The Language Teacher

Literacy in a Foreign Language

Charles Jannuzi
FL Literacy Forming N-SIG, JALT

What is the modern concept of literacy? Does it involve more than traditional reading and writing? What are its implications for FLT and FLL? One way to make readily apparent the relevance of literacy as a concern for FLT would be to define literacy as a social skill, as reading and writing for communication.

One simplification that may hurt the effectiveness of modern communicative approaches is an overemphasis on the spoken language and oral production, even to the point where communication is equated with conversation. But step back a moment and consider how much FLT is steeped in literacy: We assume that our students are literate when we try to teach conversation using a textbook and notes written on the blackboard. What is a dialogue when first presented to students but a problem in reading? Much FLT takes place concurrent with or even after first language literacy acquisition, and most prestige languages taught as foreign ones come from fully literate cultures.

A FL Literacy special interest groups might draw on two traditional areas of research and teaching activities. First, it should be noted that SLT/SLL has been an important concern in literacy education. For example, reading specialists in the U.S. or U.K. have been called on to meet the literacy and language needs of immigrant students. Second, reading and writing have always been core components of FLT/FLL. But, most important, what is needed is an N-SIG that makes contact with and draws on these two traditions where useful while going beyond the ideas that (a) FL literacy is simply adapting SL literacy to overseas situations and (b) reading and writing are only mildly complementary (or even antithetical, in the case of Japan) to communicative approaches and communication in the classroom.

Just as in any educational undertaking that proposes the status quo is less than satisfactory, achieving improvement in FL literacy in Japan may prove difficult. One charge will be that it detracts from--rather than complements--native language literacy. This is a charge that is often levelled at FL education in general. Also, it may challenge longstanding preconceptions about the strengths and weaknesses of FLT/FLL in Japan. In the case of the most taught foreign language, English, it is often said that Japanese students get a strong grounding in reading and writing during their six plus years of instruction, but that listening and speaking skills lag behind. Is this really the case? Do standardized test scores and students' actual classroom performance back up this idea? My own attempts at assessment of students' abilities lead me to this conclusion: each student has strengths and weaknesses; many students are more comfortable with oral language than written. I can discern no overall tendency that would make me think my students are significantly stronger in reading and writing than listening and speaking.

Another assumption is that a FL Literacy interest group would challenge the division of labor in the relevant country, for example Japan. In Japan, foreigners (i.e., usually native speakers of English) are most often hired to teach English conversation while Japanese teachers are responsible for grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing. At the secondary level, this division holds especially true, but I think it may be safely extended to include most all of English education in Japan. This division of labor reflects the very rationale for hiring foreigners to teach in Japanese classrooms: a perceived deficiency in speaking and listening skills (often equated with oral communication).

One real-world purpose of a FL N-SIG might be to bring together the foreign teachers and the Japanese to teach English communicatively in an integrated fashion, rather than in the isolated, divided way it is done in now. I think it is almost inarguable: Education must change to meet the demands of the next generation, and that includes FLT/FLL. Why is the current system of FL education in Japan perceived of in such negative terms? At a practical, achievable level, just how can things be improved? Is FL literacy actually being used to facilitate the learning and/or acquisition of the target language or are current methods at the heart of the perceived failure?

If you are in anyway interested in the concerns mentioned above (or the teaching and learning of reading and writing as it relates to FLT/FLL and your own teaching and research interests), you are by all means encouraged to join and empower this forming N-SIG. Become an officer or an participating member and help see this through to fruition. The field of FL Literacy is relatively undeveloped and wide open and so is this nascent N-SIG.