B.P.4!

Sponsors of literacy can play a crucial role in successfully learning a literacy practice. My most recent attempt to learn a new literacy practice was with Mandarin Chinese. During this experience, I had sponsors of literacy such as my professor and the student aids for the class. There is no form of Chinese that’s similar to english. Unlike spanish letters, Chinese characters are not like English. I decided to drop the class after struggling for a week or two. Nevertheless, I was able to see what conditions might have enabled me to succeed in the class with greater ease. Learning Chinese as a digital literacy might have made a difference. Keri Franklin’s experience with learning Twitter is an example of how digital literacies have some advantages over printed literacies.  

Franklin and I both struggled as newcomers to a new literacy practice. Franklin said twitter “seemed like an enormous bulletin board.” she didn’t know how to get a following for her posts and said her first few posts and said “I might as well have written a note in my diary and stuck it in a nightstand.” However, this negative feedback is crucial for learning to attract a following. Since twitter is a digital form of literacy, users not only get feedback, but also gain access to other users who are masters. Another benefit is getting to see skills used in context as frequently as is required. All this is made possible by digital literacy; digital literacy practices make practicing in context convenient and gives newcomers access to competent oldtimers in this case.

But it’s different with me and Chinese. While Franklin could  see twitter used in context as long as she had a phone, I didn’t know anyone who spoke chinese. So my opportunities to practice conversation were limited to the class. I speculate that it might have been much easier to learn this if I was immersed in a practice with a more authentic context.  By putting skills in context digital literacies can increase access to COPs, thereby increasing access to sponsors of literacy as individuals.