Application The Gudschinsky Method

Despite the explicit principles on which this method was developed, however, there have been problems in practice, specifically in preparing the materials and in teacher-training. In the preparation of materials there have been two main areas of difficulty: the complexity of the languages, and the need to choose acceptable key words, which allow the generation of interesting texts written in familiar, everyday idiomatic language, with a restricted group of available letters. Languages with complex consonant-vowel syllable structures pose a problem because of the need to develop a variety of lessons to teach the positions of letters in different word contexts. Such complexities make the Gudschinsky method a method that newly literate indigenous teachers do not find easy to develop. Although the method was developed to accommodate all syllable types in phonologically complex languages, these two difficulties, concerned with language complexity and the selection of suitable key words, make the production of primers in such languages, especially in the early stages, a formidable task. The second difficulty of finding acceptable key words to introduce letters and grammatical items in controlled order is a time-consuming one. Difficulties are compounded in some languages because of the need to show contrasting features and to include the items in idiomatic, interesting connected material with a restricted number of letters. A further difficulty, as explained above, is the need to have an in-depth understanding of the grammatical constructions of the language to facilitate preparation of lessons for the primers. Training speakers of the language to control this aspect of the method takes a long time. Training teachers to learn the “patter” see Appendix A and present the material in a methodical, step-by-step way does not seem to have been a particular problem because the structure is straightforward and generally acceptable. One of the problems in presenting the patter, however, is that the connection between the logical, step-by-step activities is not always understood, and the pages are often learned by rote, including the sight functor exercises. There have been problems, also, in teaching the method in languages with multiple syllable types and in training teachers to teach by developing “problem-solving” techniques instead of reading or telling the content of material as a model. It has been noted that languages with many different syllable types, including consonant clusters and vowel sequences, have been difficult to teach. For example, the Angaat ha language in Papua New Guinea is the most divergent in the Angan family of twelve languages and the phonological systems of these languages are especially complex Foley 1986:236. Literacy materials were prepared for Angaat ha in the Gudschinsky method but there was little success, mainly because of the heavy teaching and learning load with difficult and varied syllable patterns personal communication with R. Huisman—for some phonological complexities see Huisman and Lloyd 1981. The training of teachers to develop “problem-solving” techniques, instead of the traditional pattern of showing and telling, has been documented by van Dyken 1984. After extensive experience in developing and testing primers for the Gudschinsky method in Nigeria, van Dyken researched the training needs of teachers using the method in Southern Sudan. She noted that in Nigeria, linguists, with or without prior teacher training, could use the method successfully to teach literacy to preliterate adults but found it difficult to train newly literate Nigerians to “follow the guidelines for teaching with the method” page 15: To illustrate, Gudschinsky designed one section of a typical primer lesson to teach learners to decipher new words independently. The design requires the learner to use analytical skills and analogy clues built into drills, to sound out syllables independently. However, colleagues working in Nigeria and Papua New Guinea reported that teachers using the method often read the item to the learner before giving them a chance to try for themselves. … In many cases, these teachers were originally taught to read by rote methods which appeared incompatible with basic principles taught by Gudschinsky van Dyken 1984:15. The problem for the teaching method, where students were expected to learn individually, seemed to be a general problem in countries where the method was being applied. Hence, van Dyken 1984:15 sought to discover the type of training necessary “to enable such teachers effectively to use the Gudschinsky method.” In assessing teaching practice, van Dyken noted While actual teaching practices suggested that the teachers viewed their role as one of modelling reading, analysis of the learning and teaching tasks suggested a problem-solving approach is essential to the teaching of reading acquisition van Dyken 1984:216. The teachers saw their role as “providing the learners with a model to mimic” which clashed with the “perspectives of learning as a problem-solving process.” van Dyken noted that the Sudanese trainers were caught between two worlds—“one highly literate, the other not”—and that they “indicated that the teachers needed to do both: guide the learners to solve the problems associated with teaching miscues, and provide a model of the reading process” van Dyken 1984:227. Although van Dyken suggested that an “innovative approach” was necessary to integrate the two ways of teaching to help “learners integrate form and meaning,” at the conclusion of the research this idea was not followed. Instead, she made a further suggestion to make up the difference in teaching technique by including a linguistic dimension in the training by “teaching the relationship between linguistics and reading” page 271. Such a conclusion suggests more training of a theoretical nature in an effort to change the teaching pattern, rather than an innovative approach which would allow traditional teaching and learning styles to be incorporated. In the Sudanese study, van Dyken 1984:267 had ruled out the possibility of “a conflict of cultural values rather than of a training need.” In a controlled study in Papua New Guinea Stringer 1983, however, it was found that cultural patterns played an important part in the teachinglearning process . 