LESLLA in Timor-Leste:
Progress in adult literacy
27-08-2010
LESLLA 2010
Cologne, Germany
Danielle Boon
Department of Culture Studies
Babylon – Centre for Studies of the Multicultural Society
BECOMING A NATION OF READERS:
Adult Literacy Past and Present
in Multilingual Timor-Leste
Sjaak Kroon, Jeanne Kurvers (Tilburg University)
Marilyn Martin-Jones
(University of Birmingham)
Aone Van Engelenhoven
(Leiden University)
Estêvão Cabral
Danielle Boon
Edegar da Conceição Savio
study 1
study 2
study 3
Research plan 4/2009-4/2014
Study 1:
critical historical study on
adult literacy in TL
Study 2:
adult literacy in TL in
Tetum and Portuguese
Study 3:
Fataluku language
development and adult
literacy
Funding and collaboration
This project is funded by
NWO/WOTRO
Science for Global Development,
under file number W 01.65.315.00.
Research takes place in collaboration with:
•
National Institute of Linguistics (INL) at the
National University of Timor-Lorosa’e (UNTL)
•
Timor-Leste’s Ministry of Education, Directorate
of Non-Formal Education
•
Various local NGOs, UNICEF, ILO, etc.
Where is Timor-Leste?
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Map Timor-Leste
13 districts
History of Timor-Leste
Until 1975: Portuguese colony
1975-1999: Indonesian occupation
1999-2002: Interim government UN
May 2002:
independent
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Constitution 2002:
multilingual Timor-Leste
2 official languages:
Portuguese and Tetum
15 national languages
‘to be further developed by the
state’
English and Bahasa Indonesia
accepted as ‘working languages’
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15 national languages
Austronesian group:
Habun, Galoli,
Atauran, Kawaimina,
Welaun, Idalaka,
Mambai, Kemak,
Tokodede, Baikenu,
Makuva, (Tetum)
Papua group:
Bunak, Makasai,
Makalero, Fataluku
Source:
“Mai Kolia Tetun”, Geoffrey Hull,
4th edition, 2003, SASP.
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L1, L2, L3, L4…
•
•
•
•
•
•
Local dialect
National language
Tetum (lingua franca)
Portuguese
Bahasa Indonesia
English
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Adult literacy rates
50.1% of 15 years and older
> women: 43.9 %
> men: 56.3 %
Source:
TL HDR 2006, pop. census 2004
Ambition in the
National Development Plan 2002:
Literate population in 2020
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“Adult literacy in TL in Tetum and Portuguese”
research questions
1. How effective is learning to read and write in Tetum and Portuguese
in the available adult literacy programmes and what factors are most
important in this respect? What is the impact of learning to read and
write on the daily lives of the learners?
2. What classroom-based literacy teaching-learning processes are
adult literacy learners in Tetum and Portuguese involved in and what
ideas guide teachers’ practices?
3. What literacy practices and values in Tetum and Portuguese do adult
learners draw on in social domains such as work (agriculture, health,
shop-keeping etc.), leisure time, church and home?
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Perspectives on literacy:
Socio-cultural
perspective
Cognitivelinguistic
perspective
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Study includes:
SURVEY with 400 learners and 50 teachers (11/2009-3/2011)
• Reading and writing tests
• Questionnaires and (in depth) interviews
CASE STUDY on 4 sites (T & P, urban & rural) (2011)
• Observation, video/audio-recording, still photography, field
notes, diaries, document analysis
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Literacy programs
for adults in Timor-Leste
Mostly in Tetum,
sometimes in Portuguese,
sometimes in Tetum and a
national language.
By:
• Ministry of Education
• ILO - UNICEF
• various NGOs
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Methods & Materials
‘Los Hau Bele’ (Cub.)
• 3 months
• 65 lessons on DvD, 1 st. manual 16p, 1 t. manual
• Letters & sounds, letter combinations, words &
short phrases
• Linking of letters with numbers
‘Hakat ba Oin’ & ‘Iha Dalan’
• 6 months & 6 months
• Beg.: 4 st. manuals (400p) & 1 t. manual
Adv.: 2 st. manuals (300p) & 1 t. manual
• Letters & sounds, analysis-synthesis
• Words > phrases > texts - thematic
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Teachers (353 questionnaires)
Relatively low educated
Relatively little experience
Lack of teacher training
First language mostly one of the national languages
Weak proficiency in (st.) Tetum writing and in Portuguese
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Teaching circumstances
Mostly no classroom available
Often no electricity
Often not enough chairs
Mostly not enough tables
Sometimes not enough
notebooks, pencils, etc.
