What motivated Malcolm X learn to read?
With a viewpoint of extrinsic motivation, at first, he started to acquire some kind of homemade education because of his letters that he wrote to Mr. Elijah Muhammad. He became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what he wanted to convey in letters although he had commanded attention when he said something in the street. Another reason is by the convict debaters and audiences in The Norfolk Prison Colony’s library getting over subjects, which made Malcolm astonished and by especially Bimbi who made him feel envy of his stock of knowledge and Malcolm tried to emulate him.
On the other hand, as for intrinsic motivation, after Malcolm began to understand what a book was saying, he read lots of fields of books on the library and his bunk. As a result, the new world opened to him and as he was getting enormous information and deep insight, he realized some long dormant craving inside him to be mentally alive, which lead the bookworm to plunge himself into the everlasting world of reading for satisfying his curiosity.
Briefly explain how he mastered his vocabulary.
After two days’ riffling, he started copying a dictionary into tablets and then he read back to himself aloud everything he wrote on the tablet over and over. The next day, he thought about those words and reviewed them he didn’t remember. He was so fascinated that he went on those kinds of his homemade education. He eventually copied the entire dictionary by writing in tablets and letters, which was inevitable as he broadened his word-base. Later, he was able to master his vocabulary by reading huge amounts of books he was getting more interested in.
What was the meaning of reading and writing to Malcolm X?
First, to the fervid black guy, reading and writing was a survival power as he realized his dormant curiosity for being mentally alive as a human being.
Second, reading enabled him to get broader knowledge and wisdom about the whole world through which he could open his eyes gradually wider and deeper.
Third, reading became an ineluctable destiny and a leisure time activity through his life.
Fourth, reading and writing is a method of overview of the world and the motive of his action for attacking his ignorance and seeking for the meaning of his life, the happiness.
Conclusion
Actually I was shocked at first reading the COPYING A DICTIONARY part of the essay, because it was a similar method I used to get at the early stages of my vocabulary building process. When I happened to meet a word I didn’t know, I started searching for the English to English dictionary and copying every word on the page and searching for another word I couldn’t understand at the previous stage and doing the routine until there was no single word I didn’t know. After that, I read the notebook aloud repeatedly like an actor or announcer and recorded my voice. I did that job for about two years with a stack of notebooks and tapes. Anyway, it was very useful for me to get lots of vocabularies along with skills of fast reading and writing. However, it had limitation on learning listening and speaking fields. I think it was possible for Malcolm to succeed in the homemade education, because that was L1.
My question
How should I understand and explain the process of Malcolm’s success from the view of language acquisition theories? Behaviorism or Innatism? Why?
Lee's Comment:
Your question: whether Malcolm's learning process was bahvioristic or innativistic. In case of Malcolm's learning process, one can't say if it is behavioristic or innatistic.' Rather, we can find some bahavioristic learning and innativistic learning process. As for behaviorism, one core sense of it is 'habit formation.' Malcolm stated that he copied the dictionary, and then repeatedly read aloud what he had written on the tablet. It is somewhat behavioristic. He copied the whole dictionary and tried to read and understand the whole content. He mentioned that the dictionary was something like a little 'encyclopedia.' It is more connected with intensive and extensive reading, through which he could educate himself. His innate learning ability was triggered in the process of this dictionary copying, I guess. Which was more effective? One cannot answer to this question.
In your case, as you mentioned, ". After that, I read the notebook aloud repeatedly like an actor or announcer and recorded my voice. I did that job for about two years with a stack of notebooks and tapes" you 'repeatedly did something to learn...which could be interpreted as taking behavioristic approach.
"However, it had limitation on learning listening and speaking fields. I think it was possible for Malcolm to succeed in the homemade education, because that was L1."
I agree with you. Learning alone without proper guidance has its lilmitations and that's why we need teachers. Besides, L1 and L2 learning process are not same in some aspects as we discussed in our TSL502 course. However, we can learn something from Malcolm's learning experiences. What matters is how we are going to apply what we discussed in the classroom setting.
Thank you for your contribution, Mr. Han. I am proud of you.
--Lee
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