Working in Groups with Adult Literacies Learners
Learning Connections
Learning Connections
Working in Groups with Adult Literacies Learners
Section 6
Effective Methods and Approaches
in Adult Literacies Groups
Section 6
Effective Methods and Approaches in Adult Literacies Groups
1. Using a Focused Approach
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – Looking at Letters Questions
Handout 1 – Dear Sheila Letter
Handout 2 – Looking at Letters – Planning
Handout 3 – Using a Focused Approach
OHP – Using a Focused Approach diagram
2. Using a Critical Approach 1
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – Critical Questions (also required for Critical
Approach 2)
Handout – Eric Digest Critical Literacy for Adult Literacy in Language Learners (in Section 9:11)
Handout 2 – Definitions of Literacy
3. Using a Critical Approach 2
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – Critical Questions (in Critical Approach 1, Section 6:2)
Handout – Newspaper article, Girl 14 charged after gun
rampage
4. Using a Genre Approach
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – Some Questions to Ask in a Genre Approach
Handouts – pre-session reading, Using a Genre Approach
with Adult Literacy Learners
Handout – To All Students and Volunteer Tutors
5. How Long is a Sentence?
Trainer’s Outline
Handout - optional from Case Study 4
6. Learning Styles
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet 1: pre-session Questionnaire
Task Sheet 2: Scoring Sheet
Handout 1 Learning Style – Enthusiastic
Handout 2 Learning Style – Imaginative
Handout 3 Learning Style – Practical
Handout 4: Learning Style – Logical
7. Blind Tasting
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet 1 – Chocolate Taste Test
Task Sheet 2 – Learning from Tasting
Handouts – optional
Example of Follow-Up Activity
Examples of Numeracy Topics
8. Know Your Numbers
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – Know Your Numbers
Examples of Numeracy Topics
(in Blind Tasting – Section 6: 7)
9. Offering Qualifications 1
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – Why Learners Might Want or Not Want
Accreditation
10. Offering Qualifications 2
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – What Are We Assessing?
Handout – extract from SQA Written Communication
Access Level 3, and SQA Generic Questions from the
National Assessment Bank
11. Offering Qualifications 3
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – A Group Programme
12. Offering Qualifications 4
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – Offering Qualifications in a Mixed Roll-On,
Roll-Off Group
13. Working on Spelling in a Group Setting
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – Skills, Knowledge and Understanding for
Working on Spelling
Handout – optional
Iceberg
14. ICT for Literacy Learners
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet 1 – ICT for Literacy Learners
Task Sheet 2 – Group, Paired or Individual?
Handout – ICT for Literacy Learners
Handout – optional – Groupwork and ICT – Can It Work?
15. Integrating Literacies
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet 1 – Dedicated and Integrated Provision
Task Sheet 2 – Models of Integrated Literacy
Task Sheet 3 – Identifying the Literacies Learning
Task Sheet 4 – Publicity and Information
Handout – Dedicated and Integrated Literacy Provision
Section 9: 8
Handout – optional, Introduction to CAVSS
Handout – optional, Integrating ICT and Literacies
16. A Variety of Approaches to Learning and Teaching
Trainer’s Outline
Task Sheet – Learning and Teaching Approaches Table
Handout or overhead – Methods of Learning and Teaching
Note
The activities in this section give participants the opportunity to experience some of the methods and approaches used in adult literacy groups from the point of view of the learner. A useful follow up activity to most of these exercises can be developed using the case studies in Section 7 or your own local case studies. Participants can discuss how these activities would suit the learners or how they should be adapted.
If participants do not have much experience of group tutoring they may wish to adapt some of the activities in this section to use in their presentations.
Tutors who are already familiar with the approaches outlined in this section could have a useful discussion around their preferences for using a critical, a focused or a genre approach based on their own experience.
The videos listed in Section 9:1 provide some examples of a variety of approaches in action. The videos listed in Section 9 provide some examples of group learning in action.
TRAINER’S OUTLINE
Using a Focused Approach
Outcomes: participants will have:
q experienced the process of negotiating goals with a group, based on a learner’s text
q reflected on the ideas underlying this approach
Approach: trainer input, experiential, discussion
Grouping: divide group by number of trainers available, groups of 8 or less are ideal; whole group; pairs
Timing: total time 40 minutes, a) 10mins b) 5 mins c) 10 mins
d) 5 mins e) 5 mins f) 5mins
Task Sheet: Looking at Letters Questions
Handouts: 1. Dear Sheila
2. Looking at Letters – planning
3. Using a Focused Approach
Resources: flipchart, overhead projector and OHP slide – Using a Focused Approach diagram
Instructions:
a) 10 minutes, groups with trainers
Input: One way of working with groups is to use a focused approach. This is a way of negotiating goals by working from the learners’ own experiences of text, using what the learners notice about the way texts are constructed and exploring what they want to know more about.
This exercise involves going through the process that a group of learners might do, then thinking about the ideas behind it.
Refer participants to Task Sheet Looking at Letters Questions, and Handout Dear Sheila, Scott, Family.
Ask for answers to questions 1 and 2.
Record on ‘spider’ diagram on flipchart anything noticed under question 2.
b) 5 minutes, pairs
Ask participants in pairs to answer questions 4–6 (question 3 can’t be answered by current group, because it refers back to a previous session of letter writing group). Whole group will think about question 7.
c) 10 minutes, groups with trainers
Ask one pair to volunteer their answers to questions 4–6.
