Literacy in Communities

Every community has a different type of literacy that caters to its specific knowledge and expertise. I can see a difference in the communities that I am involved with. My job over winter break and my different classes at college show how certain communities have different characteristics that make up their literacy. In this way, I am required to be literate in all these separate communities.
During the winter, I work for a ski resort called Snow Trails. I work there as a snowboard instructor. When I started this job, I could definitely tell there was different type of vocabulary and oral literacy that I was not used to. For a while, I found myself confused about what the instructors were trying to say and embarrassed to ask. I had no idea what “jigging” or “steez” was. I didn’t know what a rodeo entailed or what a heel traverse was. If I didn’t understand these words, it was difficult to be able to teach. Some of the lingo is taught when we have clinics for the instructors, but some of it requires just being around the specific vernacular and picking up on the words.
In addition, there is a great emphasis placed on oral literacy at this ski resort. Basically, my job duties are to be able to explain snowboarding to any age or level. This means I have to be able to communicate to a six year old how to turn a snowboard and I have to be able to do the same with a forty two year old. And I have to cater to everyone’s possible learning style, whether it is visual, kinesthetic, or auditory. This can take some training and experience to know how to speak to such a huge range of people. But there is also not much of a need to know how to write. If I ever have to write during a working day, it is not more than two sentences on how far the private lesson reached. Therefore there is a great emphasis on oral literacy.
There is also a type of literacy that is specific to each of my classes. Obviously, in English composition class, the focus is more on written literacy than in my calculus class. Although, my calculus class relies on oral literacy because there needs to be clear communication when a problem is misunderstood or there is a question raised in class. My design class involves less written literacy as well. Our teams need to communicate orally in order to successfully brainstorm and design our new remote control cars. It is crucial that we know how to get across our ideas.
In conclusion, there are many types of literacy that cater to specific communities. My winter break job required from me different things than my classes at school. There is definitely a need to learn how to be literate in every situation in order to fit in and things to go smoothly.