2A: How to achieve success in teaching, training and learning

Teaching methods

Where the primary learning goal for learners is to develop their literacy, numeracy or ESOL skills, providers need to make sure that each lesson is planned to help progress through learners’ individual or group learning plans. Each lesson should take account of the priorities identified through initial assessment. Where learners have something else in mind as their primary learning goal, for example, researching the history of their local community or the organisation of a transport service for disabled people, it may be more appropriate for them to have a group learning plan that focuses on the main task, with components that relate to each person’s literacy, numeracy and language needs. Some ESOL practitioners find it helpful to develop group learning plans that focus on essential constructions that all the learners need to know in order to function as a group. They can supplement these with contextualised activities that are tailored to meet the needs and interests of individual learners.

Involve learners in the planning of schemes of work wherever possible. Share objectives for each lesson with learners and, wherever possible, involve them in evaluating whether or not they have been achieved. It may take a while before learners with little fluency in spoken English can contribute in this way. However, bilingual support might help learners overcome their inhibitions.

Make good use of a wide range of activities, for example, group discussion, pairwork and individual assignments, to enable learners to develop their oral communication skills and their problem-solving skills, and to expose them to new ideas and to enable them to learn from each other. Do this in such a way that individuals can meet their own learning goals. For example, a group discussion at Level 2 could lead to individual reading or writing assignments pitched at Entry Level 3 to Level 2.

Explain methods that adult learners may not have encountered before. For ESOL learners accustomed to more traditional teaching methods, this may mean all the informal methods used. Introduce resources that adult learners may not have used before, such as the Internet. Avoid situations in which learners carry out activities that are not relevant to their learning goals. Avoid methods which have alienated learners in the past. For literacy and numeracy learners, this might mean all the traditional methods!

Be mindful of the range and sophistication of adult learners’ interests, the richness of their life experience and their potential for intellectual growth. All kinds of circumstances have conspired to bring people to reach adulthood without achieving fluency in written or spoken English or in numeracy. For example, these include a traumatic home environment, lack of early education, poor health or being forced to flee one’s country of origin for political or economic reasons. The lack of these skills does not imply a lack of intellectual ability, ambition or thirst for knowledge.

The written and spoken word and the ability to decipher and manipulate numbers are tools, not just for daily survival, or for relating to popular culture, but for exploring and making sense of the wider world and one’s place in it (that is, developing a sense of citizenship). A judiciously chosen quotation or simple statistic can provide the opportunity for learners to develop Entry Level skills while at the same time opening the door to wider areas of learning and action, and raising learners’ aspirations. For example, the statistic ‘40 million people worldwide have Aids or HIV’ (Source: Guardian 3 July 2002) could lead to a health education project for young people, or a friendship link with an African village, as well as work on ratios.

Learners are attempting to develop new skills in a rapidly changing environment. Consider how to use the core curricula to prepare them to cope with change, to shape it and to challenge it. Consider developing learning activities, referenced to the national standards, that are thematically organised. This will enable learners to explore issues in some depth. Even though their literacy, numeracy and language skills may be low, their capacity for analysis, reasoning and reflection is unlikely to be.

Group learning plans

Lyn, Rob, Kathy and Edmund form a group of learners who have been brought together by a common interest: they are concerned about the state of their street because it has no road surfacing or drains. They have discovered that they live on an ‘unadopted’ road. This is a common feature of former mining communities, and one which their local authority is not keen to tackle. A sample assessment of the group’s literacy skills appears in the table that follows.

SAMPLE LEARNER ASSESSMENT

The group’s primary goal is to persuade the council to adopt the road. This involves upgrading it and then maintaining it. The group’s secondary learning goal is to develop the knowledge and skills, including the necessary literacy and numeracy skills, to be able to accomplish the task.

Some of the tasks the group has set itself over the medium- to longer-term are:

• visiting councillors’ surgeries
• producing a residents’ newsletter
• organising a public meeting
• finding out about how the local authority system works
• producing a briefing paper for elected members
• finding out how much it would cost to upgrade 100 metres of road
• researching how other coalfield areas are dealing with this problem
• learning how to run meetings effectively
• developing a website
• applying for funding for the group from the Community Chest Fund.

Tonight, the group is focusing on writing a letter to key members of the council, urging them to take action, as shown in the lesson plan below.