Record changes on existing spider (different colour of pen).
Next step – pick out two points to look at in more detail; possibilities are paragraphs, layout, greetings, word order
Ask why they changed it and what do they know already about it
e.g. Why did you put in more than one paragraph?
What do you know about paragraphs in general?
Why is it like that? Why do writers use …?
Where else might you find examples of this?
What do you want to find out more about?
Note on spider what group wants to find out more about. From this, a list of points can be drawn up showing what the group wants to know more about, which can form the basis of a plan.
Refer participants to Handout Looking at letters – planning which shows the planning stage for the letter-writing group. The list incorporated points that had arisen after this process had been carried out several times with letters brought in or written by the group. It shows the areas that the group decided they wanted to work on.
The next stage for the group was working on the areas identified, using the learners’ own letters and others that they brought in, to continue the process of noticing, questioning, identifying and practising using new skills, knowledge and understanding when writing letters.
d) 5 minutes, whole group, summary
Use the OHP slide of the Using a Focused Approach diagram to summarise the process:
1. The group looks at texts brought in by learners – collect data.
Key questions – What is the text? Why did you choose it to bring in?
This is a way of opening up discussion about the significance of different writing in learners' lives and looking at their uses of literacies.
2. Study patterns and features of writing, using the learners’ own words.
Key question – What do you notice?
3. Rethink and make connections to wider contexts.
Key questions – Why is it like that?
Who decided it should be like that?
What else is the same?
Where else might you find something similar?
4. Planning – What do you want to find out more about?
5. Act – on goals negotiated through process of identification.
Different stages of the process can be reached in the course of one session – don’t work through each stage before tackling the next.
Notes of the discussion can be made at each session. These can be circulated to learners at the next session. Any further questions that come up as a result of discussing the notes, are noted and dealt with either at that session or in the future.
e) 5 minutes, pairs
What might be the advantages/disadvantages of working in this way?
f) 5 minutes, whole group
Feed back and flipchart some of the advantages and disadvantages.
Notes:
LOOKING AT LETTERS
1. What do you like about Ann’s letter?
full of news
asks questions – interested in reader
enthusiastic
2. What do you notice about it? (identify features)
set out like a letter
all in one section
xxxxx
no date
missing some punctuation
3. How is it the same as or different from the other letters we’ve
looked at? (compare/contrast) (we obviously can’t answer this question today)
4. What would you change, if you were writing the letter?
word order
punctuation
put in date
change greeting
paragraphs
5. Why would you make that change?
to make it easier to read
to make it clearer
usually in writing information about the same subject is kept together
6. Make any changes you want to. (For the purposes of today’s exercise, just make notes at this stage.)
I am going to night school on Wednesday….
(the Wednesday night school refers back to it)
full stop/question mark
gather bits of information about the same topic together
start with questions – convention of letter-writing
change order
7. What do you think about the letter now? What difference have the changes made?
clearer
easier to read
Using a focused approach: advantages and disadvantages
These might be:
Advantages:
q Learner-centred
q Moves at pace of learners
q Values their existing skills, knowledge and understanding
q Values learners’ texts and their uses of literacy
q Work based on what is of interest and relevance to learners
q Opportunity for everyone in group to contribute
q Good for group cohesion
q Active rather than passive learning
q Gives learners a real audience for their writing
q Learners describe literacy events using their own vocabulary
q Move away from learners working in isolation
q Tutor is not only provider of information
q Exciting and unpredictable
q Works with a wide range of abilities
Disadvantages:
q May be more difficult for new learners
q Learners may be anxious to start with
q Learners may not bring in texts
q Wouldn’t be so useful if there are learners in the group who have very specific goals, e.g. driving theory test, police test, job applications, which are different from those of the rest of the group. This approach can, however, be used very successfully by a whole group working on job applications.
Using a Focused Approach - Task Sheet
Looking at Letters
8. What do you like about Ann’s letter?
9. What do you notice about it? (identify features)
10. How is it the same as or different from the other letters we’ve
looked at? (compare/contrast) (we can’t answer this question today)
11. What would you change, if you were writing the letter?
12. Why would you make that change?
13. Make any changes you want to. (For the purposes of today’s exercise, just make notes at this stage.)
7. What do you think about the letter now? What difference have the changes made?
Using a Focused Approach – Handout 1
Dear Sheila Letter
(This letter was typed so that it could be more easily read by the learners in the group. Spellings were corrected so that they didn’t distract from the main purpose of the exercise. The learner’s layout was retained.)
xxxxxxxxxxx Street
Leith
Edinburgh EH6 xxxx
Dear Sheila, Scott, Family,
I am going to night school to learn to write letters to family and friends. When are you moving to Ireland. How are you and the family. I hope you are doing all right I am going to a surprise party for Fiona MacInnes at Pat’s house and we are going to have a buffet and the people are nice in the Wednesday class
Love
Ann
Using a Focused Approach – Handout 2
Looking at Letters – Planning
So far we have noticed the following things about letters:
q They’re set out in a particular way.
q They start and finish in a particular way.
q Important information is in the middle of the letter.
q Letters are organised – the ideas are all together.
q People use paragraphs in letters.
q Full stops and sentences are important.
q It’s more important that the letter is clear and easy to understand, than having all of the spelling right.
q Formal and friendly (personal) letters are different
from each other.
q Letters can make a difference to how you feel because of the way they’re written.