Functional illiteracy in Europe
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Starting Point. Discuss the questions below.
What is literacy?
What is illiteracy?
What is functional illiteracy?
Do you know anyone who cannot read or write or struggle to do so?
What could be the potential reasons for illiteracy?
In your opinion, what percentage of adults could be functionally illiterate in Europe?
What type of potential everyday issues could functionally illiterate people face?
Text
Many young people leave school before they have developed the literacy skills they require to participate fully in society. Functional illiteracy, unlike illiteracy, can be hard to spot. Decoding and reading aloud the text can be so mentally demanding on the individual, that he or she has no spare capacity to access the meaning of the text. So, someone may well be able to read a text aloud, but still be unable to understand what they have read and extract meaning from it. This means that those who are not functionally literate can often be quite invisible in our societies. They often manage to do this and sometimes even prosper, but their poor reading and writing means that there are limits to their engagement with the world around them.
It is important to distinguish here between illiteracy – not being able to read and write at all, and functional literacy – being able to read and write, but not well enough to meet the demands of everyday life. https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/blog/functional-literacy-and-early-school-leaving
Focus on Comprehension. Answer the questions below about the video.
Focus on Listening. Watch the video. Read the transcript below if necessary.
Focus on Speaking.
Are you surprised by the what you learnt in the video?
Which piecce of information do you find most shocking / interesting?
https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/resource-centre/content/relationship-between-functional-illiteracy-and-poverty
What are the consequences of functional illiteracy for a country/continent?
How could we improve the literacy rate in the EU or Spain?
https://mgciissn.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/factsheet-literacy_in_europe-a4.pdf
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