Resources

As I’m on my journey, I thought I’d start a ‘where to go’ section for myself (and you) for resources and lesson ideas. Referenced where possible!

Etymology

See English as a global language.

Idioms

We teach many idioms in ESOL, but I have never even thought of covering idioms in literacy, and I have no idea why.

I think it depends on the purpose of the activity to be honest, and its validity in a learner’s development. You could do a similar activity to the one above (but maybe with more relevant examples to them). They could make a fun coded idiom letter to a friend.

Prefixes

Create a crossword where the answers start with some selected prefixes. You can obtain the necessary software from www.eclipse.com as suggested in SfLQI

Register

Differences between formal and informal English in the Adult ESOL Core Curriculum, p. 99. as suggested in SfLQI

Synonyms

Source materials for work on synonyms, go to the online visual thesaurus at: www.visualthesaurus.com/index.jsp as suggested in SfLQI

Making sense of spelling

Today, we were directed towards Millar, R. & Klein, C. (2002) Making Sense of Spelling: A guide to teaching and learning how to spell. SENJIT: London. I love books like this that give you easy to follow checklists and methods to use in class. The following are ‘instructions’ slightly adapted so I can print them off easily (my memory is rubbish mid-class sometimes!), but all ideas are taken from pages 15-18.

Step 1

• Looking at a piece of the learner’s own writing, group errors to find patterns such as rules, letter patterns, suffixes and prefixes (catalogue errors on the Spelling analysis learner self assessment for your file to help you select words to be learned). An example of the spelling assessment, and a piece of learner writing are below.
•   
• Select a maximum of 10-12 words with the learner
  • choose words which learners spell nearly right/learner already knows similar word
  • choose words which the learner uses often
  • choose ones they want to learn
  • choose common words
  • choose words with common patterns (but don’t present confusing ones in the same week)

Step 2

• Make a list of appropriate words for learners to spell. You could use the ‘spelling’ column on the Spelling and dictation record sheet I made, along with a few other documents in here that I find useful. I also find it useful to print all spelling stuff on coloured paper. Working anywhere, nevermind on outreach, colours help my organisation(slightly).

Step 3

Use Look say cover write check with the learners. They can keep this to practise at home (as I only see my group at the moment once per week) but I usually take a photo of it (just in case they lose it, and also for evidence of their progression).

Step 4

The following week,  using the dictation columns of the Spelling and dictation record sheet complete a dictation exercise with learners, ensuring that the learner:

• repeats the word aloud
• writes it
• spells it orally
• if a learner makes a mistake
  • ask them if they can find it, but don’t let them struggle. Show them the right spelling, compare and discuss. Make a note of any difficulties on the spelling record sheet.
  • get them to look at it again, and write it from memory – add the word to next week’s list (on the spelling record sheet)
• add words learned to a personal dictionary (usually an exercise book that they can keep with them).

They suggest that dictations should also involve writing sentences using words that they already know to give practice.

• dictate a sentence
• get the learner to repeat it and write it from memory
• get them to proof read immediately and correct errors
• point out any errors and encourage them to correct them
• if it’s not corrected, show the correct version and ask them to write it again from memory

Reflection

Sometimes I’ve found it difficult to keep track of learner’s errors, so have at times not completed the spelling analysis. Also, even though class sizes are small, it can be hard to capture what is really happening, especially if you’re working with someone else. I’ve ‘caught’ learners throwing pieces of work away or changing their selections to synonyms they can spell, even with good levels of rapport and trust. This, of course, is a completely understandable coping mechanism for a skill which some have hidden away from others for years. Sometimes you have to encourage learners to take risks. Sometimes there’s just stuff you’ll miss, no matter how hard you try. People often come and go, depending on what is happening in the rest of their lives. I feel I need to get better at processes in an environment which doesn’t lend itself to processes sometimes.

Sometimes, I don’t get enough words per session from learners as the pace of work produced is slow, the words they find difficult are topic-specific, aren’t used frequently enough, or sometimes, they just don’t want to learn the words they’ve made mistakes with. I negotiate a lot with my learners. Sometimes possibly too much, but I’m always aware that they find it difficult, and there are often a lot of disputes in class, so sometimes it’s about making the best of what we’ve got on the day.

I’m going to try to use the above documents more, and print this page off as my ‘checklist’. I also have a volunteer, but with learners needing a lot of individual attention, it’s sometimes a bit thin on the ground with a tutor, a volunteer, and 5 learners.

