Global Outlook

Web extra -- An interview with a CLE developer

R ead more from an interview with Richard Walker, the Rotarian who developed the concentrated language encounter (CLE) method of teaching literacy.

GO: How have traditional teaching methods failed?

RW: Literate people are those who can effectively read and write written texts for a wide range of real-life purposes. Most literacy programs begin with teaching sub-skills such as sound-symbol correspondence, believing that it will lead later to reading and writing for real-life purposes. It won’t for many learners. They must learn to use written language, not just learn about it. Children learn to talk at an early age, without formal instruction. That is a more challenging task than learning to read and write, so why do so many fail? A large part of the answer is that some don’t see any purpose or sense in what they are being taught.           

GO: How did CLE get started?

RW: CLE techniques were developed during the late 1970s by Brian Gray, a member of my staff when I headed a reading research center in Brisbane. The project was located at an elementary school in Central Australia where, over a period of some five years, virtually total failure in reading and writing by Aboriginal students was changed to great success.  

GO: Why is CLE so successful?

RW: People who witness a CLE teaching demonstration, where beginning students can read and write meaningfully after just a few teaching sessions, often speak of a miracle. That babies learn to talk with very little or no direct teaching is a greater miracle. They just work hard on learning to talk at times during their daily life on occasions when they badly want to communicate with someone. We term those kinds of occasions concentrated language encounters.

If a young child struggles to say a word, a family member usually helps. But the child knows what is going on and why, it all makes sense. Similarly, using conventional spelling, punctuation, and grammar within CLE programs comes from incidental observation and discussion during group writing and language games in the final segment of each CLE program unit. CLE students can usually give their own explanation for why a punctuation mark needs to be used in a particular place in a text.    

GO: CLE has been building steam for decades. How can Rotarians around the world take it to the next level?

RW: I see the next stage of the program based on two overlapping steps: We should develop networks of CLE Literary Lighthouses across the world and push for more funds from governmental and nongovernmental agencies.