SAMPLE LESSON PLAN

View a sample lesson plan

Feedback

Acknowledge what learners have done well and give encouragement. At the same time, give considered and constructive advice about how learners might improve their performance. For example, where a learner has spelled a word incorrectly, show how this is part of a group of words that display the same pattern: once one has been learned, the same principle can be applied to all. This equips the learner with a valuable reading and writing strategy, as opposed to a short-term solution.

Create an environment in which learners welcome each other, work collaboratively, respect each other and are mindful of each other’s interests.

In neighbourhood-based work, residents of different age groups may be at odds with each other. Similarly, ESOL groups may include learners from countries where there has been conflict, for example, Iran and Iraq or Pakistan and India. In these or similar situations, tutors need to find ways of tackling and resolving tension between rival or potentially opposed groups.

Use materials for teaching and learning that are socially inclusive. The visual imagery used in materials should represent all sections of society. The perspectives of these groups should also be represented. Encourage learners to draw upon their own life experiences and knowledge of their language, culture and community to further their own learning and to contribute to the learning of others.

Learners’ work should show that they are developing confidence and competence in using language and numbers in a growing variety of situations or for increasingly complex purposes. It should show how they are beginning to take control of their own learning by, for example, developing spelling strategies or developing skills in estimation or the use of a calculator.

All the gains learners make should be reflected in the records of progress reviews that they have regularly with their tutors. In some cases, the gains may be unexpected, for example, the ability to interact more effectively with other members of the group. It is important to record these gains too. In some cases, new learning goals may emerge. These should be added to the individual or group learning plan.

Tutor requirements

Part of the Government’s strategy for Skills for Life involves having a well-trained, well-qualified workforce. Literacy and language tutors need a good grasp of how language works: they should understand how it operates in different contexts, and be able to identify what its characteristics are when used for different purposes. Numeracy tutors should have a good grasp of numerical concepts and operations. Tutors of all subjects should be able to make the link between learners’ need to get to grips with the basic building blocks of language and numeracy and their interest in using these skills for specific purposes at home, at work or in their communities. Tutors need to be able to draw upon their knowledge to devise realistic learning activities that are relevant to the context in which learners are working. For example, a numeracy tutor working with young mothers who want to help their children learn maths will need to develop different learning materials and activities from a tutor working with a nursing orderly who is seeking promotion in the health service. Tutors must to be able to help learners develop their understanding of how the general principles of language and numeracy can be applied in different situations by providing clear explanations and introducing helpful illustrations.

Nationally, the expectation is that Skills for Life tutors will have an accredited teaching qualification at Level 4, and a subject-specific award. In the job profiling field of its website, learndirect provides up-to-date guidance on qualifications that meet these requirements. Although the availability of training options leading to qualified status has increased significantly over recent years, there are still practitioners who have not had the opportunity to take up any of these alternatives. When selecting and appointing staff, remember to pay attention to applicants’ prior knowledge and experience. If an applicant meets other important criteria, consider how you might develop them ‘in role’.

Skills for Life volunteers or mentors without formal qualifications or experience can work towards a Level 2 qualification such as the City and Guilds (9295) certificate in adult learner support (literacy, numeracy or ESOL). They can then progress to a Level 3 qualification. Again, the learndirect site provides up-to-date information on requirements.

While many adult learners have difficulties with literacy, language and numeracy because of the circumstances they have had to contend with in the past, some are struggling because of a specific learning difficulty. If at all possible, ensure that someone on your staff is qualified in this area, that she or he is available to provide awareness-raising sessions for other staff and advise on the acquisition of appropriate resources and materials for specific learners. If, as a small provider, this is not easy to achieve, make sure that you buy in advice and guidance from elsewhere. Your local authority may be able to help, for example, with providing awareness-raising sessions for staff and carrying out dyslexia assessments.

Once they have selected tutors, some providers pair them with a mentor or ‘buddy’ to help them find their feet and develop their practice during their first months in post. Good providers also make sure that volunteers have enough guidance, support and feedback on their practice to be able to perform an effective role with learners.

Increasing numbers of providers use lesson observation as part of their process of self-assessment, using it to gauge the standard of provision. But lesson observation can also be a powerful aid to professional development if used constructively. Structured feedback helps tutors to consider the experience from the learner’s point of view, and to think how to develop their approaches to teaching and learning in the future.

