Oral and Literate – Communicating Across the Worldview Formats

1. Oral and Literate – Communicating Across the Worldview Formats A Trainer’s Overview Based on material prepared by: Dr. James B. Slack With Collegiate Assistance From J.O. Terry And With PowerPoint Assistance From Mark Snowden Edited by Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins 12 March 2014

2. Issues Confronting Literate Communicators As They Communicate With Oral Communicators • Literates Function In Ways That Are Incompatible with Oral Learning Functions • There Is An Issue of Hearing--Understanding, Retention and Repetition-- When Literates Communicate With Oral Communicators • There Are Literate Assumptions About How People Learn Which Are Untrue, Yet, Literates Function According To Those Assumptions (See Appendices)

3. Issues Confronting Literate Communicators When They Communicate With Oral Communicators • Literates Need to Present the Gospel in Ways Oral Communicators Learn, and in Ways They Normally Communicate With Other Oral Communicators • Oral Communicators Learn Primarily Through Narrative-Story Formats • Learning Preferences--The Learning Grid Assists Us In Graphing The Realities and Issues

4. An Historical Perspective • Creation--Adam and Eve were Created and Lived in an Oral Environment, and God was Happy with what He Did. • God’s Revelation was First Historical Events among Oral Communicators • In Time, But Over a Long Period of Time, God Caused Individuals To Record Those Events into what We Know as the Bible • Judaism during Old Testament, New Testament Times and Beyond, was Oral

5. An Historical Perspective • God First Revealed Himself Through Historical Events that Were Regularly Preserved and Shared Through Oral Communicators and Vehicles • Most of The Old Testament and Two-Thirds of the Bible Are Stories • The Orally Transmitted Revelation--the Torah--Served as A Check and A Balance On The Written Version Of Revelation

6. An Historical Perspective • Rabbinic Law Forbade Legitimization of a Rabbi Until He Could Repeat The Entire Torah By Memory Seven Times • The Torah, and Thus The Bible, Was To Be Read Aloud When Read, and Not Read Silently. This Encouraged and Enhanced Memorization and The Preservation of An Oral Bible.

7. An Historical Perspective • Aramaic and Greek Environments of the New Testament Era were Also Oral • Literacy in Greece & Israel in the New Testament Era--3-5% Maximum • Jesus Christ’s “Preaching” Style (Mark 4) • Jesus Chose To Preach Via Parables • Jesus Chose To Preach Via Parables Because it was The Learning Pattern of People who Were Oral--Illiterate • Jesus only Preached Via Parables For This Reason and Only As They Could Bear Them

8. An Historical Perspective • Literacy Level of Christ’s Disciples (Acts) • Jesus’ Disciples Were Oral Communicators With Minimal Education • These Disciples Became Effective Pastors and Church Leaders • Leadership In Early Church Bore No Educational Requirements • Paul, His “Preaching Style” and View of Israel’s History--Paul’s Short-Hand Version of Old Testament Stories and His Insistence on Knowing the Stories

9. An Historical Perspective • Christianity, Especially Roman Catholicism from N.T. To Reformation • Influence of Guttenberg Bible & “Galaxy” on the Reformation and Christianity • Since the Reformation Christianity has Increasingly Walked on Literate Feet • By 1900s, Christianity and Missions were so Literate that Illiterate Believers were Required to Become Literate before being baptized

10. An Historical Perspective • Highly Literate Christianity Developed Expository Preaching as Norm and Required Literacy for Pastors & Leaders • Literate’s Expositional Preaching Styles are not Understood, and Cannot be Remembered and Reproduced by Oral Communicators--Illiterates to Semi-Literates • Yet, Today, at Least 50-65% of World’s People are Oral Communicators

11. An Historical Perspective • Consequently, to the Degree a Person or Persons are Illiterate, Functional Illiterate or Semi-Literate they Will Not Hear Gospel • The Primary Issue is that Few Literates Understand the Differences Between Literates and Illiterates and How the Gospel Should Be Presented To Oral Communicators • Chronological Bible Storying is Designed to Meet Oral Needs

12. A Definition of Literacy • To be recognized and to function as literate, a person has attained reading, writing and computational skills which equip that person to function acceptably in that language and culture. Literacy is understood to include: using reading and writing skills to understand the contents and intents of documents; to perform basic math computations in typical vocations; to be able to discover similarities and differences between documents or between peoples or events; and to understand or make basic math comparisons.