I think I need to implement this more next term, and I’ll then be in a better place to reflect on my findings, as at the moment it kind of works, but the system doesn’t get followed. You might see this as my inability to control my classroom, or as adequate reflection in action. If a learner tells me they haven’t practised their spellings and can’t be bothered with them that day because their medication has changed too, then I don’t think I’m in a position to insist, but encourage.

Discourse markers cards

I found this and found it useful for learners working at E3+. Unfortunately it seems this has been reproduced a million times, so apologies if you’re the original creator and please let me know if you are. I found mine here though. 

Learning is…

I’ve tried this activity before, and it more than fell on it’s rear end. I am pleased to say, and encourage you to, try something twice.

Once I had spoken to my group in session 1 (a few weeks ago now) about what they wanted to learn, and ironed out my plans to develop group goals, I introduced this activity again.

1. Learners picked a picture that represented learning to them.

2. They discussed this before being given a skeleton worksheet.

3. The learners wrote with varying complexity.

4. They fed their ideas back and agree to make a group poem, which will be published in the next edition of our magazine.

Enjoy! Learning is interesting and fun

Group work, and activating prior knowledge and its impact

In my first session this term, I had two E2 consolidating/emerging to E3 learners. It has always been apparent, but I was in a position to try something new, so I have been working on developing some group aims and objectives.

I started term by asking learners if they had anything they would like to learn as a group. I often find with literacy learners that they either give a blanket statement like ‘improve reading’ or decide they don’t want to do anything as a group because they don’t like to. I started to wonder. How much of the latter is actually true?

Unusually, I decided to go against my group and ask tell them about something I wanted to try and the reasons behind it. I told them I wanted to develop some group goals because I feel that there are benefits to group work they haven’t been open to exploring before.

I asked them what they thought the benefits were. One response was ‘there’s not!’. Another response was ‘well we’ve all got different things to educate ourselves about so what’s the point?’ This was the exact attitude that I wanted to diminish. I’ve been thinking that learners in homelessness services get treated solely as individuals to the extent that it sometimes changes their expectations of classes and inhibits opportunities for development. I started to question their responses and pose some hypothetical situations such as ‘what if I was busy and you were sitting waiting for me to finish with someone else? What could you do?’ eventually this elicited that they could ask someone else because they might also have the skills. One learner even suggested that this could be a better than asking a tutor sometimes.

I also threw a couple of suggestions in such as ‘when do you think team work would be useful outside of the classroom?’ They all agreed in their futures if they find employment, then this would be a beneficial skill to have.

Whilst I agree that learning in literacy especially should be predominately learner-led, it also highlight to me that often our adult literacy learners aren’t aware of things they don’t know yet. So it is up to my confidence to try to introduce them. I have lost count of the times when I’ve felt their motivation is low and linked this mainly with their unawareness of pre-study skills, including group work. We have open access classes, and sometimes I’ve tried not to scare learners off. Sometimes, I now see this has not been particularly helpful to their progress.

It has been easy in the past to steer clear of group work because most of the times I have done it, it’s gone horribly wrong. Either one learner wasn’t happy with the content, couldn’t agree with their peers, or just plainly didn’t see the point in the activities. The only thing that’s changed is my ‘pitch’ to the class as to why I think it’s important to develop speaking and listening skills and group work, and stick to my guns. So far (touch wood!), so good.

I started with the idea of group reading for pleasure. The learners didn’t seem so impressed at first.

I started with some photocopies of the front cover and elicited what the cover told them about the story. Immediately, they said the boy on the front looked like a ‘loveable rogue’ and they felt they identified with him on some level. Learners offered their stories of being children and being naughty, but being admirable with their cheekiness.

They discussed some questions then we went onto reading. Each learner took it in turns to read aloud. With lots of encouragement from me to signal when they’d had enough, and asked the group openly who would like to read next. I was amazed when they were offering to read aloud and relieve their peers from duty. As the chapter unfolded, and we stopped to think about what was happening and I concept checked to assess how much they were concentrating on decoding/barking v following the story. A few more activities were introduced, checking comprehension.

Learners fed back that it was easier to read as a group as sometimes you were reading, sometimes you were having a break, following the story, but concentrating more on listening. At the end of the session the feedback was amazing. One learner divulged that that was the first time in her life that she’d read a chapter of a book.

