ORIGINAL:
To define literacy, Gee first introduced the term discourse. In his words, discourse is "a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or 'social net work'".
Then, he pointed out several points that people can make about discourse, such as "discourses is inherently ideological" as Gee speaks, and the discourse people make is determined by his/her position(managers make different discourse from workers), and so on.
In Gee's viewpoint, literacy is not merely a question about whether one can read the letters a loud. Therefore, he introduced acquisition and learning. acquisition and learning have different function. Acquisition, is better for performance while learning is better to get metalevel knowledge and we can know more when we are learning. However, there is a balance between acquisition and learning. He takes reading class as an example. Student studying grammar is stressed since their studying mode is learning. On the other hand, children are acquiring reading since they are exposed to read a lot.
Besides learning and acquisition, he also defined primary discourse and secondary discourse to clarify the problem about literacy. As Gee sees, primary discourse mainly involves with one and his/her intimates. However second discourse is basically referring more to people other than intimates, like schools and churches. Therefore, as Gee says, "literacy is control of secondary uses of language." and "literacy is mastered through acquisition, not learning".
He further demonstrates the idea by using the example of children with different backgrounds. Black children differ from middle class children is not because of their own style of english, but their primary discourse. What is more, not like middle class children who is both acquiring and learning in school to get critique views, children with no opportunities to acquire secondary discourse, can't get the metalevel skills since it requires certain acquisition for secondary discourse.
RIVISION:
To define literacy, Gee first introduced the term discourse.
In his words, discourse is "a socially accepted association among ways of
using language, of thinking, of acting that can be used to identify oneself as
a member of a socially meaningful group or 'social network'".
Then, he pointed out 5 points that people can make about
discourse:
1.
“Discourse is ideological.”
2.
“Discourse is resistant to internal criticism
& self-scrutiny.”
3.
“Discourse is also defined as “standpoints taken
up by the discourse in other opposing discourses.”
4.
“Discourse grows at the expense of others.”
5.
“Discourse is related to social power.” (all from Gee, p258)
After that, Gee pointed out the difference between acquisition and
learning. “Acquisition, is better for performance while learning is better to
get metalevel knowledge and we can know more when we are learning.”(Gee, p259) For
example, when a non-Japanese speaker studies Japanese grammar, the terms he
learnt may not be familiar with a native Japanese-speaker, although the
Japanese-speaker can definitely create more complicated sentences.
Besides learning and acquisition, he also defined primary
discourse and secondary discourse to clarify the problem about literacy. As Gee
sees, primary discourse mainly involves with one and his/her intimates, like
family. However second discourse is basically referring more to people other
than intimates, like schools and churches.
What is more, Gee believes "literacy is control of
secondary uses of language."(Gee, p261) and "literacy is mastered
through acquisition, not learning"(Gee, p261). Therefore, he further
demonstrates the idea by using the example of children with different
backgrounds. Black children differ from middle class children is not because of
their own style of english, but their primary discourse. Moreover, not like
middle class children who is both acquiring and learning in school to get
critique views, children with no opportunities to acquire secondary discourse,
can't get the metalevel skills since it requires certain acquisition for
secondary discourse.
In the end, Gee gave several suggestions to teachers:
1.
Non-mainstream children should receive
acquisition, instead of learning, to help them master literacy.
2.
It’s better to know the strengths of learning
and acquisition and combine them.
3.
Mainstream students use more acquisition.
4.
“Learning should lead to the ability for all children
to critique their primary and secondary discourses.” (Gee, p262)
5.
Don’t give up non-mainstream children just because
they have challenges to master dominant secondary discourses.