7 This research in the Waffa language tested the feasibility of using primers designed for adults in the Gudschinsky method in instruction for children. The teacher in the study had no formal “school” education but had experience as a teacher in vernacular literacy. He had been trained in the teaching technique of “problem-solving,” and when teaching with the Gudschinsky method, he did not follow the traditional pattern of telling the students and hearing them repeat the material; he questioned in a way to make each student “find” the answer and be able to read the targeted portion. He also sought to explain the logic of the drills with the relationship to the key word, word building, and the story. Despite his efforts, the children concentrated on learning each page or each unit by heart, indicating a lack of understanding of the logical connection from the drills to word-building and to the connected material. For them, meaning was not in focus in such a pattern of reading. In connection with learning in a verbal medium in an Australian Aboriginal context Harris 1980 noted that 7 Some of the material in this section on the Gudschinsky method is based on Stringer 1983. while the content and expression of this learning by rote … is in the verbal medium, the learners are not learning about anything verbally or being actually instructed through verbal teaching methods Harris 1980:83. If a comparable explanation of rote learning applies to the Waffa literacy situation, we see that instruction was in the verbal medium and out of context; therefore, expectation of the learners was that they were not “learning about anything,” so learning was by rote. In contrast to the conclusion of van Dyken, this study indicated that the underlying issue in teaching the Gudschinsky method was cultural, connected to cultural teaching and learning styles and expectations of the learners in the learning process, rather than “of a training need.” One of a number of influences that led to the development and the first trial of the Multi- Strategy method was the close observation of the participants in this controlled study among the Waffa group. In the final test of the study, it was noted that the memorisation of primer lessons, especially the functor lessons, dominated the reading strategies used. Although the piece of prose in the primer that was chosen to be read for the test see Stringer 1983:278 included all known syllables, it had not been taught in the trial classes. During testing, some of the students showed confusion about the reading mode or strategy they should use: whether to read by sight as practised in functor lessons and the key words, or to read by concentrating on the syllabic groups in the words. In the results, the memorised phrase patterns dominated in the types of miscues recorded. Despite the recognition of the key word ivaari for the picture of an eel, the word ivaari was read as ivaara by 80 percent of the students. The suffix combination -ivaara ‘about that’ had been learned in a previous functor lesson and the students did not respond to the meaning of the passage about the eel. Some students also found it difficult to read aavaa ‘that’ since the combination aavaara ‘about that’ had been learned in a functor lesson. All students had difficulty reading the portion although each of the syllables and syllable combinations were familiar to them. It was concluded that they repeated fixed patterns learned by rote and did not transfer the knowledge they had mastered to a new situation. From this study there developed the hypothesis that, from the position of the learner, an eclectic pattern of teaching and learning with mixed modes or styles of learning presented in a seemingly purposeless series of activities has the potential for confusion. This hypothesis stimulated the development of the Multi-Strategy method, as presented in the next section. In summary, the Gudschinsky method has a linguistically oriented, highly structured set of prescribed steps which take the learner from a meaningful, culturally emotive word through a process of analysis, synthesis, contrast, and comparison of the components with focus on one new element to be learned. A syllable is the smallest unit isolated and phonemes are learned in comparative environments of syllables. Known syllables are built into words and the words read in a connected piece of prose where most of the words are comprised of known syllables. The method was developed before the introduction of whole language instruction, so there is no holistic emphasis similar to the way that it is presented in whole language pedagogy, although reading for meaning is a strong underlying principle. The connected material is as idiomatic as possible within the confines of restricted phonemes. It is basically a bottom-up method, with focus on teaching all the phonemes of the language and building up to full, idiomatic stories of interest for fluency in reading. We now turn to the development and description of the Multi- Strategy method.