I’ve also been trying to do a warmer at the start of each session. I’ve been trying to relate them to the sessions, although a few have had, as the learners fed back, tedious links. The purpose of a few were to encourage the learners to talk to each other about their experiences, choices, develop listening skills and respect turn taking. They also served the purpose of highlighting any interests they might have had which I could use for future, and as most have involved some sort of sentence starter, as a way for me to see more examples of their writing other than a project. I think the activities have been working well, but what I need to do is stipulate what I am looking for more clearly than I have done.

Sometimes learners aren’t open to ideas. Sometimes, I think we’ve got to tell them why we think something is important, why we want to try it, and do it anyway.

Reflection on 2 first day warmers

Looking back at my PGDE, I realised at how useful reflection is, and whilst we may do it in our heads, there is a benefit to writing it all down. Sometimes, I still fall into the trap. Mine is more showing consequences of not reflecting and the reasons why I didn’t at the time. Because I am nervous in my lessons, I have found that I have an unfortunate ability to talk too much and not give clear instructions sometimes. I have opted for the plan, implement, reflect process as I understand it! As Scrivener (1994, p.25) points out when he first started teaching ‘I found it hard to worry about the ‘bigger’ questions until I had gained at least some initial confidence in the basic mechanics of running activities and working with students’, which I have also found sometimes, even after a few years of being out in the big bad world of teaching on your own.

Plan

I decided to use a warmer activity that we had done in one of our lessons with our tutor Karen, mainly because I found it enjoyable, and I saw the benefit that this activity was to take lots of pictures to elicit how the students feel about learning literacy. I had a quiet class of 3, with one ESOL E1 learner who had been unexpectedly rough sleeping for a few weeks (when he has previously come to class, he has been eager, although not accurate), a L1 learner who won’t write and a L1 learner who is arguably consolidating E3 but has recently passed an E3 Functional Skills qualification. Then the learners were to move on to an activity where they complete sentence starters ‘Learning is…/I like to learn…/learn best when…’ One learner picked a picture of an eye test, reporting that learning literacy is ‘knowing your ABCs and then trying to make sense of the bigger picture. Impressed, I asked my ESOL learner why he chose a picture. He said he chose a picture of the docks because he likes Liverpool. The other learner refused to pick a picture or get involved. This happens every now and again, and I usually set a productive writing task using their lives as a stimulus. Usually, these are the learners who have little intention of coming back to class and can be disruptive to the rest of the group (edit: I was feeling frustrated this day. The learners I work with often aren’t in a position where literacy is the highest priority and I have a high drop-out rate). Last week I had a list of questions, with the subject omitted, had the students fold the paper in 3 to hide the questions and write their name on the sheet before passing it to their left. They then continued to write their name in the next question. They then had to open it up, guess what the answer to the questions were, then go and ask other students what their answers would have been.

Learning is…

Warmer – What’s xyz ‘s favourite colour

Implement

I noticed because of the lack of focus my learners had as a group, it was difficult to elicit discussion about their pictures and also after they’d finished writing their sentences. The learners were not interested in each other, or the activity at all. I noticed that my instructions may not have been clear as they students seemed to be confused about what they had to do and also seemed bored of having to write their name ten times. This stage seemed to drag on a little too. The students asked each other questions to find out if they were right or not. The activity ended up successful in the class, but left me wondering the purpose as it seemed difficult from start to finish.

Reflect

In the first warmer:

1. I could have changed the activity when I knew the learners I had. Saying that though, I don’t regret doing the activity as to encourage group dynamics in future, changing activities to non-discussion ones probably isn’t the best idea if I actually want them to develop their speaking and listening skills.

2. Appropriateness: I knew before I undertook the activity that the learners aren’t familiar with working with each other. I knew the ESOL learner might find it difficult, but thought with explanation it would be ok. I didn’t anticipate a learner being completely disinterested and under the influence of alcohol.

3. I need to discuss with the drop in service the tyoe of learner that is appropriate. It is difficult though as I do not want to exclude any learner from participating. Sometimes because they are not in the right frame of mind for a session, and lack their own motivation, it has a serious impact of the progress made in the session which is always difficult to manage.

With the second warmer, on reflection I could see a number of problems:

1. Give students clearer instructions, INCLUDING PURPOSE: by setting up the activity better/simplifying it/writing instructions on the board ‘pass to your left’.

