LINGUIST List 15.1854

Fri Jun 18 2004

Books: Sociolinguistics: Davis

Editor for this issue: Neil Salmond <neillinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. academic_books, Reading Is For Knowing: Davis

 


Title: Reading Is For Knowing 
Subtitle: Literacy Acquisition, Retention, and Usage among the
	 Machiguenga
Series Title: Publications in Language Use and Education 

Publication Year: 2004
Publisher:	SIL International
		http://www.ethnologue.com/bookstore.asp 

Author: Patricia M. Davis 

Paperback: ISBN: 1556710941, Pages: 342, Price: U.S. $34.00 

			
Abstract:

After the Machiguenga people, inhabitants of the Peruvian rainforest,
received a written alphabet at the end of the 1940s, the Peruvian
Ministry of Education initiated bilingual schools in Amazonia. Today,
both the Machiguenga and outsiders judge the Machiguenga program to
have been successful, despite barriers of distance, language, and
cultural diversity. This study presents a forty-year chronology of
the sociological and educational aspects of the program. In 1993,
data showed an average literacy rate of 64.7 percent, high literacy
use, and attitudes predictive of literacy continuance.

A first-hand account by an educator who helped to develop the
Machiguenga schools, this volume's rich description provides teachers
and literacy practitioners with an in-depth study of a
minority-language educational program. Students of cross-cultural
training will find a culturally-sensitive model for teaching and
evaluation. Revised from the study named Dissertation of the Year by
the International Reading Association in 1995, the book reflects the
delight that the Machiguengas find in learning, such that they have
voluntarily expended enormous effort to make reading part of their
society. This is both a scholarly work and a present-day drama.


Lingfield(s):	Applied Linguistics
		Language Acquisition
		Sociolinguistics
		
Written In:	English (Language Code: ENG) 


 See this book announcement on our website: 
 http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=10574.