And we have a winner!
September 8th was International Literacy Day. To raise awareness of this I ran a competition to win a copy of my book, Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners. The winner is .... Fitta Astriyani from Indonesia. Fitta says she and her colleagues have not been able to find up-to-date books about teaching English spelling in Indonesia and her students certainly need help in this area. Fitta has a great blog herself - take a look at all the fun and creativity at http://funkreatifittaz.blogspot.co.uk/. So congratulations Fitta - your book will be with you soon!
Everyone else who entered will soon get a voucher for discount on the book.
But let's get back to the reason for the competition - raising awareness of literacy around the world. Here are some facts:
There are about 775 million illiterate adults in the world (nearly 16% of the global population) and nearly three quarters of them are in just ten countries. By far the largest number come from India, but it does not have the highest percentage of illiterate adults. According to the CIA Factbook, the country with the lowest number of literate adults is Burkino Faso with only 21.8%.
In Afghanistan, the rate is slightly higher (28%) but it has the lowest rate of female adult literacy: only an unbelievable 12.6% (in 2000). We know that female literacy is crucial to the development of future generations.
But it's not all bad news. Literacy rates are increasing now. According to Unesco, between 1990 and 2011, the adult literacy rate in the Arab States rose from 55% to 77% and the youth literacy rate from 74% to 90%. South and West Asia also saw very welcome improvements.
September 8th was International Literacy Day. To raise awareness of this I ran a competition to win a copy of my book, Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners. The winner is .... Fitta Astriyani from Indonesia. Fitta says she and her colleagues have not been able to find up-to-date books about teaching English spelling in Indonesia and her students certainly need help in this area. Fitta has a great blog herself - take a look at all the fun and creativity at http://funkreatifittaz.blogspot.co.uk/. So congratulations Fitta - your book will be with you soon!
Everyone else who entered will soon get a voucher for discount on the book.
But let's get back to the reason for the competition - raising awareness of literacy around the world. Here are some facts:
There are about 775 million illiterate adults in the world (nearly 16% of the global population) and nearly three quarters of them are in just ten countries. By far the largest number come from India, but it does not have the highest percentage of illiterate adults. According to the CIA Factbook, the country with the lowest number of literate adults is Burkino Faso with only 21.8%.
In Afghanistan, the rate is slightly higher (28%) but it has the lowest rate of female adult literacy: only an unbelievable 12.6% (in 2000). We know that female literacy is crucial to the development of future generations.
But it's not all bad news. Literacy rates are increasing now. According to Unesco, between 1990 and 2011, the adult literacy rate in the Arab States rose from 55% to 77% and the youth literacy rate from 74% to 90%. South and West Asia also saw very welcome improvements.
Congratulations for sponsoring this contest! Countries should really focus on improving the literacy of their citizens. Families have a crucial role in instilling love for reading and writing to their kids. I hope through celebrating International Literacy Day we will see a more literate world. Thanks for this post.
ReplyDeleteHi Johanna,
ReplyDeleteI attended a workshop on spelling recently and thought you might like to look at the notes. You will see many similarities between the notes and your text, because those who teach EALD students tend to notice the same things about English spelling.
http://www.atesolact.org.au/recent-atesol-act-events.html#a1377
Anyway it is heartening others think alike.
Hi Megan,
DeleteGood to hear from you. Thank you very much for this - very interesting indeed. I'm also going to follow up those references. Misty and I do indeed seem to have a lot of similar ideas.
Best wishes
Johanna
The truth though is that English spelling is a mess and it needs to be fixed! Would you buy a car that is 60% faulty? Research shows that 60% of English words are misspelled in the ... DICTIONARY! Wouldn't it make more sense to fix the system instead of kids or teachers?
DeletePeter, would you like to explain what you mean by "60% of English words are misspelled in the ... DICTIONARY"? How do you judge that they are misspelled? By another dictionary? Or by the idea that English is a phonologically-spelled language? If the latter is your starting point, I'm afraid that is where the problem lies. There's far too much history in the English spelling system to be phonologically regular and it's also so widely spoken in different ways that we'd have to decide *whose* phonology English spelling should be judged by.
DeleteYou might also like to give a reference to the research you mention.
Johanna
Peter, I'm afraid I won't publish your reply or any other comments from you. This is my blog and comments are always welcome if they are polite and respectful and do not seem to be for the sole purpose of getting people to look at another site. And especially, I will not publish anything from anyone who tries to bully me into it.
DeleteThx for ur Slideshare presentation tht u did 3 years ago it helped to study for my skills test tomorrow and the info. is really simple to understand. Thx
ReplyDeleteDear Tranyu
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your comment. I'm really glad it was useful for you and wish you all the very best in your test.
Johanna
good, post, thanks! :)
ReplyDelete