2. Clarification/classroom management: Ensure that students know what they have to do next by asking a student to tell me before letting them get on with the activity, make sure everyone is listening to the explanation.

3. Appropriateness: The students knew each other better than I thought, so choose activities carefully. Maybe a simpler warmer would be more appropriate. I can also see that what I found enjoyable when I’ve done the activity before, students may not!

4. Time management: If clearer instructions are given, the activity would not have lasted so long. I could also introduce a time limit for the learners to complete the activity in.

Plan & implement

In different activities in the following lessons, I had planned to write down and give clearer instructions to students. I asked a learner to tell me what they had to do before letting them continue with an activity. I had alas decided that dependant on the activity, I would choose either to give, or not to give time limits, depending on the purpose. For warmers, I need to continue to introduce time limits. I spoke to the drop in and discussed the referrals up to the class that they make. I am hopeful this will be taken forward, however I am still not comfortable where the whether a learner is allowed to participate line lies. We have our code of conduct (below) however we are also operating on an outreach basis and also have to comply with the venue’s rules. In this particular drop-in, it is for rough sleepers. Whilst it isn’t a wet drop-in, many clients may be under the influence, suffer from mental health problems, health problems and are waiting to see the nurse (the same night as my class) rough sleep, are hungry, disengaged, and have one or more than one of these challenges. It is easy to see why the environment and their situation in general may not be conducive to learning. This doesn’t make me want to try less, but be more assertive and confident in my teaching.

Code of conduct

• Participate in classes and have a positive attitude towards learning
• Treat everyone with equal respect, courtesy and consideration
• Under no circumstance to display racist or sexist behaviour or language
• To respect the learning environment and share resources
• To respect confidentiality in a group setting
• Under no circumstances to possess or be under the influence of alcohol or drugs
• Under no circumstances to engage in any illegal or offensive activity
• Under no circumstances to display abusive or aggressive behaviour towards anyone

Reflect

By writing down my instructions and staging them better, I have found this has helped the students understand what they have to do better and the lesson flowed better. By learners repeating what they had to do, it helped me to see whether I needed to step in or take a step back and let them get on with it. Time management was improved and I found it a useful tool to ask students how long they needed as it helped me to get to know the students and their capabilities a little better, improving my formative assessment too. I have also found a quote that I like. It’s a little wordy but when I started writing this post, I was worried whether I have actually improved on anything but this showed me that it becomes easier to find and analyse practice. This is taken from Scrivener (1994, p.19). It comes at the end of a chapter reviewing potential problems and reads, ‘These are the kind of problems we all have. You’ll find yourself doing these things – so notice yourself doing them and note the ways in which they do or don’t seem to ‘prevent’ learning. But also accept that this is part of the natural process of your own learning and development. As your awareness and confidence grow you’ll find that you not only become more able to recognise such problems in your own teaching, but that you can also start to find effective alternative options that can enable rather than hinder learning’. I can completely relate to this quote as I feel swamped relatively often. I suppose it’s the same as when learners’ filters are up, they find it difficult to see the wood for the trees. I feel the same sometimes, but will try to reflect more and liaise with colleagues more regularly with peers.

References

Scrivener, J. (1994) Learning Teaching. Heninmann:Oxford

Negotiating homework

This is a task for negotiating homework.

The purpose:

• give me an opportunity to assess thinking skills (engagement in the activity)
• give me an opportunity for me to see what they think about homework/know my learners better
• give them the opportunity to think about homework and how important they think it is/how necessary for them

The task:

• Ask learners if they know what a brainstorm is (not everyone knows!). Elicit answers.
• Explain instructions/rules (give them on a separate sheet to keep) suggesting:
  • Select a scribe with post its and a pen
  • Write the first things that come into their head – there are no right or wrong answers
  • Try to get as many ideas as possible, making sure you let everyone put their ideas forward
  • Every idea has equal worth
  • Think about other people’s ideas and write any further ideas you’ve got, discussing them with each other
  • Give them a time limit (something which I sometimes forget to do, then remember a minute later!)
  • Then…give them the topic – homework.
• The class will be a small group, so get feedback throughout – I can hear everything that is said, so there’s not much point in doing it twice, although presentation skills would be put to good use/selecting a team member to feedback (but will work on this in other ways)
• Depending on how it’s going (and whether they are naturally listing positives and negatives), give learners a positive and negative heading, and ask them to categorise their answers. If their answers are more general, ask them to now think of homework for themselves, as opposed to kids, and add some positive and negatives of homework
• Get them to choose their top 5 reasons to do some homework
• Allay any concerns they have about their bottom reasons for not doing homework!
• Plan accordingly. Homework is not compulsorary!