3.2. The Multi-Strategy Method

An analysis of the difficulties encountered by the Waffa children when using the Gudschinsky primer Stringer 1983 led to the hypothesis that there were two distinct modes of learning presented in the materials: • Reading by whole units • Reading by acknowledging syllable groups in words to decipher the text The mixing of these two modes of learning was in contrast to an earlier presentation of literacy for adults in Waffa Stringer and Hotz 1966; Stringer and Franklin 1980:31–34; Stringer 1983:282–305. In this basic syllable method, only two sight words and one sight functor were introduced in the early stages of the first primer of a series of five primers to allow sentences to be included from the first lesson. All other words were introduced with a picture, broken into syllables, and built again before being used in sentences. Apart from the early, limited reading by sight, the one mode of learning to read by recognising syllables in words was used consistently throughout the series. It was found that on encountering the sight words while reading, learners needed to change the focus of their learning to a different mode of access for understanding the written symbols. This change of mode of learning seemed to disrupt rather than assist fluency in reading. The highly successful programs for adults and children using these materials in Waffa for example, see a report of one program, with 95 percent independent readers, in Stringer and Franklin 1980 were in contrast to the poor response of the program for children when materials were changed to the Gudschinsky method. After the completed program, 10 percent of the children were reading. The two programs were similar regarding theory: working from a bottom- up perspective in a linear way, and regarding Gudschinsky’s fundamental principles of literacy mentioned above. The difference was in the teaching patterns employed, and the different modes of learning the learners were expected to engage in when using the materials. It was evident that further research was necessary on the theory and practice of beginning literacy and their relevance to the socio-cultural context.

3.2.1. Developing the method in a socio-cultural context

An extended study of the theory and practice of reading and writing, presented in a condensed form in Chapter 2, led to the development of the reading and writing curricula of the Multi-Strategy method. 8 Earlier research into the cultural learning styles in Papua New Guinea Stringer 1983:44–58 showed that current literacy practice and the culture of practice of traditional education in Papua New Guinea presented a paradox. Two interrelated problems were how to incorporate • the everyday, cultural learning contexts known to the learners, and • texts written in everyday, familiar language in the materials. At the time of this earlier developmental research, practitioners in Australia were incorporating process writing Graves 1983 and the psycholinguistic theories of the reading process of Goodman and Smith realised in Whole Language practice into beginning literacy. In 8 Some of the material in sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 is based on Stringer 1988, 1992b. Papua New Guinea, despite the traditional learning styles of observation, imitation, active participation, and learning by doing, there seemed to be insurmountable obstacles to introducing the whole language instructional techniques in the different cultural settings. Firstly, in non-formal, beginning literacy in Papua New Guinea, it is necessary to recruit men and women with little or no previous training and to instruct them in the teaching patterns during short courses. On the other hand, a whole language teacher needs to be fully trained with expertise in guiding individuals in the processes of reading and writing, especially in areas where specific teaching is needed. An example of such teaching could be the need for more individualised, incidental teaching of graphophonics for reading new words and for spelling. Goodman 1992:50 noted that one role of whole language teachers among many roles is to collaborate with learners “in defining and solving problems and seeking answers to questions.” Secondly, there are virtually no printed materials in many of the 862 reported languages of Papua New Guinea from which to set up a print environment to provide the necessary literature, whereas whole language instruction is dependent on an available variety of suitable literature for the levels of progress of learners to develop into literacy. Finally, teachers trained for short periods need a purposeful, straightforward, structured approach, without a strong dependency on instructional aids, whereas whole language teachers “make their own decisions and build their own implementations based on their own understandings” Goodman 1992:47. The literature review of theory and practice of literacy in Chapter 2 shows that it is necessary to include both top-down and bottom-up processes at some time in the instructional process; contention is based on the degree of focus in any one area. The practical issue is not on the necessity of grapho-phonemes, syntax, and meaning for the reading process, but on where and how to begin to break the code into literacy. The discussion in Chapter 2 covered the differences between a bottom-up emphasis e.g., Shuy 1975 and a top-down emphasis as exemplified in whole language instruction Goodman 1992. In the development of the curriculum for the Multi-Strategy method, it was argued that, if learning to read involves both behaviour skills and cognitive processes, then breaking the code from both positions concurrently at the onset of reading and writing seemed appropriate. In such a model, the more traditional methods of instruction for the letter-sound correspondence could be presented as well as instructional methods from whole texts with emphasis on meaning for the linguistic and pragmatic contexts of reading and writing. As pointed out in Chapter 2, this division is not inconsistent with theory presented by cognitive psychologists such as Sweller 1990. Separate emphases on the two approaches—bottom-up, soundsymbol print relationships and top-down, holistic, meaning-centred print relationships—would allow the inclusion of appropriate socio-cultural contexts to be reflected in the materials and instructional procedures. It was realised that the development of a method with a dual emphasis would be compatible with additional socio-cultural factors: pragmatic, sociological, and psychological. From a pragmatic point of view, it was necessary to formulate strategies that could • be presented in short, group oriented training courses and workshops for teachers • be handled by teachers innovatively after an understanding of the basic principles • fit into a simple, straightforward structure, and • require a minimum of daily preparation and making of aids such as books, charts, and flash cards on which each lesson would depend.