Assessment

Much of the assessment carried out in literacy, numeracy and ESOL in adult and community learning has depended on a constant and constructive dialogue between tutor and learner. The introduction of the core curricula for literacy, numeracy and ESOL provides an opportunity to extend this process by introducing a greater degree of standardisation into initial, formative and summative assessment activities. This will enable learners to gauge their progress, not just against their own previous performance, but against that of their peers and against national standards.

Initial assessment

The challenge for providers is to arrive at individual or group learning plans for learners that take account of their previous experience, their current levels of attainment and their aspirations. Self-assessment is an important element in this complex process. At an initial interview, some adults will be able to say a lot about the type of educational experience they have had in the past, what they can do already and what they hope to be able to do in the future. This valuable information can serve as the basis for developing the individual or group learning plan.

Some learners will not be able to talk in such specific terms. Their view of what they have learned in the past may be coloured by a general sense of failure, or they make lack sufficient fluency in English to provide the necessary information. On these occasions, it may be helpful to have on hand descriptions or illustrations of a number of situations involving the use of language and number to help guide the conversation with the learner about current competence and aspirations.

Some tutors use what they call ‘alerting activities’. These are exercises that they use to gauge the learner’s confidence or prior learning. They simply ask, ‘How do you feel about tackling this?’ and ‘Is this the sort of thing you would feel confident about?’ The value of these is that they give the tutor some sort of insight without putting the learner on the spot. Where potential learners have little or no spoken English, the presence of a bilingual worker will be invaluable.

Screening tests

The learner’s self-assessment can be validated and expanded upon by administering the initial screening tests in literacy and numeracy developed by the Basic Skills Agency. The findings can be used to determine the learner’s level in relation to the four aspects of the literacy and language curricula, or the number, measurement and data handling aspects of the numeracy curriculum. A similar screening test for ESOL students is planned.

For many adult learners, returning to learning will be a stressful experience. Many providers prefer to allow learners to attend several lessons before administering a screening test.

More detailed diagnostic materials can be used subsequently, and their findings used to refine individual or group learning plans. However, it should be emphasised that the most effective form of assessment is the skilled tutor’s analysis of work generated by the learner themselves. A tutor with a good understanding of language and/or number skills can discern whether errors in someone’s work are due to a lack of understanding, misunderstanding or a specific learning difficulty.

Where there are anomalies in the work that learners produce during initial and diagnostic assessment (that is, errors that are not predictable or logical), those learners should have the opportunity to undertake more specific diagnostic assessment, for example, in relation to dyslexia, as soon as possible. If your organisation is not equipped to provide this kind of assessment, you may be able to make arrangements with the schools service, another provider or a private consultant to carry out this work on your behalf.

The individual or group learning plan for a learner may encompass literacy, numeracy and ESOL skills or only one of these. It may focus on some aspects of the core curricula and exclude others, for example, the emphasis may be on reading rather than writing, or on measurement rather than handling data. The learner may be working at different levels in relation to different aspects of the core curricula. The crucial factor in all of this is what the learner’s situation demands.

Learning plans

There are some situations in which a group learning plan may take precedence over an individual learning plan. In community development activities, groups may be motivated by a common interest, rather than by individual need. For example, a group may be interested in fund-raising to pay for the construction of a new community centre, or lobbying the local authority to make over a piece of land for community use. In these cases, the tutor may agree a proposed group plan of learning and action with the learners that will help them achieve their overall goal. However, in pursuing the collective goal, it may become clear that some participants have difficulties with literacy, numeracy or language that prevent them contributing fully. In this case, supplementary individual learning plans are appropriate.

In ESOL groups, where learners are working at the same level, an effective way of planning is to identify some fundamental constructions that all learners need to work on and to work on them together, but to provide additional activities contextualised according to individuals’ personal circumstances and learning goals.

The following chart should help practitioners decide what type of learning is most appropriate for their learners.

SAMPLE CHART FOR PLANNING APPROPRIATE LEARNING

Workable ILPs

Individual or group learning plans need to steer a course between the unhelpfully general and the tediously specific. In agreeing long- or medium-term goals with learners, tutors should not lose sight of the situations in which learners hope ultimately to be able to apply their skills, and the purposes for which they hope to be able to use them. Aims such as ‘improve spelling’ are too abstract to give the learner a sense that the goal will ever be within reach, and too unfocused to help the tutor with lesson-planning. It is important to carry out some sort of analysis of the contexts in which learners wish to be able to operate confidently, and to identify the literacy, numeracy and language components within those situations. Language operates differently in different situations. Tutors need to know what those differences are to be able to describe and explain them. It then becomes possible to help the learner work step-by-step towards competence.