If all else fails, I can just have a 121 discussion.

Phonics

I recently bought Phonetics for Phonics by Maxine Burton (2011) to help me increase my understanding of phonics. I’ve decided to use a think alouds method when researching phonics as I like to try things out for myself before giving it to learners; click here for some thoughts on think alouds.

What do I know about this topic?

I know that phonics is a way to help learners decode words through sound-letters. I know that there is some debate over which works; language experience or phonics. I know that it has gone in and out of teaching vogue, and recently, there seems to be a higher precedence on using them. I know that there is a programme called Jolly Phonics, Toe by Toe and Yes We Can Read. I’m aware of others in the company I work for using Yes We Can Read, and have spoken to them briefly about it. I have a volunteer I have trained to work with learners who need 121, however there are some challenges this brings on outreach, and in terms of being able to assess success, without doing it myself.  I know about the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). I know that there are about 44 sounds, accent can affect phonics delivery, and that the problem people have are more with vowels than consonants. I have an awareness of where sounds are produced (e.g. labio-dental, fricative etc) and understand a big part of voiced and unvoiced sounds.

What do I think I will learn about this topic?

I think I’ll learn some of the answers to these questions I have:

Are there different types of phonics programme? Do some say Dolch words come first, or language which the learners will find useful? What’s the difference between the different type of phonics (synthetic/analytic) etc?

Do I understand what I just read?

Yes, and here are some points I felt interesting to make it more accessible for me in future. Burton (2011, p.8) notes that many adults have learnt the alphabet but haven’t been able to link the letters to the sounds they make. She notes that learners might be successful in reading some words, but not have the knowledge to apply their knowledge to new words:

‘Even learners who are able to ‘sound out’ the letters, in the sense of connecting certain letters with certain sounds may still struggle to blend these sounds into words. This is a very specific skill and to the beginner reader it is not immediately obvious’. From experience using the Yes We Can Read programme, I first found it necessary for learners to know the majority of the initial sounds (26 – based on the alphabet rather than number of sounds which actually exist), which I think helped learners to use their prior knowledge of English, especially if they know the letter names. Some, from my experience, have been rather surprised to find out that there are (about) 44 sounds, and by blending letters together, they create new sounds.

Once my learners felt comfortable with this, they hurdled quickly into blending 2 letter words, most without major problems. Being explicit about blending, and ensuring that I followed the same process for each word I think helps the learner know what to do and when – they have a difficult enough time concentrating on learning the sounds, nevermind when to repeat, not repeat etc so I think consistency is the key to moving ahead quickly.

Burton (2011, p.9) states, ‘if word recognition is a prerequisite for the ultimate comprehension, then it seems perverse to withhold or downgrade knowledge of phonic techniques as a useful first step in decoding, and this empowering learners to become independent readers’. She believes ‘strongly that phonics should be the first (but not the only) word identification strategy used’.

Chapter 2 discusses ‘why does phonetics matter for phonics?’ She notes that many teachers don’t have an understanding of phonics and that ‘beginner readers and writers above all need highly skilled teaching from teachers who are totally secure in their knowledge of language’. Unfortunately, this highlights one of my main issues with adult teacher training; you just don’t get to know what you need to know quickly enough, and is the main reason why I have felt so uncomfortable. I hated going into a classroom, not knowing what I was doing. There were many points which I thought, and sill think, I have done well, but I’m surprised that you’re trusted with that level of responsibility so soon, and is not something which I have observed happens in quite the same way if you train for a different type of teacher role. The irony is that adult literacy learners have quite possibly been failed before, and are set up to fail again. I still think I have a million things to learn, and I am by no means complacent. You just don’t learn what you need to quickly enough.

On page 14, she points out that ‘this system is for the use of teachers, not for learners’. Maybe this is the case in literacy instruction, however in ESOL we would use the IPA. I’m not 100% sure why yet, so this is something I’ll look at at another time.

Do I have a clear picture in my head about this information?

