Cates, A. 1974

Cates, Ann F. 1974. "The Atzera literacy programme: An experimental campaign in Papua New Guinea." Papua New Guinea Journal of Education.

Of the 18,000 Atzera speakers living in the Markham valley of Papua New Guinea in 1967, 33 percent were literate. The remaining 67 percent (preliterate or semiliterate) had little opportunity to improve their minimal skills. Goal of SIL literacy program was to create an environment to encourage reading and writing (full literacy in a broad sense) and to impact economic development. Describes the following aspects of the program:

• Background factors (such as geography, population, and power structures)
• Organization (such as materials and instructor training)
• Testing and evaluation (based on text results, attendance, and attitudes toward learning)

Made suggested changes regarding

• materials and methods
• attitudes and values
• power structure
• semiliterates
• supervision
• instructors
• librarians, and
• preparation and size of program.

The program

• provided materials for adults and children
• started people writing stories
• provided an outlet for written ideas, and
• trained a nucleus of literacy instructors.

A few instructors could manage a training program. Of 346 nonliterate Pidgin speakers who began the course [1972--1973], 66 learned to read Atzera. Out of this group, 95 percent learned to read Pidgin.

• Bibliography module: Cates, A. 1974
• In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): C
• In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 28 June 1999

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