learners effective listeners and confident speakers and gradually moves to literacy to make learners effective readers and proficient writers.