In parts no. I have read a few books by Maxine Burton now, and love how she writes simply. Sometimes when getting my head around something it takes me a while to process what is written, naturally, but sometimes authors make it a bit more complex than they need to. Burton is not one of those writers, however I had to re-read the following a few times before it sunk in. She discusses some of the problems/misleading information teachers have given learners about phonics (2011, p.12):

‘Trying to help a learner read the word <ship> by pointing ut the /h/ ‘sound’. The problem is is that /h/ is not the phoneme at work here, rather /ʃ/ is. It would be more helpful to discuss ‘sh’/ʃ/ and examples.

‘Breaking down the word <married> into ‘syllables’ – marr-i-ed to make it easier to read.’ For a start, ‘married’ has 2 syllables, but it might also be helpful to look at how we form past tenses, depending on what stage the learner is up to, or to look at ‘ied’ spellings//Id/ sounds.

‘Helping a learner spell the last letter of <floor> by asking what sound there was at the end of the word.’  The last sound of the word is /ɔ:/ (depending on your accent).

I also had to read this a few times before I could ‘get’ it: ‘in words such as ‘light’ and ‘sight’ the sound /t/ is represented by the grapheme <ght>…comparison with words such as ‘site’ and ‘sigh’, would suggest a different correspondence’. I’m not sure how I’d present this yet, but I’m sure I’ll know more soon!

Burton (2011, p.17-18) describes Phonetics as the actual sounds and how they are produced, and Phonology as how sounds are organised and the patterns made by the sounds. She explains that not all sounds are phonemes.

I will have to re-read chapters 5 and 6, as although I understood the meaning, it didn’t really sink in, and I have not yet noticed how the information can be used in future.

What were the most important points in this reading?

Probably the bits I will need to read again! Chapters 5, 6 and 7 need to be looked at again. I found them confusing to transfer into teaching.

What new information did I learn?

• The most interesting thing I learnt was that when we say ‘the apple’ we use /i:/ rather than the schwa. If we say ‘the banana’ we use the schwa. I would have expected that I would have known this teaching ESOL, and that’s probably why I find it so exciting!
• I understood a little bit about assimilation, and would like to understand more in future, however I found it interesting that ‘if you have a voiceless consonant it’s easier to follow it with another voiceless one’ (Burton, 2011, p.21) and vice versa. She continues this…means that consonant clusters – adjacent consonant phonemes – in English are either all voiced or all voiceless’.
• a schwa can usually only be used in unstressed syllables, and spelled with any letter, but usually ‘a’
• stress can change phonemes e.g. conduct (verb) v conduct (noun)
• learners are used to using connected speech – remember this.

How does it fit in with what I already know?

It doesn’t in many respects. I’ve found more questions and action points than I have answers. My questions still stand: Are there different types of phonics programme? Do some say Dolch words come first, or language which the learners will find useful? What’s the difference between the different type of phonics (synthetic/analytic) etc?

Some further questions:

• Where do different programmes start? All 26, then digraphs, chosen to high frequency words, or learner’s idiolect?
• Why do you use phonics in 1st language, but the IPA in ESOL? The British Council’s Nexus site shows how to use phonics/language experience with beginner literacy learners. Is there more debate than I realised?
• How would I teach <ght>?
• What are the ambiguities mentioned on p.15?
• assimilation
• articulation
• connected speech – features in Liverpool/how much do learners need to explicitly understand?
• how do I present phonics in regards to accent?

She suggests many further reading lists throughout the book, and I have added these to my further reading post.

References

Burton, M. (2011) Phonetics for Phonics. Underpinning Knowledge for Adult Literacy Practitioners. Leicester: NIACE

Reading for pleasure in an adult literacy classroom, and oral reading fluency

Burton (2007, p.11) poses the questions, ‘It has been suggested that reading aloud is an activity that is hardly ever done by adults. Is this true? Take a minute to think about occasions when you, or other you know, have read something aloud’.

From observing other classes, through to volunteering in literacy sessions for a year, and eventually teaching literacy myself, I noticed that I, along with the other situations I had been in, had always ‘avoided’ reading activities with adult literacy learners to some extent. Of course we covered reading in sessions, however the start of my literacy class saw comprehension type activities and naturally dismissed reading for pleasure, or anything with wasn’t directly productive, or have focus on productive skills at least.

As time has gone on, I have encouraged my learners to take a more active part in reading for pleasure, and after picking up on bits of research here and there, decided to introduce it to my class more formally.

On the face of it, my classes are ‘literacy’ as opposed to ‘reading’.