Some examples of how learners’ long- and medium-term goals might be linked to the core curricula follow.

Belle

Belle is an elderly woman who lives alone. She derives a great deal of sustenance from attending church every week. She has had very little formal education, and her reading skills have been assessed as Entry Level 2. She is very unconfident about expressing her views and speaking to people whom she doesn't know. However, like many adult learners, Belle has sophisticated ambitions. Her main aim is to be able to read the Bible independently.

Download Belle's individual learning plan - PDF (372Kb)

Kulwant

Kulwant is a long-time resident of the UK who speaks fluent English. However, his experience of the English education system was not a positive one. To his horror, his wife has left him and gone back to India. He now has sole charge of his three-year-old son, of whom he is deeply fond, and has no job.

Download Kulwant's individual learning plan - PDF (372Kb)

Short courses and projects for literacy, numeracy and ESOL learners present particular challenges in terms of initial assessment and individual or group learning plans. Essentially, the aims of any short course or special event should be made clear to learners at the outset: they should know what they are letting themselves in for. For example, a stated aim might be, ‘This is an opportunity for you to find out a little about how you can use a computer to send messages’. Learners should have the opportunity to disclose, without feeling threatened, what experience they already have of this activity. The tutor can then move on to customise the overall aims of the course, developing a group learning plan that takes account of the prior knowledge and experience of each learner.

Assessment activities

As with teaching and learning materials, assessment activities need to reflect the interests and primary learning goals of learners. In adult and community learning, these are likely to be very varied. For example, a young man whose prime motivation is to read car manuals will need different assessment materials from a middle-aged woman whose aim is to re-enter the labour market. While the national tests cannot possibly reflect every learner’s interests, you can do so in the assessment materials you use.

Consider including peers, family members and workmates in the assessment process with the consent of learners. Assessment practices should not be unduly stressful for learners, many of whom will have had negative experiences of tests and examinations in the past.

Assessing progress

Verification and moderation procedures are important means of ensuring that learners receive the same quality of teaching and have the same quality of experience wherever they are learning. Even where learners are not working towards a nationally recognised qualification, it is worth considering developing internal verification and moderation procedures as a means of ensuring that learners studying in a neighbourhood setting are having the same quality of experience as those studying in a large educational establishment.

This means carrying out impartial checks to ensure that all the materials and activities used for formative and summative assessment are pitched at the appropriate level as set out in the core curricula. For example, at Level 2, the material for assessing one group’s reading skills might be a council newsletter, while for another it is a feature from a tabloid newspaper. It also means checking examples of learners’ marked work, including oral work, to ensure consistency of approach on the part of tutors.

Once awarding bodies have developed a full range of qualifications in literacy, numeracy and language, they will make their own stipulations in relation to internal and external verification.

Carrying out progress reviews

Tutors of literacy, numeracy and ESOL have a wealth of experience in analysing learners’ work, identifying its strengths and weaknesses and in providing learners with constructive feedback on their work. However, in some cases, assessment activities have not been clearly distinguished from teaching and learning activities and have not been standardised. The introduction of the national standards provides the opportunity to create points in the learning programme where tutors and learners can take stock of the learner’s progress through the use of specific assignments. It also enables tutors to provide learners with feedback on how their performance relates to the national standards.

Progress reviews should be conducted at regular intervals, so that learners have a sense of the distance they have travelled and their intended future direction. Tutors should pay due attention to recording what has been learned, as opposed to activities completed. Achievements, whether or not the learner is working towards a qualification, can be referenced to the national curricula and standards. Records of achievement should include the extent to which learners can apply what they have learned outside the learning environment. Records of progress should be as straightforward as possible, so that learners can understand what they contain, and where possible contribute to them.

Progress reviews provide the opportunity to set new goals and revise existing ones in the light of assessment activities and changing circumstances. For example, in the second case study given above, Kulwant may decide that finding a job becomes a more pressing issue once he has got the basic household finances sorted out and once his son has gone to nursery school. The learner and the tutor need to agree how each new goal will be tackled and over what period.

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