2B: What is ‘success’ in teaching, training and learning?

In a small manufacturing company, Gemma, her workplace supervisor and her trainer/assessor are holding a meeting. Using Gemma’s ILP and previous review records for reference, they are discussing which areas Gemma needs to work on next. In three weeks’ time, a member of staff is going on holiday and Gemma has the opportunity to cover this job. But this involves taking lots of telephone messages, and Gemma lacks the skills to do this. They consider what learning methods have worked well for her in the past and whether there are any barriers preventing her mastering the skills. Gemma says she cannot write and listen at the same time. She seems to have a dominant right ear and is also right-handed. After 10 minutes they have a plan.

The workplace supervisor agrees to obtain a telephone headset for Gemma. Over the next three weeks, Gemma will spend an hour each day sitting with the member of staff whose job she will cover. She will be able to listen in on the incoming calls and take down messages. Her colleague will also take the messages down, so that they can compare notes after each call. Gemma agrees to read every phone message that her colleague takes over the next two weeks and compile a list of the words that are often used.

The trainer/assessor agrees to return in two weeks to help Gemma design a user-friendly form to write her messages on, and practise writing the words and phrases that are most likely to be used by customers leaving messages. One college uses a simple form to carry out a language and number skills audit of vocational programmes.

Carl is on an E2E programme. He hated school and is reluctant to spend any time in the training centre doing ‘book work’. His provider has found him a work placement with a council team that carries out environmental improvements. He spends four days a week on placement and one day in the centre. His training officer visits him at the placement and finds out that the next project for the team will be the construction of a gravel path. The training officer talks to the workplace supervisor about the learning opportunities this will provide. They agree that Carl can take responsibility for calculating the quantities of materials required for the path.

The next time Carl arrives at the training centre, there is a noticeable change. Instead of fooling around outside and wasting time, he marches in with the plan for the path and approaches the teacher for help. It takes Carl two days of hard work to complete the task. He draws on various sources to help him: a reference book lent to him by his workplace supervisor, a workbook on calculating volume and various Internet sites where suppliers of gravel give guidelines on quantities. His teacher provides short, intensive bursts of teaching. Carl now approaches all of his work at the training centre with more enthusiasm; he is beginning to believe in his own ability.

Maryam is an ESOL learner who is working towards an NVQ at Level 2 in Hospitality. She has a placement in a small hotel and attends the training centre of her WBL provider one day a week. She is progressing well with her occupational skills. Her understanding of spoken English is adequate for her current role. However, she is very quiet at work. She does not speak at staff meetings and her assessor is finding it hard to assess her progress, as she does not respond well to oral questioning.

The assessor has discussed this with a colleague who has experience of teaching ESOL, and, as a result, adopts new ways of working with Maryam. The assessor takes a digital camera with her to the workplace and takes numerous shots of Maryam carrying out a specific task from beginning to end.

When Maryam comes into the training centre, the assessor uses the pictures to bring out Maryam’s oral skills. Once Maryam can talk confidently about how she carries out a particular task, they move on to writing down the key points. The assessor prints out sheets with about six pictures to a page and Maryam writes a caption under each picture. The final product is a storyboard which Maryam can use as evidence for her NVQ, and which acts as a kind of picture dictionary to remind Maryam of the words and phrases she needs when talking about her work.

Manny is an apprentice in a marketing company. He has agreed with his workplace supervisor that he will work on his literacy and numeracy skills. Whenever there is a lull at work, his supervisor encourages him to log on to the BBC Skillswise site. He usually manages to do a little every day and feels it is really helping him. His training officer is going to arrange for him to take the national tests online. Manny feels very positive about this. He feels he would never have gone to literacy and numeracy classes and he could not see himself taking an old-style written test.

Not everything in work-based learning has to be about work. For one thing, it is not always possible to make off-the-job training occupationally specific, when you want to run a group activity with learners whose work placements are in a wide range of occupations.

At one E2E provider, the trainers seek out exciting topics that will appeal to the whole group. They are currently following historical themes and recently spent a day examining the Jack the Ripper case. The trainers prepared sets of 10 cards – 1 on each of the 10 suspects. Working in small groups, the learners went through and highlighted the key information on each card, then transferred the key points on to a table under ‘evidence for’ and ‘evidence against’. A lively group discussion followed, during which the learners narrowed it down to two suspects. The day ended with a video about the case.

The day not only developed transferable skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening, but also helped the learners to explore issues relevant to their own lives. In particular, they gained some understanding of the role of the police and the difficulties facing them, and explored the role of drug culture in Jack the Ripper’s London.

Two learners are measuring and solving problems involving 2D shapes. The learning is enhanced by the learners working together, checking each other’s work and discussing the best way to do things.

One E2E trainer runs sessions on body image. She uses posters from a health education centre showing different body shapes and different ethnic groups.

Her learners have also composed an ‘equal opportunities rap’ and done activities to counter gender stereotyping.

She finds these activities also provide excellent opportunities for developing speaking and listening skills.

Malik is a workplace supervisor in a large company who looks after two apprentices. Their programmes are managed by the company’s training department, which sends an assessor to carry out assessments and reviews. In the past, Malik was reluctant to take part in learner progress reviews. He was frustrated because most of the time in the review meeting seemed to be taken up by the assessor talking about collecting NVQ evidence. But the training department has adopted a new approach to reviews, and Malik finds his role is clearer and more positive now.

