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England: policy developments impacting on ESOL basic literacy
Pauline Moon
Helen Sunderland
LLU+ @ London South Bank University
Government departmentsconcerned with ESOL
• Innovation, Universities and Skills• Children, Families and Schools• Home Office• Communities and local government• Work and Pensions
The invisible student
Policy re LESLLA learners
• Provision• Very little specific to learners with little ed.• Funding• Prioritises higher levels (targets)• Teacher education• No requirement to train to teach this level• Curriculum• Previously hidden, will be explicit• Quality assurance• Ofsted report doesn’t mention this work
follow a short narrative on a familiar topic or experience For basic literacy learners, who do not read in another language, and are starting to work towards Entry 1:
follow a short narrative on a familiar topic or experience At Entry 1:
respond to print as a source of meaningbe aware that words on the page represent words that can be spokenread texts for information and enjoyment
ExampleA language experience text the learner has composed themselves and the teacher has written down, a very simple notice or one simplified by the teacher.
read texts for information and enjoyment
ExampleA very simple book, notices, maps, biographies, e.g. Nelson Mandela is from a village in South Africa. He was president of South Africa for five years – from 1994 to 1999.
Revised ESOL AdultCore Curriculum
Current policy drivers
• Leitch review of skills (2006) and government response
By 2020 95% adults functionally literate
• Social cohesion agenda & consultation on ESOL
Local areas decide priority groups
• Immigration fears and new regulations
Difficult for unskilled migrants to enter UK
High status literacy
ancient Greek courses @ Oxford & Cambridge Universities – some for learners who don’t read and write Greek
Classics, Greats
some learners: fewer languages than English language learners
prospectuses: “knowledge”
Low status literacy
English language courses in post-16 – some courses are for learners who don’t read and write English
basic literacy
some learners: more languages than ancient Greek learners
prospectuses: “skills”
Conceptualising courses
• ancient Greek: an achievement
• English language: to become ordinary
• issues: status, prestige, ideology, discourses, hegemony, identity
• theory: Gramsci, Foucault, Labov, Trudgill ...
Naming practices
illiterate?
basic skills?
pre-beginners
?
Can’t read, can’t write
(recent British TV programme)
Identity: did anyone
ask us?
pre-entry?
Conceptualising the learners: not beginner thinkers
“…two little four year old girls, one Arabic and the other American doing ‘scribble’ writing. When asked what it said, the Arabic child replied “you can’t read it – it’s in Arabic”.
Hall (1987) quoted in Spiegel and Sunderland (2006)
Route to resolution:
what is literacy?
• social & cultural practices: involvement – not solitary
(New Literacy Studies: Brice-Heath, Street, Barton, Hamilton ...)
• involvement in literacy practices – not necessarily doing the reading and writing(Brice-Heath, Barton ...)
ESOL Curriculum
• curriculum takes a position: – negotiate relevant learning contexts
(not prescribed – example contexts)– integrate text, sentence & word level
(curriculum divides – guidance for integration)
• teachers take positions: – may or may not contextualise learning– may or may not integrate text, sentence & word
A policy for LESLLA learners?
• What are the pros and con?
• What could go in such a policy?
• Should LESLLA be lobbying for policy development?
• Should LESLLA be collecting information on policies in different countries?
ReferencesBarton, D. Hamilton, M. and Ivanic, R. (2000) (eds) Situated Literacies.
Routledge.
Barton, D. (2007). Literacy: an introduction to the ecology of written language. Blackwell.
Brice Heath, S. (1983). Ways with words. Cambridge University Press.
Coffield, F (2007) Running ever faster down the wrong road
Labov, W. (2006). The social stratification of English in New York City. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press.
Street, B. (1985). Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge University Press.
Trudgill, P. (1975). Accent, dialect and the school. Hodder Arnold.
Foucault on discourse, power and knowledge.
Gramsci on hegemony.