Hardly any reading materials
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Learners
225 tested in Nov.-Dec. 2009,
(of whom 76 tested again in Feb.-March 2010)
359 tested in July-Aug. 2010
584 in total
------------------------------------------------------------------
322 never had any education and never did a literacy course before
Age:
from 7 to 76, 40% younger than 30
Sex:
216 women, 106 men
L1:
9x Tetum, rest another national language
Tetum speaker?
111 no, 211 yes
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Reading and writing tasks
1. Grapheme recognition: 30 graphemes, of which 23 used in
Tetum and Portuguese, 3 only in Tetum, 3 only in
Portuguese, 1 in neither T nor P but frequently in
Indonesian.
2. Word reading: 3 minutes, 80 words max., first 10 occur in
all basic literacy courses, next 60 seleced from newspapers
and a widely read magazine, last 10 loanwords from
Portuguese spelled according to Standard Tetum rules.
3. Word writing: 10 words read out loud: uma (house), paun
(bread), ka (or), sei (will), iha (there is/are), hotu (all), hanoin
(think), dadauk (at present, continuous action marker),
tarutu (noise), bainhira (when).
4. Filling out forms: name, birth date, village, sub district,
district, first language, second language, signature,
complete the sentence (“I want to learn to read and write
because …”).
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Reading & writing after 3 months:
(means, n=205)
• Grapheme recognition: 15
• Word reading:
15
• Form filling:
4.2
• Word writing:
3.8
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Problems in tasks: (1)
Grapheme recognition:
Form related:
Language related:
d b p q
n u h m
o e
t f
v y
N Z
g q 9
p b f v
c k
s z x
o u
eu oi ou ão
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Problems in tasks: (2)
Word reading:
• lakleur (soon), kria (make)
• joven (young), serve (useful)
• hakilar, hateten, hanesan (shout, tell, same)
• bainhira (when), nakfakar (spill)
Filling forms: birth date
Writing words:
• paun/pão (bread),
• sei (will) > cei
• dadauk (now) > dadaku
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Pearson Correlations literacy abilities
(n=322, *=p<.05, **=p<.01)
Graphemes
Word
reading
Form
filling
Word
writing
Word
reading
Form
filling
.725**
.741**
.702**
.718**
.673**
.806**
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Pearson Correlations literacy abilities with
learner and teacher characteristics
(n=322) *=p<.05, **=p<.01
Graphemes
Word
reading
Form
filling
Word
writing
Months literacy course
attended
.216**
.039
.111*
.102
Learners’ age
-.397**
-.289**
-.346**
-.371**
Teachers’ education
(in years)
.064
.034
.054
.017
Teachers’ experience
(in years)
-.017
.069
-.013
-.065
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Means and standard deviations scores literacy tasks
for learners speaking Tetum (n = 137 )
and not speaking Tetum (n = 67 )
Task:
Not Tetum
speaker:
Tetum speaker
Mean (Sd.)
Mean (Sd.)
Graphemes
12.49 (10.08)
16.96
Word reading
11.55 (20.81)
17.49 (27.04)
(9.30)
T
-3.13**
-1.70’
Form filling
4.06
(3.33)
4.45
(3.38)
-0.77
Word writing
3.36
(3.47)
4.20
(3.76)
-1.53
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Progress learners after 3 months
All (n=76)
Non-literates (n=54)
Task:
Nov./Dec.’09
Feb./Mrch. ’10
Nov./Dec.’09
Feb./Mrch. ’10
Mean (Sd.)
Mean (Sd.)
Mean (Sd.)
Mean (Sd.)
Graphemes
12.54 ( 9.63)
16.17 (10.53)
10.00 ( 8.99)
12.43 ( 9.44)
Word reading
13.11 (25.18)
19.68 (30.16)
6.00 (16.79)
7.57 (17.61)
Form filling
2.45 ( 3.22)
4.23 ( 3.54)
1.40 ( 2.18)
2.89 ( 2.71)
Word writing
2.06 ( 3.06)
3.33 ( 3.77)
1.17 ( 2.12)
1.98 ( 2.78)
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Conclusions
• The four reading and writing tasks correlate highly with
one another; all contribute to the image of beginning
literacy, technical and functional tasks are interrelated.
• Task results show large individual differences in literacy
level; adult literacy groups are very heterogeneous.
• There’s a correlation between literacy results and:
- learner characteristics like age;
- teachers characteristics.
• The learners tested twice show progress in 3 months
time on all four tasks.
• Learning to read and write in a language that learners
already speak/know (Tetum) seems to be an important
indicator of success.
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Obrigadu barak!
[email protected]
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