Orality Journal Volume 3, Number 1, 2014 | Page 34

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Orality Journal, Volume 3, Number 1, 2014

teachers from the West working
in a non-Western cultural context.
In such circumstances, it is critical
that the teacher understand the
hearer’s preexisting conceptions
and builds upon them.
It is true that I am guided in my
perspective by a high view of
culture. By “high view,” I do not
mean that culture itself is sacred.
In fact, I believe that all cultures
must come under the corrective
scrutiny of the gospel. But I
also believe that God has placed
within all cultures the culturally
appropriate elements and methods
for successful communication,
including communication of
the gospel. In other words, God
willingly “uses culture” as a vehicle
for his message.
Unfortunately, in many cultures,
“natural vehicles” (e.g., songs,
proverbs, dance, drama, narrative)
have been suppressed (if not
buried) under the influence of
Western educational pressure,
and missionaries have not been
immune to such error. The result
has been that native peoples
are often ashamed of those
culturally-accepted instruments
of communication and see
them as inferior to those of the
West. Constructivist teaching/
learning can help identify and use

Phil Thornton

many of those natural vehicles
for communication which have
heretofore been lost or forbidden.
The constructivist approach to
teaching/learning can remove
some of those imposed obstacles
and allow non-Western (and
particularly oral) learners to
rediscover culturally appropriate
avenues for both packaging and
delivering the gospel message.
In a certain sense cross-cultural
constructivist teaching/learning
parallels the emphasis of
appreciative inquiry in that it
seeks to identify and use what
a people do well, rather than
eliminating what they do wrong
(or, at least, what we think they
are doing wrong).
The more traditional approach
to teaching/learning in Western
education, including that of
pastoral training, focuses on the
material (curriculum), beginning
with the individual parts and
building to the whole. Basic skills
are emphasized, and typically there
is a rather strict adherence to the
fixed curriculum. The curriculum
(material to be taught) is highly
valued. The primary sources
of learning are textbooks and
workbooks. Teachers deliver
information to the learners with
learners becoming recipients of