3 Outcome 1.3 The wide range of adult literacy and numeracy definitions
Description includes a comparison of four adult literacy and numeracy definitions currently used in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Range: definitions include one for Maori (from either Te Kawai Ora or Professor Mason Durie's speech 2001 to the Hui Taumata Matauranga Maori), one for embedded literacy, one for numeracy, one other adult literacy definition, which may include but is not limited to Whakatipuranga Arapiki Ako report.
I work in the English Language Centre (ELC). The programme we teach is the New Zealand Certificates in English Language (NZCEL). That is set by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA).
I admit to being hazy on the acronyms. All I feel that I need to know is that I teach English for people needing and/or wanting to use that language in order to reside in New Zealand, or who wish to continue their tertiary education in an English-speaking environment, possibly with a view to settling in an English-speaking country at some future date.
On the 3rd of its 8 (!) pages, Unit Standard 21204 offers as a definition:
To be required to do embed literacy within literacy is ludicrous - something along the lines of trying to lift yourself up by the bootstraps. I feel ill at ease at being placed in such a Catch 22. Someone, somewhere has not thought this through.
However, all is not lost. I am going to tease out an alternative interpretation that will prove useful. That of retro-embedding literacy.
But to return to what the unit standard requires . . .
From Literacy Aotearoa:
The Tertiary Education Commission:
Te Kawai Ora
The scope and range of such a conclusion suggests that the traditional Western approach of classroom instruction is not sufficient, an important point to which I'll return.
Additionally, there are disquieting signs of a political nature. Maori was never a written language (in the sense of most written languages). For the written word to have overtones of being antisocial (which Wally Penito mentions, and Alan Duff too who contends that because Maori had no written language, knowledge was passed on primarily through oral transmission, which led to many consequences, among them a mistrust of the written word), this hints at issues deeper than this brief is able to address.
Relating the above discussion to the programme on which I teach, new migrants - or potential migrants (internationals) need to be brought up to level where they may engage on an equal footing in terms of language, but to have a better understanding of the situation language and culture-wise of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Our refugee students may have missed up to 5 years of basic schooling. It would be especially important for them to have numerical concepts embedded within their English programme.
Now, literacy contains much of numeracy. They are two sets with a large intersection. However, numeracy is not a subset of literacy. As a former Maths teacher, it concerns me when my colleagues sweep numeracy under the literacy carpet (or should that be 'umbrella?).
Semantics aside, I am unhappy with mental 'short-cuts' such as these being taken.
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Range: definitions include one for Maori (from either Te Kawai Ora or Professor Mason Durie's speech 2001 to the Hui Taumata Matauranga Maori), one for embedded literacy, one for numeracy, one other adult literacy definition, which may include but is not limited to Whakatipuranga Arapiki Ako report.
I work in the English Language Centre (ELC). The programme we teach is the New Zealand Certificates in English Language (NZCEL). That is set by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA).
I admit to being hazy on the acronyms. All I feel that I need to know is that I teach English for people needing and/or wanting to use that language in order to reside in New Zealand, or who wish to continue their tertiary education in an English-speaking environment, possibly with a view to settling in an English-speaking country at some future date.
On the 3rd of its 8 (!) pages, Unit Standard 21204 offers as a definition:
Embed literacy and numeracy skills development refers to teaching and learning of literacy and numeracy within the context and tasks of another subject or skill, e.g. panel-beating. [candidate's italics]Since the programme that I teach toward consists of nothing but literacy, it does not at make sense to embed literacy within literacy. I do not teach panel-beating, carpentry, fashion design. I teach language specifically.
To be required to do embed literacy within literacy is ludicrous - something along the lines of trying to lift yourself up by the bootstraps. I feel ill at ease at being placed in such a Catch 22. Someone, somewhere has not thought this through.
However, all is not lost. I am going to tease out an alternative interpretation that will prove useful. That of retro-embedding literacy.
But to return to what the unit standard requires . . .
From Literacy Aotearoa:
Literacy is listening, speaking, reading, writing and critical thinking, interwoven with the knowledge of social and cultural practices. Literacy empowers people to contribute to and improve society.
The Tertiary Education Commission:
Integrating literacy into vocational education and training involves concurrently developing language, literacy and numeracy and vocational competence as interrelated elements of one process.
Te Kawai Ora
Literacy is the lifelong journey of building the capacity to ‘read’ and shape Māori and other worlds.UNESCO:
Population aged 15 years and over who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement on his/her everyday life. Generally, ‘literacy’ also encompasses ‘numeracy’, the ability to make simple arithmetic calculations. Adult illiteracy is defined as the percentage of the population aged 15 years and over who cannot both read and write with understanding a short simple statement on his/her everyday life.What seems to be a theme in Aotearoa NZ is that literacy is more holistic than simply the UNESCO definition. It is richer, more encompassing and community-oriented. Literacy is not just basic English and numerical tuition. It pertains to the real world. It requires authenticity and being treated as a whole.
The scope and range of such a conclusion suggests that the traditional Western approach of classroom instruction is not sufficient, an important point to which I'll return.
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| Wally Penetito |
Literacy in Maori terms should include the ability to read and write in both Maori and English, i.e biliteracy and be able to use that ability competently, i.e. to be functionally biliterate in Maori and English. Being literate in Maori should also include having the capacity to ‘read’ the geography of the land, i.e. to be able to name the main land features of one’s environment (the mountains, rivers, lakes, creeks, bluffs, valleys etc.), being able to recite one’s tribal/hapu boundaries and be able to point them out on a map if not in actuality as well as the key features of adjacent tribal/hapu boundaries and being able to ‘read’ Maori symbols such as carvings, tukutuku, kowhaiwhai and their context within the wharenui (poupou, heke etc.) and the marae (atea, arongo etc.). I’m not sure but even the ability to ‘read’ body language (paralinguistics) should not be outside the scope of a definition of ‘literacy’ in Maori terms. This is the sort of work that ‘the politics of everyday life’ structured in the nature of relationships has much to say about. This might be taking a definition of literacy too far but then again perhaps the definition that has been imposed has been far too limiting … which might account for the fact that many people know how to read but don’t do it very much because it is such an anti-social activity [candidate's italics].
Here Wally Penito alludes also to a broader definition of literacy but he also refers to bilingualism as necessary for a person to be thought of as being literate in Aotearoa. Is that just for the Maori but for the rest of the population as well, one wonders? It's an interesting point to consider.
Additionally, there are disquieting signs of a political nature. Maori was never a written language (in the sense of most written languages). For the written word to have overtones of being antisocial (which Wally Penito mentions, and Alan Duff too who contends that because Maori had no written language, knowledge was passed on primarily through oral transmission, which led to many consequences, among them a mistrust of the written word), this hints at issues deeper than this brief is able to address.
Relating the above discussion to the programme on which I teach, new migrants - or potential migrants (internationals) need to be brought up to level where they may engage on an equal footing in terms of language, but to have a better understanding of the situation language and culture-wise of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Our refugee students may have missed up to 5 years of basic schooling. It would be especially important for them to have numerical concepts embedded within their English programme.
Now, literacy contains much of numeracy. They are two sets with a large intersection. However, numeracy is not a subset of literacy. As a former Maths teacher, it concerns me when my colleagues sweep numeracy under the literacy carpet (or should that be 'umbrella?).
Semantics aside, I am unhappy with mental 'short-cuts' such as these being taken.
NEXT
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