13. A Look At Global Literacy • However, due to economic rules for securing government loans, many governments have liberalized their definitions of literacy to improve their chances of securing financial assistance • In some countries, if one has attended only one grade of school, or if they can “read” a voting ballot, they are considered as literate

14. A Look At Global Literacy • New Testament Aramaic & Greek Literacy was 3-5% (This is why there were Scribes in the Sanhedrin) • By 1790 global literacy was no better than 10% • In the 1990s actual global literacy was about 40-50% • For instance, the USA lists literacy as being 90% plus but it is closer to 60%

15. Published Illiteracy Rates Hong Kong 25% Senegal 90% Venezuela 14% Colombia 20% Italy 7% Cyprus 1% Guatemala 50% Egypt 60% China 25% NIgeria 70% Philippines 12% Ecuador 10% Thailand 18% Taiwan (China) 6% Brazil 24% Bolivia 37% Spain 3% Caribbean Islands 40% (St. Lucia) - 11% (Trinidad & Tobago) 5% (Netherlands Antilles) Source: Research & Planning, IMB 8/89

16. Profiles of Oral & Literate Communicators • Oral Communicators: • Have never, ever seen a word • Words are strictly sounds and have no visual presence • Isolated sounds (words) have no meaning until used in a sentence or a paragraph associated with a life event or story of a life event • Oral Communicators only know what can be recalled at a moment of need • Oral communicators house or carry their “information,” or what they know, with them clothed in stories, or mental pictures of life events, which they can remember in order to have the information they need

17. Profiles…Oral, Continued • OCs do not tend to make lists or condense stories or bodies of information into points, outlines, concepts, principles, teachings, steps in a process or other expositional type formats. Such formats are useless and not understood by OCs for they are unnatural to their learning style and cannot be remembered • OCs learn best through apprenticeships and mentoring • OCs seldom isolate truths or teaching from their stories. They are one with the story. • Progress or success for an OC is is being aware of and true to one’s heritage, and doing acceptable things in acceptable ways, and doing them correctly • OCs can “memorize,” remember long stories, and treasured ones are not tinkered with or changed

18. Profiles…Oral, Continued OCs are redundant and repetitive OCs are very conservative and fearful of change For an OC to change a valued, historic, “mental text” –oralature – is to threaten life itself, and their heritage. A treasured link and window to the past is severed. OCs tend not to engage in more than one-step analysis for breaking up thought and holding it in suspension is very difficult. Yet, OCs can handle any thought, idea, concept, principle or teaching that a literate can handle, if it is properly clothed within a story OCs participate with the story teller in the “telling and living” of the story that is being told.

19. Profiles of Oral & Literate Communicators • Literate Communicators: • As a person becomes more literate, sounds are recognized as written words that are known by their appearance, and by their specific shades of meaning • Literates tend to forget that markings on a page – words – can never replicate that word in its sounded form and life context. Thus the phrase – “words fail me.” • Literates become more and more text oriented • For literates, knowledge is defined in terms of what can be secured from files, books, computers, etc. and not in terms of what is remembered • Literates use words and names as “tags”

20. Profiles…Literate, Continued Literates develop the need and ability to reduce stories, texts, and documents to a theme, a slogan, a “bottom line” statement, the “gist” of the story, an outline, principles, steps in a process, teachings or other expository forms. Literates gravitate to corporate digests of written works, and feign from reading, texts, long novels and works Literates constantly analyzes people, life situations, and events, thus drawing conclusions and lessons from them Compares and combines information to form new truths or slightly different teachings or truths, syntheses As literate skills develop, they tend to shy away from memorization and loose the skill due to lack of use

21. Profiles…Literate, Continued Literates tend toward individualism, thus moving away from being highly relational Literates tend to turn inward, read silently, and suffer more from schizophrenic traits Literates tend to demand their “own rights” as opposed to acknowledging the group’s rights Tends to listen more critically to a story thus not participating in the story as much as an oral communicator Favors Aristotelian logic instead of Platonic logic Feels a deep need to explain everything in great detail, comparing and analyzing all of the parts Messages become more and more expositional

22. Levels Of Learning From Primary Orality To Literacy • Highly Literate – College level literate attainment such as a lawyer, teacher, author, grammarian, etc. • Literate – High School graduate who can acceptably perform all of the basic literate functions • Semi-Literate – Person who has successfully attained reading, writing and analytical skills of the 9th to 11th grade. Person is transition between oral and literate. • Functional Illiterate – An individual who did not go beyond 8 years of schooling and who did not continue to daily read and write • Illiterate – An individual who cannot read and write and who is known as a primary oral communicator

23. Oral and Literate – Communicating Across the Worldview Formats How People Learn Expressed in A Learning Grid with Appropriate Presentation Patterns Noted

24. Oral Communicator Illiterate STORY STORY NO EXPOSITION EXPOSITION NO EXPOSITION DIALOG DIALOG How People Learn and the Use of Exposition A Learning Grid

25. Oral Communicator Illiterate Oral Communicator Functional Illiterate STORY STORY NO EXPOSITION NO EXPOSITION EXPOSITION NO EXPOSITION LITTLE EXPOSITION DIALOG DIALOG How People Learn and the Use of Exposition A Learning Grid

26. Oral Communicator Illiterate Oral Communicator Functional Illiterate Oral Communicator Semi- Illiterate SOME EXPOSITION STORY STORY NO EXPOSITION NO EXPOSITION EXPOSITION NO EXPOSITION LITTLE EXPOSITION DIALOG DIALOG MODERATE EXPOSITION How People Learn and the Use of Exposition A Learning Grid

