Identification and definitions of major concepts
Listening is an important concept and mostly collaborates with listening concept. In order to interact well in the community, he or she must having listening and talking skills unless under a closed organization where people are not allowed to interact with the outside wild. In the used article, collaboration was the most important talking and listening activity focus. Students engaged in activities that required talking and listening or interacting. Such activities include discursions and presentations (Bearne, 2007).
In order to use all concepts, one must be able to talk and to listen. It is getting information from other parties so that they can interact together. The study in the previous article needed this concept in order to ask and fill in the questionnaire. Teachers talk to pupils and pupils listen to teachers. In African countries, social life is down because people talk in limited mother tongue languages. When in different ethnic communities, Africans hardly interact. They are limited to listening and talking mother tongue and have no common language as a country (ACARA, 2009).
Reading concept is the ability to extract information from a book, screen, power point presentation and any king of written work. Those who lack this concept attend institutions that offer other skills similar to reading. Students are required to read in order to pass exams and answer them in the first place. People who have eyes but cannot express what they see lack this concept or even those who cannot see at all (Bearne, 2007).
Being able to listen and putting it to pen and paper require this concept. There are people who have good speech, excellent listening skills and capability but cannot write. One has to write a questionnaire so that people can read and fill it accordingly. Students in the article fill the questionnaire by writing what they want to tell the one conducting it (Bearne, 2007).
Article summary
It is a positive thing that the article contains both negative and positive things. Negative in times when one is in a new environment. The important aspects in the article are reading, writing and talking. Many students limit themselves to writing, listening and talking. Not many students like reading and that is the reason people prefer short and precise questionnaires so that there can be no much reading. In the article, teachers have the ability to integrate and combine digital communications technology and print-based literacy whereby they write but read from digital objects (ACARA, 2009). It becomes easier for students to do power point presentations than other print presentations. The author points out those students easily use social sites than they do in print work like novels and magazines. He says that many books are inspired by movies or any digital presentation. Teachers are also combating themselves with digital communications tools. The article broadens the eye and challenges those teachers who fail to integrate social media and digital communication technology because students use the facilities in their every day life (Bearne, 2007).
When the author says that writing and reading correlate with each other and listening correlates with talking as well he makes it clear to everyone that there is need to accept that there unanswered questions. These questions are within a transition for education. The article intends to stress that apart from integrating digital communication technology in classrooms, teachers need to teach other basic aspects like grammar, punctuation, spelling, writing and reading. Those are important aspects related to reading and writing using digital and multimedia text. In the study, teachers assess students’ ability to use multimodal texts in relation to the syllabus. When students write more than one type of text on text, they learn how to write. This process enable students plan, design and compose as well as produce paper text. The text put on paper transforms into digital text on the screen (Barton, 1994).
Besides presenting digital media, it involves writing and reading at the same time. All the concepts correlate with each and when one of them lacks, the whole process changes and students review different texts put on screen. It is important to have all the skills so that socialization can get smooth and flowing. During the study, students entailed in reading with different word recognition, phonics and vocabulary activities that suit their age. They answered questions that required them to read textbooks in order to get the required information. At all the time during the study, many activities appeared on screen through digital text (Bearne, 2007).
It would not make sense if the article did not mention that many students interact through internet and that is why they have a different social life. Writing on the screen has become the order of the day and students prefer typing on digital communication technology like computers and tablets to writing on a book. The new definitions of literacy and language puts it in black and white that talking, listening, writing and reading practices differ because of the changes caused by digital technology to social communication. Differences do not occur only on how students present, read and write on screen but also how they interact (Barton, 1994).
Not all students portrayed similar speaking skills. Some talk fast, some slow and others use many vocabularies. Vocabulary use varies from one age to the other. Different ages use different vocabularies depending on their context. Walsh as the author of the article mentioned that some teachers recording their talks and present it to students using digital media even while absent. For one to be literate he or she must learn to use all the concepts and use them appropriately.
Critique of the article
I still have unanswered questions regarding the study therefore the author did not present the case. Not all aspects are in study are present especially those relating to writing and reading in virtual environments are referred to as in hybrid texts, intratextuality and intersexuality. I feel the author did not put into writing what was in the study.
The article leaves many with questions of how and why the development and redefinition is taking place at a fast pace. The author could have identified the concepts differently and define each one of them at a time. Students did not contribute as much as the teachers because the whole study was to involve both teachers and students therefore equal in terms of giving information. I feel the students did not have enough time to give their opinion and the heavy side remained on teachers. We all need to be clear about the concepts in order for us to be literate but the author did not emphasize more on the same.
Referenes
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) (2009–10). Draft Australian Curriculum for English. Accessed from http://www.acara.edu.au/phase_1__the_australian_curriculum.html
Barton, D. (1994). Literacy: an introduction to the ecology of written language. London: Blackwell.
Bearne, E. (2003). Rethinking Literacy: Communication, Representation and Text. Reading Literacy and Language, 37(3), 98–103.
Bearne, E. & Wolstencroft, H. (2007). Visual Approaches to Teaching Writing. Multimodal Literacy 5–11. London: Sage
