Teaching Nonliterate Adults in Oral Cultures: Findings from Practitioners

Literacy is the gatekeeper to modern information. In the world today, approximately 740 million adults are excluded from adult education if that education uses literate instructional strategies. Nearly 3/4 of a billion adults, many of whom speak unwritten languages, do not use reading to learn new information nor share information through writing. Most nonliterate adults live in oral cultures where information and culture are transmitted in the same way they have been shared for centuries, using oral strategies. Though becoming literate should be encouraged where possible, there are times, as the Ebola outbreak of 2014 illustrated, when literates need to share information with nonliterates quickly. This paper reviews some of the findings of a research study in which 54 literates who have experience teaching nonliterate adults without using literacy shared their perceptions of characteristics of nonliterate adults, personal competencies of effective literate instructors, and effective instructional strategies. Using a modified Delphi method, the researcher sought consensus from the participants on 85 statements concerning the topic of teaching nonliterate adults in oral cultures. By the end of the second round of questionnaires, the participants had reached a consensus, defined as an interquartile range of one or less, on 93% of the 85 statements. [For full proceedings, see ED570489.]