Archive

Oralities & Literacies – Chapter 10 – The Rationale for Orally Communicating the Scriptures

God has given our privileged generation many gifts that no other generation has known in the combination that we have including, but not limited to: A widening expertise for exegeting the Scriptures, A widening permission for translators that they may commu...

Oralities & Literacies – Chapter 9 – Communicating Christ Among Oral Cultures

This chapter seeks to address the question: “How should our understanding of the orality/oralities question affect our approaches to communication generally and more specifically in Christian ministry and cross-cultural missions?” This question needs some ...

Oralities & Literacies – Chapter 8 – From Kushe to Jos

I invite you to take a walk with me down my road from Kushe to Jos, Nigeria. It is a road that includes many kinds of people and different levels of orality. Every step closer to Jos finds people learning the orientation of textuality and skilled further i...

Oralities & Literacies – Chapter 7 – Oral Methodology, Adult Learning, and Women’s Health Education

Once upon a time a young health teacher went to Africa to use her public health degree in a rural mission project. She loved the idea of teaching health to physically and spiritually needy women in villages. She was surprised to discover that her educationa...

Oralities & Literacies – Chapter 6 – Oralities and Implications to Education

In this chapter, I offer introductory definitions of 'orality' and 'education' and overviews of ACTEA (the accrediting agency for theological education in Africa) and Africa's orality context. I then identify implications of oralities learning approaches fo...

Oralities & Literacies – Chapter 5 – Playing By Ear

Okay class, open your Bibles to the book of Matthew. Would a volunteer please sing the workers in the vineyard parable, and include the whole class somehow? Great Emily, it’s Matthew 20:1-19. “So once upon a time, there was a story set to rhyme, about worke...

Oralities & Literacies – Chapter 4 – Encountering Text as Multimodal Experience

The world outside school today is replete with words married to images, sounds, the body, and experiences…This new world is a multimodal world. Language is one mode; images, actions, sounds, and physical manipulation are other modes. Today, students need to...

Oralities & Literacies – Chapter 3 – Orality and Literacy Revisited

Thirty-three years ago Walter Ong published his life’s work in Orality and Literacy. The book was republished in 2002 and again on its 30th anniversary in 2012, showing enduring interest in Ong’s scholarship and ideas. The first volume appeared at a time wh...

Oralities & Literacies – Chapter 2 – Story-based Trauma Healing

In this chapter, I give a rationale and history of the development of Trauma Healing. In a second section, I explain the development of the Story-based Trauma Healing for oral communicators. Finally, I discuss outcomes: results, lessons learned, and possibl...

Oralities & Literacies – Chapter 1 – Synthesizing the Orality Debate

Orality as a field of study is relatively young. We have a thesis, but we should expect antithesis and strive for a more accurate and nuanced synthesis. For the field of orality to advance, the status quo must be challenged, however painful the process may ...

Oralities & Literacies – Editor’s Introduction

Oralities and Literacies is long overdue in the sequence of publications focused on the Oral Majority. This volume reflects an emerging approach to publication that begins with a static version (e-publication and hard copy) with embryonic content. The respo...

Oralities & Literacies – Prologue

We listened intently to a description of how children’s soccer teams were trained. It was June 2009 and Rev. Dr. Sameh Maurice, Senior Pastor of Kasr El-Dobara Evangelical Church in Cairo, Egypt, was speaking animatedly. At the end of our coffee shop conver...

Literacy – The Seven Disciplines of Orality

Literacy and Orality Working Together

Case studies of why recovering an oral approach and integrating both literate and oral approaches can bring fruitful results.