27. Oral Communicator Illiterate Oral Communicator Functional Illiterate Oral Communicator Semi- Illiterate Oral/Literate Communicator Literate STORY with EXPOSITION or EXPOSITION SOME EXPOSITION STORY STORY NO EXPOSITION NO EXPOSITION EXPOSITION NO EXPOSITION EXPOSITION IN DIALOG LITTLE EXPOSITION DIALOG DIALOG MODERATE EXPOSITION How People Learn and the Use of Exposition A Learning Grid

28. Oral Communicator Illiterate Oral Communicator Functional Illiterate Oral Communicator Semi- Illiterate Literate Communicator Highly Literate Oral/Literate Communicator Literate NO STORY or STORIES with as MUCH EXPOSITION as needed STORY with EXPOSITION or EXPOSITION SOME EXPOSITION STORY STORY NO EXPOSITION NO EXPOSITION EXPOSITION as MUCH EXPOSITION as desired or interest calls for NO EXPOSITION EXPOSITION IN DIALOG LITTLE EXPOSITION DIALOG DIALOG MODERATE EXPOSITION How People Learn and the Use of Exposition A Learning Grid

29. Major Factors Influencing Literacy Attainment in A Society • Poverty or economic level of people • Government’s focus on education • Government’s financing of educational infrastructure • Educational Infrastructure • Percentage of jobs that require functional literacy to succeed • Natural disasters • Presence of retrograde or rebel activity

30. Major Factors Influencing Literacy Attainment in A Society • Political stability or political party and factional divisions or battles • Status of human needs index • Quality of teachers • Status of life throughout country for teachers to go and live there • Educational inquiry system or rote memory approach • Availability of learning apparatus & material • Family support system and environment

31. Identified Orality-Literacy Levels in Honduras • Primary Level Enrollment Report = 100% • Secondary Level Enrollment Report = 19% • 34% of 1st grade women survive & continue • 19% of 1st grade men survive & continue • Tertiary Level Enrollment Report = 9% • 41.64% of those who enter are women* • 58.36% of those who enter are men* • Actual Literacy Level = 15-30% • Government’s Published Rate = 72.7% * Based upon incidence per 100,000 pop.

32. Highly Literates & Literates Semi-Literates Semi-Literates Functional Illiterate Semi-Literates Functional Illiterates Illiterates Expository Preaching & Narrative Sermons Chronological Bible Teaching (New Tribes) Chronological Bible Storytelling Storytelling Chronological Bible Storying Chronological Bible Storying Orality-Literacy Levels & Types of Preaching

33. Levels of Literacy & Presentation Types Explored • Highly Literate-- • Exposition is a very compatible learning style • Exposition allows the presenter to cover much more material than can be covered by storying • Everybody loves a good story and today’s highly literate learners like stories, esp. as a respite from daily expositional exposure at work • Stories can be in the form of illustration, or used as the main focus • Stories do not have to be chronological for them to learn or to enjoy • Secular or religious stories can be used with them

34. Levels of Literacy & Presentation Types Explored • Literates-- • Exposition is a compatible learning style • Exposition allows the presenter to cover much more material than can be covered by storying • Literates love a good story and stories serve to drive the point, concept, idea, principle or teaching home and seal it in their memory • Chronological Bible Teaching as developed by Trevor McIlwaine of New Tribes is tailor-made for literates • The mixture of story and exposition in CBT is very good for literates

35. Levels of Literacy & Presentation Types Explored • Semi-Literates-- • Semi-Literates live in the gray territory between an oral communicator who is becoming a literate communicator • Semi-literates are learning to recognize, understand, remember and use principles, ideas, teachings, and concepts through expositional presentations • In critical learning settings, one wants to favor oral communication--storying presentations • Chronological Bible Storytelling as developed in the Philippines by Gauran and Palmer works well

36. Levels of Literacy & Presentation Types Explored • Functional Illiterates-- • Functional illiterates, by definition, function as an illiterate and not like a literate • Because of a lack of knowledge of the status of and inadequacy of functional illiterates, literates want to relate to them as literates and they are not • Strict Storying is the only presentation method that is compatible with their learning style • Because Chronological Bible Teaching and Chronological Bible Storying were not designed to fit this level, Chronological Bible Storying was developed to meet the learning needs of them

37. Levels of Literacy & Presentation Types Explored • Illiterates-- • Illiterates are the most obvious of the learning styles--they cannot read and write, or understand, remember and repeat literate presentations • Illiterates function totally in a narrative, storying environment. Exposition cannot be used. • Chronological Bible Storying in its strictest form was designed specifically for illiterates • From the opposite perspective, once an illiterate is adequately exposed to the Bible through stories, an illiterate can understand them, recall them in an instant and use them according to their setting

38. A Look At Exposition Exposition has a narrower meaning within the evangelical, preaching or homiletics community, than does the word in the secular community. Exposition in the secular world indicates the results of an analysis process related to a body of information which produces a list of teachings, ideas, steps, concepts, or principles that are then communicated to people.

39. A Look At Exposition Exposition is the activity of exposing the essence of, or meaning of a body of information. It is a more elaborate or involved explanation of the contents of a document, an event, a story or other such information. Exposition in the evangelical community most commonly is a specific type of preaching characterized by points and sub-points.

40. Oral and Literate – Communicating across the Worldview Formats End