In one study, ‘silent reading was the ‘activity’ that happened most often, corresponding with the large amounts of time learners spent working alone. ‘Active’ reading tuition…took up less that half of the class time/’ Burton, (2007, p.5). Burton, (2007, p.7) looks at ‘useful approaches mentioned in research which don’t seem to be used in the adult literacy classroom as often as might be expected’, with one of the main reasons for this lack being target-focused classes, leaving the tutor less willing to ‘take risks’.

Although my classes are target driven to some extent, I have some flexibility and say in how they are run. Our aim is to provide qualifications for learners, so as long as my choices have this in mind, we’re able to go ahead with most plans.

It took a long time to develop my literacy class, and although I now only have 3 regular learners, with one who focuses on qualification outcomes, they are 3 more than I’ve had for a long time, and the group is stable enough for me to try new things.

I had started to deliver a phonics-based programme with another learner 121, and had seen his levels of confidence increase significantly, as well as my pride in him. I started to think about how I could replicate this with ‘more advanced’ literacy learners (i.e. E1+).

Burton (2007, p.7) continues by suggesting that ‘practice in this, rather than just being a meaningless ‘exercise’, has been shown to assist reading comprehension and improve confidence’. Burton (2007) suggests a number of strategies to help reading, including oral reading fluency.

With this in mind, I started to consider how I could work oral reading fluency into my sessions, whilst still aiming for qualifications with learners. I decided to take a few Oxford Bookworms originally intended for ESOL learners, to my class one night. I told my learners I would like to try to focus on reading skills this term, and there were a few grumbles around the room. We talked this through for a few minutes (I got the hint the second time someone asked me if they could go out for a smoke), and they said they didn’t mind which book they read. The next week we started by using the suggested activities in the back of the book.

I found that analysing the back page, thinking about what it made us this about, seeing if we had any questions, discussing whether they think they’d like to read it or not, and repeating the process with the front cover was beneficial for the learners’ engagement. I was worried one might not want to read a book, but persevered and made it silently compulsory. The reaction to which I was really surprised at; there wasn’t one.

At the beginning of the term, learners expressed that they wanted to work individually, however agreed that with reading activities, this was a good option as a group. We decided to split the session into individual work, with about 30 minutes of group reading, either at the beginning, or at the end. They ‘let’ me set activities, discussion points, pair work, worksheets etc, and to my amazement, we worked through two books in a term.

The only downfall, was that I chose a book at approximately Entry 2-3, which was not challenging enough for one learner. I could choose some titles at a higher level, and pair him with a volunteer, although this might be equally disruptive for both ‘groups’. Another option could be to choose a slightly more challenging book, and set differentiated activities for the higher level learners, where they can choose to either read silently and complete activities, or join in and complete activities as homework.

I plan to use more oral fluency techniques in the classroom as I found my group were happier (observation of their behaviour, not empirical evidence!), they were supportive of each other, they listened better, they shared their ideas and seemed to engaged in the texts better. It was a pure pleasure to see them modelling my praise of them reading on each other, and it even felt like it made my praise for learners  a little redundant at one point, them favouring their peers’ support.

Language Experience

It seems there are many examples of how to use the Language Experience Approach with both ESOL learners, and children in US schools, but not many recent examples of adults in the UK who are using the method as first language speakers, or reflections of tutors who have. I attended a British Council workshop which focuses mainly on ESOL in the UK, but the series of modules are available on their website and are still a useful resource.

I do have some questions, so if any of you have any experience with LEA, I’d be interested in hearing from you!

Has anyone used language experience with adult first language speakers? What is your experience? How long did you spend with learners? What was their level to start with (roughly)/end with? Did you use other methods in this time? Did the learners like predictability of the method? Were they bored? How many hours did they have? Did anyone not respond, and if so, what did you do next?

I have to note as well that I’m a fan of this blog by Kate Nonesuch. I feel like I understand a bit more when I read her stuff. I like the bit about learners taking photos of texts from all around them. I think this would be difficult in a group setting with vulnerable clients, and a volunteer without a CRB. It wouldn’t be possible to accompany learners, but it might be possible to set them a homework activity and ask my line manager if I could buy a disposable camera. This could be a lengthy process as I see them once per week, but worth a go nonetheless.

On my internet travels, I found this video which helped me to see ways in which language experience can be used in an ESOL classroom as a way to create a group text easily.