Orality : Parts One and Two: Orality and LIteracy.

Several years ago we saw the need to have oral resources for some of our leaders. In conjunction with Bill Burk's Plumb Line Ministries, Wayne is involved in a recording project to make teaching CD's available to churches and people here in Brazil.

Seeing that there is a need for oral material and that it needs to be different from printed material we have been researching and studying orality and its implications for our ministry. Over the next few posts I will be sharing with you some of what we have learned.

Part 1: Literacy and Brazil

Antonio is excited about Christ and wants to help his son evangelize both in the town where he lives and in another nearby. He has seen the changes faith in Christ have brought to his own family. Antonio wants to learn more about God's words to him in the Bible. But... Antonio can't read.

The study group sat in a circle and each read a verse. Over and over again they struggled to read out loud, their voices were flat and they had problems pronouncing some of the words. They put so much effort into reading the words on the page, they did not know what they had just read.

The man, who looked to be in his thirties, had come to a study in a neighbor's house. He didn't know the stories of the Bible, even though he had been part of a church for 13 years. (not Grace Brethren). He could not read.

I asked some of the women I know, “What are some of the biggest obsticals they see when they study the Bible with others?” Again and again I was told that they do not understand what they read. In what way do they not understand it? They do not read well enough to understand the words on the page was the most common reply. They do not know how to apply it to their lives was the second.

A recent article called Brazil a nation of non-readers. It said

“MANY Brazilians cannot read. In 2000, a quarter of those aged 15 and older were functionally illiterate. Many simply do not want to. Only one literate adult in three reads books.....In a recent survey of reading habits, Brazilians came 27th out of 30 countries. Argentines, their neighbours, ranked 18th.”

“Reading in Brazil continues to be an activity reserved to a very narrow minority. from those who can read only 7 percent have the habit of reading.”

"While France and the US, for example, sell in average 10 books a year per capita, a Brazilian buys a mere 1.9 book a year. If we exclude the didactical works, this number falls to 0.9. There are only 2000 bookstores for a population of 168 million people, which means one bookstore for every 84,000 inhabitants. In the United States there are approximately 20,000 bookstores."

The literacy situation in Brazil is well summed up in this exert from a recent article.

“Last year the director of Brazil’s national library quit after a controversial tenure. He complained that he had half the librarians he needed and termites had eaten much of the collection. Along with crime and high interest rates, that ought to be a cause for national shame.”

Part 2: Orality and Literacy

Levels of learning exist on a range from illiterate to highly literate. In order to evaluate where a person is in this range it is necessary to look not only at the question of reading, but how well they perform the writing and analytical skills of literacy. While it is true that someone who is illiterate or semi-literate communicates and thinks as an oral learner, the reverse is not necessarily so. Someone who can be classified as literate, may simply prefer to remain an oral communicator. This is especially true if the community in which they live functions in an oral manner over a literate one.

Oral communicators and literary communicators quite simply approach not just learning, but life from different points of view. Each has their own culture. Oral communicators find the literate way of communication and thinking difficult to follow. Even if read aloud, or spoken, the words of a literate communicator may be difficult for an oral communicator to follow. Making something spoken does not necessarily adapt it to an oral communicator simply because they approach communication differently and think and process information differently. The characteristics of orality span cognitive, communicative and relational realms.

Pastors and Missionaries are usually part of the 10% of the population that fall into the category of highly literate. It is estimated that “ninety percent of the worlds Christian workers present the gospel using highly literate communication styles”. These ways are simply not well understood by those who are not literate or highly literate themselves. We, in effect, when we do not consider orality are limiting our message to the minority who think like as literates do. That limits our message to fewer than 30% of the world who are literate communicators.

So the question here in Brazil is not just how can you reach someone for Christ who can't read, chooses not to read, or isn't literate enough to understand what they are reading. The question is also how can we reach those who are oral communicators. How can we, in Brazil, reach the 80% who either don't read or don't care to read and how can we also reach those in the 20% who read, but who still function like an oral communicator and do not use or rely on literacy and the thinking skills it fosters?

The question for those of you in other countries, where literacy seems to be well developed is similar. Knowledge of literacy and orality and associated dynamics are not just applicable to locals we often think of as literacy poor. Studies have shown that only 20% of the US population is ranked as literate or highly literate. The rates in Canada are similar. One needs to look at not simply can someone read and how well, but how well they learn through literacy influenced forms of communication. What are the implications for your ministry?

Grant Lovejoy, an expert in the field of orality and literacy leaves us with the following point.

If researchers of orality and literacy are correct, then certain kinds of expository sermons are using thought forms and communications strategies that are foreign to half of the adults in the United States and Canada, not to mention most teens and children. We may be doing good expository preaching of certain types and failing to connect with listeners because of it” .........” We must acknowledge and accept that the ways of literacy are not the only ways to communicate in speech.”

We must learn about the different communication preferences of those we work with and how to evangelize, disciple and train up leaders in ways that reach not only those who are literate thinkers, but the greater part who have an oral culture, that may be completely foreign to those who are literate thinkers. Therein lies the challenge of Orality.