One million London adults can't read-lessons for us?

[patslatt]

The Irish Times article July 22nd reported this astounding level of illiteracy among Greater London's population of about 7.5 millions of which maybe 5.7 million are adults,an illiteracy rate of 18%. See Reading into the problem of illiteracy where 'Street' is often king - The Irish Times - Thu, Jul 22, 2010

Since Irish educational thinking tends to be influenced by the UK,this article is interesting. The usual culprits such as classroom indiscipline and educational fads based on opinion rather than evidence are blamed for failure,among other things. Not mentioned is the relatively low pay and lack of status for teaching as a profession.

Most important in my opinion is the failure to use synthetic phonics in a systematic manner. This a modern version of the old fashioned phonics taught to infants for generations by breaking individual words into component parts and pronouncing the components. It differs from the "Whole Language" approach which expects children to recognise the whole word,an approach that is still used internationally even though discredited by empirical evidence.

Empirical research in Scottish schools comparing the the two methods found that synthetic phonics method was vastly superior to whole language,with phonics taught students quickly moving two years ahead of whole language in literacy. Scottish schools now use phonics. After reviewing this Scottish experience,the UK government a few years ago decided to roll out synthetic phonics in English primary schools .See http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publicati...03/16513/18923

I had a quick browse of the website of the NCCA,the National Council for Curriculum and Assesment, to see if its English primary school curriculum mentioned synthetic phonics. To my surprise,it didn't. So are Irish primary school children being taught with a discredited English teaching method? Are teachers instructed in synthetic phonics in teacher training colleges? A few primary teachers of my acquaintance were only vaguely familiar with synthetic phonics.

[Interista]

It differs from the "Whole Language" approach which expects children to recognise the whole word,an approach that is still used internationally even though discredited by empirical evidence.

As a language teacher who has also studied Applied Linguistics, it seems that one truism of our 'profession' is that teaching methods are very much subject to prevailing fashions in society as a whole. Right now, 'task based learning' and the 'whole language' approach are very much en vogue, as they fit in with fashionable talk of 'holistic' approaches to everything and anything.

BTW I only scanned the article but it seems that the 'one million Londoners' line comes from Boris Johnson and is not backed up by stats. The researcher does say “About 20 per cent of pupils leave secondary schools without being able to read or write with confidence,” but that is not the same thing as being illiterate.

[patslatt]

As a language teacher who has also studied Applied Linguistics, it seems that one truism of our 'profession' is that teaching methods are very much subject to prevailing fashions in society as a whole. Right now, 'task based learning' and the 'whole language' approach are very much en vogue, as they fit in with fashionable talk of 'holistic' approaches to everything and anything.

BTW I only scanned the article but it seems that the 'one million Londoners' line comes from Boris Johnson and is not backed up by stats. The researcher does say “About 20 per cent of pupils leave secondary schools without being able to read or write with confidence,” but that is not the same thing as being illiterate.

Advocates of trendy holistic theories should recognise that proven methods and evidence based research must inform the methods of teaching literacy. London is paying a heavy social price in terms of social exclusion and criminality for illiteracy resulting from educational faddism.

As for task based learning,if it works in controlled experiments with average teachers in average schools and if there is further evidence of its efficacy when rolled out to schools,only then should it be accepted. Is that the case or is it accepted naively?

Maybe education is too important to be left to educators,to paraphrase the saying about war being too important to be left to generals.

[Interista]

As for task based learning,if it works in controlled experiments with average teachers in average schools and if there is further evidence of its efficacy when rolled out to schools,only then should it be accepted. Is that the case or is it accepted naively?

In Linguistics, as in every other field, 'evidence' isn't as clear cut as it sounds. Advocates of task-based learning (or any other approach) have no trouble wheeling out studies showing that their method is the best, while opponents of any given method equally have no trouble wheeling out studies which 'prove' the opposite. And so on and so forth....

This is probably my own prejudice speaking, and perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I do agree with the point in the article about how there should be no 'politically correct' nonsense of how slang or 'street talk' is just as acceptable in the educational context as standard English. Now, slang and regional varieties are all perfectly fine in the correct context, but it should be made plain to kids from day one that while it may be OK to use a certain phrase at home or with your mates, it's not OK to use it in writing or when communicating with your teacher. That's not snobbery - that's correct language usage, which every semi-educated person should understand.

I also see nothing wrong with old-fashioned memoisation and rote learning. Of course it certainly shouldn't be the only approach to learning, or even the main one, but in it's place it's fine. I still remember my memorised lists of German declensions from secondary school, and that's quite some time ago now! That's how I was educated, and I turned out OKDidn't I?

[patslatt]

In Linguistics, as in every other field, 'evidence' isn't as clear cut as it sounds. Advocates of task-based learning (or any other approach) have no trouble wheeling out studies showing that their method is the best, while opponents of any given method equally have no trouble wheeling out studies which 'prove' the opposite. And so on and so forth....

Studies conducted by independent observers with no axe to grind are likely to be accurate when the same conclusions more or less are replicated several times in different times and places.

[reknaw]

When you see the crud that millions of people in the UK read every day - the Sun, the Daily Hatemail, the News of the World, to take just a few examples - surely it's only desirable that illiteracy increases over there.

[Interista]

Studies conducted by independent observers with no axe to grind are likely to be accurate when the same conclusions more or less are replicated several times in different times and places.

I agree. But then you have the issue of people interpreting the results in different ways and picking holes in their methodology.

But yes, studies done by independent observers who come to the same conclusion would be very useful. One problem with eductional studies is that it takes a long time - often years - for any meaningful results to emerge. The outcome of various educational methods can't be simply measured in a laboratory, but has to be done with long-term case studies.

[Cael]

This is the failure of capitalism. Literacy in Cuba is 99.8%

[Catalpa]

Reading and writing are skills are developed over a lifetime - you don't stop developing at 11 years old!

If anything I'd say todays young teens are reading and writing a lot more than the same age groups of 10 and 20 years ago due to mobile phones and the internet.

But of course they are developing their own way of doing it that is not what the Educational Establishment would approve of!

[Interista]

If anything I'd say todays young teens are reading and writing a lot more than the same age groups of 10 and 20 years ago due to mobile phones and the internet.

Not really. Apart from the fact that they spend a lot of their internet time playing games/watching videos, the range of language they will be exposed to is very limited and often of very dubious accuracy.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing with 'internet-ese' in and of itself. However, there IS something wrong with a generation of kids growing up believing that constitutes standard English.