The World of ‘Orality’

Two thirds of the world’s population are oral learners At least 70% of the world’s least reached people are oral learners

What’s the situation in the USA? 50% of USA’s population desires a non-literate approach to learning and decision-making

“Without writing, the literate mind and, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in.” “Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form.” Walter Ong

Characteristics of Oral Learners

Primary Oral Learners… Have never 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 Only know what can be recalled at a time of need

Primary Oral Learners… Carry what they know with them clothed in stories, proverbs or mental pictures of life events, which they can remember in order to have the information they need Do not tend to make lists or condense stories or form bodies of information into points, outlines, concepts, principles, steps in a process or other analytical type formats. Such formats are unnatural to their learning style and hard to remember

Primary Oral Learners… Learn best through apprenticeships, mentoring and in communal groups of peers Seldom isolate truths or teaching from their stories; they live them View progress or success as being aware of and true to one’s heritage and doing acceptable things in acceptable ways Memorize or remember long stories; treasured ones are not tinkered with or changed

Primary Oral Learners… They appreciate repetition Tend to be conservative and fearful of change View change of a valued, ‘heritage story’ as a threat to their life and heritage. A treasured link and window to the past is severed Can handle most thoughts, ideas, concepts, principles or teachings that a literate can handle, if it is properly clothed within a story

Primary Oral Learners… Participate with the story teller in the “telling and living” of the story that is being told Tend not to engage in more than one-step analysis; breaking up thoughts and holding them in suspension is very difficult

Characteristics of Literate Learners

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 or steps in a process Constantly analyze people, life situations and events, thus drawing conclusions and lessons from them Compare and combine information to form new truths or slightly different teachings or truths

Literates… As literate skills develop, they tend to shy away from memorization and lose the skill due to lack of use Tend toward individualism, thus moving away from being highly relational Tend to turn inward, read silently, and suffer more from schizophrenic traits Tend to demand their “own rights” as opposed to acknowledging the group’s rights

Literates… Tend to listen more critically to a story thus not to participate in the story as much as an oral communicator Feel a deep need to explain everything in great detail; comparing and analyzing all of the parts 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.” Become more and more text oriented Define knowledge in terms of what can be secured from files, books, computers, etc. and not in terms of what is remembered Use words and names as “tags”

Here is the problem: over 90% of all preachers of the Gospel have been trained to share the Gospel only to literates using an analytical type format which oral learners often find difficult to relate to or remember. Outlines, steps, principles, lists and similar constructions assume literacy; oral communicators cannot easily remember them.

When we require oral learners to respond to our literate teaching style, they just don’t measure up!

The fact is, in a world of orality, we are the learning disabled.

“Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.” Ps 96:3