How abugida readers learn alphabetic literacy skills: The role of phonological awareness in the transfer process in the Konso language, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

This study examines the interplay between phonological awareness, orthography and literacy learning. The field work was carried out in the Konso language community in Southwest Ethiopia, during the launching of an alphabetic orthography for the language. Konso had previously been written in the Ge’ez script, which is classified as an abugida. Each abugida character primarily denotes a consonant-vowel sequence, and transferring to an alphabetic orthography involves learning new sound-symbol correspondences on the level of phonemes. The change of writing system offered the opportunity to study the influence of an orthography on its readers’ phonological awareness in a context where only the writing system changed, not the language. At the same time, it gave the opportunity to establish the basis for the method to be used for transfer literacy teaching for the Konso language. The data was mostly collected in the first transfer literacy training workshops for voluntary literacy teachers (N=80). The data collection stretched over three years and three months, while the teachers practised alphabetic literacy skills and started to teach transfer literacy classes. The data includes the results of phonological awareness tests, spelling and word reading tests, the subjects’ written reflections on the two orthographies and the transfer learning process, and my diary notes from observations and discussions with the learners. The results revealed close connections between the sound-symbol correspondences of the Konso abugida and its readers’ conceptions about the phonological components of the language. Consonants and vowels were viewed as related components complementing each other, rather than as independent units. The lack of the marking of phoneme quantity in the abugida made it difficult for abugida readers to identify the quantity of phonemes, and the disparity between phonological syllables and orthographic syllables influenced their intuitive syllabification. Overall, the results point to the strong influence of a writing system on its readers’ phonological awareness, making it hard to become aware of phonological units which are not represented in the orthography. This has consequences for the transfer literacy learning situation, especially when the transfer takes place from an orthography operating on bigger phonological units to an orthography operating on smaller units. Keywords: transfer literacy, phonological awareness, script, writing system, orthography, abugida, Konso language