illiteracy

Illiteracy is the condition of illiterate, a word of Latin origin (analphabetus) which in turn derives from the ancient Greek (ἀναλφάβητος, illiterate) which refers to that person what He does not know to read nor to write. Anyway, the finished is often used extensively and is used to name individuals who are ignorant or what lack the most basic knowledge in any discipline.

Also considered an epidemic that threatens freedom and progress, illiteracy has alarmed the governments of various countries for decades and there are numerous campaigns to eradicate it. More than 800 million adults and more than 100 million children worldwide are illiterate. This means that, in general, these people cannot read their Rights, nor the news of a newspaper, nor write a Curriculum vitae to look for work. The consequences of these limitations are as obvious as they are terrifying.

In the countries with compulsory schooling programs, illiteracy is very low. However, language learning is increasingly poor, given a series of factors, among which is the misuse of the technology. In the mid-1990s, the conventions used to compose an e-mail message and to chat posed a great threat to many teachers, who claimed that their students wrote worse and worse. Today, just 15 years later, in countries like the United States, children receive their first mobile phones before the age of 9. How much does technology affect language? Nothing, as long as it is applied with a constructive strategy.

Very complex languages ​​such as Japanese require even greater effectiveness on the part of the teachers and an attention and perseverance on the part of the students that would be unimaginable in the West. However, despite the stereotyped determination and discipline of the Orientals, illiteracy also attacks them. Ironically, to carry out one of Japan's plans to improve the teaching of writing and reading it is necessary for each student to bring a Nintendo DSi to school. The proposal is to use a program that captures and recognizes the words said by the teacher and sends them to each person so that they can follow the class and save an automatic note, always with a orthographycorrect. There are also various programs that monitor the manual writing carried out on a touch screen with the help of a stylus or stylus, to ensure precise learning of this complex language that requires, for example, that the order and direction of each of the traces of a character are unalterable.

Functional and digital illiteracy

When a person learns to read and write but cannot apply this knowledge in a practical way, we talk about functional illiteracy. In this case, the individual is able to make basic use of his language, but unable to understand written instructions, fill out a form, read a text in a communication medium, interpret traffic signs or timetables, as well as efficiently use computer tools such as a word processor, the Internet or a mobile phone. Although these people are capable of understanding isolated words, it is when they are combined and adopt relative and contextual meanings that their interpretation becomes impossible for them.

On the other hand, in recent years the concept of digital illiteracy, which refers to people who do not have the necessary knowledge to interact with new technologies (such as Internet). Erroneously, this condition is usually associated with people of a certain age, probably parents and grandparents from the 80's generation backwards. As in the case of traditional illiteracy, the causes of this lack of knowledge and understanding are not linked to the age or, in many cases, to the economic level of the person. The main managers are, in general, impractical and frustrating teaching techniques, which do not think of the student as an individual but as part of a group that includes anyone of the same age, assuming that all its members show a similar degree of interest and ability.

A few years ago, the UN included education as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals, and set a 2015 deadline for all children in the world to have access to primary education. To achieve this goal, we not only have schools, but television and the internet offer various free tools for learning the language, ranging from video series to texts, applications and even games.