Approaches To Learning
...of roles in mainstream society (Fingeret 1989). While the focus of literacy education has changed periodically to reflect changes in political and social conditions in the US, the purposes and standards of literacy, and the contents of the curriculum have been consistently determined by ‘ experts ’, students being perceived as the ‘objects ’ of instruction (1989 : 6). The importance of considering participants’ reality in establishing goals and selecting materials and of involving learners in the educational planning process has not received adequate recognition. When competency-based literacy education emerged in the 1970s, it seemed that students might finally be involved in defining the competencies that they wanted to achieve.
However, even today, most competency-based programs judge students’ skills by a pre determined list of skills which tend to reflect the goals that those in power have deemed appropriate for them (Fingeret 1989). Therefore, it is very important, nowadays, for program administrators and teachers to develop such alternative approaches as whole language, learner centered, and participatory approach, to traditional approaches which have tended to be more teacher-centered. In the following section, the rationale, design, use, and research findings about the effectiveness of each approach will be compared and presented.
Whole language approach
Rationale
An idea of a linear sequence from reading to writing and from listening to speaking is not supported in the whole language approach although a natural way of literacy and learning is supported in the whole language approach. Emphasis is made on speaking right away. Learners are also allowed to speak by mixing their native language and words from the language they are learning (Wrigley 1992: 29). It is also possible that learning start writing before reading. They may compose stories...
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