Purpose
The purpose of the task is to enhance a first-semester Seneca student’s insight into the assigned article titled “Nearly Half of Adult Canadians Struggle with Literacy.” Specifically, the message aims at providing the main points of the article and the example of the article’s summary.
Audience
The target audience is the Seneca community and others, especially new students, such as native English speakers, immigrants, and minorities, who have difficulties in understanding English academic text. They need support and assistance in improving their literacy skillset, including critical thinking, comprehension, and judgment.
Information
Considering the purpose and audience analysis, the message should contain and clarify the central purpose of the article and the definition of the main exacerbating issues. Besides, the communication should highlight and offer potential solutions to overcome these concerns and better the situation.
Benefits/Strategies
To align with the purpose and audience, the message should be constructed in a way that tightly interacts with and convinces the audience to think they benefit from it. The communication should be clear, genuine, and simple to evoke stimulating emotions, audience reaction in the form of discussion, and interest to dive into the issue.
Objections
The audience may face doubts concerning the reliability of facts and information provided by the message, which can undermine their involvement in the session. In this regard, there is a critical necessity to conduct thorough research that gives evidence validating the arguments and statements addressed to the students.
Context
The context of the communication should be of a professional, elucidating, and informative nature since the audience belongs to the academic facility and strives to gain particular knowledge. They may require evidence-based, engaging, and thought-provoking information submission and express vivid interest in the tutor’s performance.
Summary
The article’s purpose is to heighten the public awareness of the critical problem with the low literacy level in Canada and encourage policymakers to implement strategies improving the population literacy and, thus, their labor competitiveness. In particular, Chin (2021) states that poor literacy skills, namely, reading, writing, and numeracy, result in significant adverse consequences to the economy and democracy. The cause of prevalent illiteracy directly comes from the plethora of jobs not demanding the daily information reading and processing. The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIACC) concluded that many Canadians could not perform simple tasks such as filling a job application or comprehending length and complicated texts (OECD, 2019). As a result, this phenomenon impairs the population competitiveness and, thus, the economic situation.
The author also indicates that this issue is not only linked to immigrants but also Canadian-born citizens. For instance, the lowest-scoring representation includes many Indigenous people and French and English speakers born in the state (Chin, 2021). In this regard, Piché, a social worker who earlier was illiterate, said that being ignorant usually arouses a sense of real shame since everybody can order you around (Chin, 2021). Herewith, another problem is that the labor market structure is beginning to change, requiring more literate individuals because many workplaces will be automated.
The final issue is related to inadequate digital literacy, which leads to poorly informed decision making. Forty-nine percent of the population do not achieve the literacy level allowing them to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate content on the Internet (Chin, 2021). Therefore, many scholars assert that it is vital to address digital literacy’s problem to avoid wrong decisions while voting. Overall, the author notes that to tackle illiteracy, both educational establishments and employers should combine effort and focus on enhancing soft skills, including communication and reading comprehension.
References
Chin, F. (2021). Nearly half of adult Canadians struggle with literacy — and that’s bad for the economy. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
OECD (2019). The Survey of Adult Skills: Reader’s Companion (3rd ed.). OECD Publishing. Web.