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| These guidelines assume a basic level of
literacy in students entering the mainstream Ordinary and Higher Level
Leaving Certificate Programmes. Most students will have had about fourteen
years of mother-tongue education and it is not unreasonable to expect a
certain competency at this stage. Consequently the guidelines focus on
developing the advanced reading and writing skills that students need for
entering adult life. The Leaving Certificate English Syllabus categorised
these skills under five categories of language use, the informative, the
argumentative, the persuasive, the narrative and the aesthetic: these guidelines
suggest approaches to developing students’ comprehending and composing
in all of these areas.
The approach adopted throughout is to suggest appropriate classroom methodologies for teaching these language skills. Each of the language categories is given specific treatment through the analysis and discussion of representative texts. Classroom approaches to developing reading and writing skills based on modelling techniques and a variety of learning activities are exemplified. The texts used come from a range of sources and touch on real issues in our world. In this way these guidelines attempt to rescue student language development from the artificial world of “school literacy” (reading and writing on irrelevant subjects and decontextualised exercises on skills) and to embed it in the various literacy demands of everyday life. In a culture that emphasises visual and oral texts and reduces and abbreviates written texts, it is no mean challenge to develop advanced reading and writing skills in students. Many read little, write less and consequently have lost respect for language and the way they use it. If this is to be changed and advanced competencies and understandings nurtured, then the students must experience the significance and power of language in their own personal and social contexts. Literacy development equated with the teaching of minimalist, functionalist skills will not achieve such an ambitious aim. These skills must be seen as elements for study within an integrated approach which begins with an encounter with real texts dealing with significant issues. To be successful literacy development must be contextualised within meaningful experiences of language. These guidelines are based on precisely such an approach. The Language Resource Materials which accompany these guidelines will further develop and supplement the strategies suggested here to ensure that all aspects of literacy development are covered. |
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