The Idea of an Essay, Volume 4

Research Writing 153 oral learners include those “who have the ability to read and write, but they prefer to learn or process information by oral, rather than written, means, aided by electronic audio and visual communications” (63–64). W. Jay Moon says, “53.5 % of seminary students preferred oral learning compared to print learning” (55). Linda Labbo says that “students who sometimes struggle with school literacy are able to engage in highly complex electronic communications” (8). In his book “Winning Story Wars,” Jonah Sachs called these secondary oral learners “digitoral learners.” He says, “The oral tradition that dominated human experience for all but the last few hundred years is returning with a vengeance. It’s a monumental, epoch-making, totally unforeseen turn of events . . . our new digital culture of information sharing has so rejected the broadcast style and embraced key elements of oral traditions, that we might meaningfully call whatever’s coming next the digitoral era” (20). Jagerson says, “Perhaps the oral strategies such as the use of narrative for evangelism and discipleship on the mission field are particularly well sited to help support and recalibrate the efforts of Christian education in the West” (273). Literate cultures and oral cultures differ in their ways to reach the same goal to be like Christ, but Jagerson, Lovejoy, Claydon and Ong all point out that those two cultures can make positive impact on each other in order to more effectively seek Jesus Christ. Communicational cultures have huge influence on the style that people use to pursue the goal of becoming like Christ. Jergerson says that literate learners “tend to bemore individualistic in how they understand personal time and space and in their learning patterns” (Jagerson, 261). People living in literate cultures prefer topical studies, verse by verse expositions, and personal time with God (Jegerson, 261). For oral communicators, on the other hand, “Knowledge and communication tends to be directly relational between people and about people in the context of real life circumstances rather than about linear concepts that have been abstracted from relationships and circumstances. Oral learners tend to make decisions as a group and interpret what matters as an individual in terms of what it means for their role in the group” (Jagerson, 261). Lovejoy explains why it is important to use tools that is focused on the commmunity or the audience, focusing on evangelism and multiplication. He