Malik says, ‘I find the reviews really useful now. They help me to make sense of the whole thing and see what my role is. We talk about what has been achieved and then identify what skills the apprentice will work on next. I now feel I have a contribution to make. I say what I think the apprentice needs to learn next and I can spot the opportunities. I make arrangements for them to rotate jobs or work on a particular project. I also have a say in how and when assessment will take place. I can spot when they have mastered something and are ready to be assessed.’

Steve grew up in the pub trade. At 20 he was running his own pub and training his own apprentices. After five years he became a full-time vocational assessor for a large WBL provider. Eighteen months later, he moved to a new WBL learning provider that specialises in running Apprenticeships for the licensed trade.

Steve told us, ‘When I first worked in work-based learning, there was no mention of basic skills. We used to give everyone the usual basic skills initial assessment tests, but we did nothing with the results. We just accepted that a lot of our learners would lack basic skills. The issue was not even discussed and there were no resources to address it. In a way, the assessors covered up the problems. We would try to get our learners through the NVQ by reading the questions to them and helping them with the paperwork. We only really focused on the paperwork.

‘Now, my whole perspective has changed. It’s all about the learner. I now understand the importance of valuing people and seeing them as individuals – trying to find out what’s best for them. I find it takes two to three months just to find out whether a learner has literacy or numeracy needs. We use the screening tests at the very start, but that just gives you an idea of the level, of where to begin with finding out more. I went to the seminar about using the diagnostic software. I’ve just started using it with learners. They love it. They do better on it than on the paper-based tests.

‘But I don’t just rely on the tests. Building a rapport with the learner is the most important thing, so that they begin to tell you about their needs. Many of our learners were turned off by school. One said to me at the outset, “If you act like a teacher, I’ll walk out”. I keep it very informal. I’ve found that the over-confident learners are often the ones that have literacy or numeracy needs. They try to cover it up. The reading side comes to light first. The technology tends to cover up the numeracy side. By the time I pick them up their confidence is at a low ebb.

 

‘The other important person is their workplace supervisor. They work with the learner day in and day out. They know where the problem areas are. It’s all about asking the right questions. I ask about specific areas of performance, such as, “Do they make any mistakes on the till?” or “Do they have any problems giving customers information off the menu?”

‘I gave a notebook to one learner, to write down words. She puts in words from work, even her Xmas shopping list. When it’s quiet in the pub her supervisor goes through it with her, helping her with the spellings. It really seems to be working.

‘I wish I had a more in-depth knowledge, so that I would have more chance of addressing the learners’ problems with literacy and numeracy in a more long-term way. It’s not just about the 15 months they’re on the programme. It’s Skills for Life.’

Khadija is clear about her long- and medium-term goals and her short-term target. ‘I have a placement in a travel agency. I speak good English, but my written English is holding me back. I want to improve my written English so that I get offered a job at the travel agency. I go to the training centre for half a day each week for ESOL. With help from my teacher, I draw up a list of the things I want to learn. At the moment we are working on writing letters. For practice, my supervisor gives me copies of letters that are sent to the travel agency. I take them to the training centre and work with my teacher to write replies. My weak area is getting the verbs correct. I’m concentrating on the irregular verbs at the moment.’

One E2E trainer told us, ‘I find that a lot of our learners want to get a job. I can use that as the starting point when diagnosing needs. We can talk about what they need to be able to do in order to get a job, such as reading advertisements and writing letters. Then I say “If you learn X,Y, Z, you’ll be able to write a letter...”. I find you sometimes have to dig deep to find the individual learner’s objectives. One learner wanted to buy a new pair of trainers. That was all he seemed to have as a goal. We used that as the starting point. Before long we had a whole plan that included phoning shops, calculating price reductions in the sales, budgeting to save the money and so on.’

Kirsty is an apprentice in a solicitors’ office. She is well thought of by the partners, who are preparing her to take on more responsibility. But poor spelling is hampering her progress. So one of the partners, with Kirsty’s full agreement, marks her written work. They sit down together and discuss the errors. They are now beginning to work on the grammar and the style as well.

The internal verifier for key skills qualifications has monthly meetings with all the assessors, who assess NVQs as well as key skills. She says, ‘I am working with the assessor team to improve the assessment of key skills. All the key skills used to be done after the NVQ was complete. It felt like an afterthought and a real chore. The learners and assessors hated it. We are working towards a model whereby whenever assessors go to the workplace to assess the NVQ, they assess the key skills at the same time. We want to get it integrated so that it’s seamless.’

The training officer takes a laptop into the workplace so that the learner can use the interactive materials on the BBC Skillswise website.

‘It’s great for us in the kitchen; it’s our best resource – we can use literacy and numeracy all the time.

Using other people’s resources doesn’t work for me. I know what will engage and excite my learners. I see it as an experiment I’m conducting with the learners – to find out what works for them.

I feel that too many trainers are afraid to experiment. They think that because they are not trained as literacy and numeracy specialists then they can’t do things.

We need to stop being scared about teaching Skills for Life.’