Literacies for Learning in Further Education

Project team

David Barton

Angela Brzeski

Richard Edwards

Zoe Fowler

Roz Ivanič

Tracey Kennedy

Greg Mannion

Kate Miller

Candice Satchwell

June Smith

Sarah Wilcock

I just can’t believe how much they do at home. Before becoming involved in this project, I thought most of [the students] maybe skimmed through a magazine occasionally or texted their friends, but no more than that.

Martin, a practitioner researcher on the LfLFE Project

Textually Mediated Teaching, Learning and Lives

 The Literacies for Learning in Further Education

Project Team

doing

‘activity’ as the unit of analysis

doingSubject(s) Object Outcome

Key constituents of activities 1: Purpose

doing Mediating means

Subject(s) Object Outcome

Key constituents of activities: 2: Tools, artefacts and semiotic resources

Socio-Cultural-Historical Context

Mediating means

Subject(s) Object Outcome

doing

PRACTICES, GENRES AND DISCOURSES

POWER RELATIONS, VALUES AND BELIEFS

Relationships among language, learning, and ‘context’

doing Mediating means

Subject(s) Object Outcome

Learning as an integral part of doing

doing Mediating means

Subject(s) Object Outcome

Learning as an integral part of doing

learning

Relationships between communicative practices and learning in everyday and pedagogic contexts

1.

Washing down

a wall for

re-painting

2.

Installing a heating

system

3.

Finding out/learning how to play a new computer game

4.

A Vocational Class:

Painting and Decorating

Use of semiotic resources _ + + +

Use of literacy _ + + +

Subconscious learning ‘that’ and/or ‘how to’, other than communication + + + +

Intentional learning ‘that’ and/or ‘how to’, other than communication

_ _ + +

Subconscious learning of communicative practices

_ + + +

Intentional learning of communicative practices

_ _ _ _

Authorised by an educational institution

_ _ _ +

Washing down a wall for repainting

Installing a heating system

doing Mediating means

Subject(s) Object Outcome

learning

Learning as the ‘object’ of an activity

= learning how and/or that something

= increased knowledge, understanding and /or capabilities

Learning how to play a computer game

Learning as the ‘object’ of an activity in an educational setting

A Vocational Class: Painting and Decorating

Eve:

The textual mediation of a complex life

Eve: the childcare classroom

FCC Level 1 Childcare course student

Phase 2 – clock face activity, photos, one-to-one interview

Eve: the nursery setting

Salvation Army nursery – placement for college course and place where her mother works.

Some of Eve’s literacy practices:On-line banking vs. statements

Some of Eve’s literacy practices

Activity Purpose People involved Genesis test To progress onto

NVA Doesn’t know

Paperwork associated with Alex

To claim Child Trust Fund; health records

Mother, authorities

Welfare benefits

Needs to change family credit details

Mother

Sorting out paperwork associated with buying and owning a house

Buying a house and organising payment of bills

Boyfriend; rang up the Council Tax office

Bank statements

To track money Alone

Reading books to her son

Leisure Eve and her son

Reading real life women’s magazines and soap magazines

Leisure Alone or with college friends

Very Difficult

Easy

Texting Leisure Boyfriend; friends; taught her mum.

Questions generated by Eve’s data

• What factors might influence Eve finding some literacy practices easier to participate in than others?

• What elements or aspects of literacy practices are (or could be) mobilised between these different practices?

• What might influence Eve’s varying confidence with the reading and writing demands of different elements of her life?

Tom:

Resonance between everyday literacies and college literacies

Tom’s clock

One of Tom’s photographs

‘You’re always learning. Like when I’m at home I implement what I have been taught... you learn an extra... They (teachers) can only point you in a certain direction -

the rest of it you’ve got to find for yourself’.

Stephen:

Dissonance between everyday literacies and college literacies

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Stephen - a catering student

College / Home: Using IT; reading newspaper; reading handouts; using mobile phone for texting.

Home: Surfing net for information / 'personal research'; downloading tunes; burning CDs; playing X Box; using website to 'share' tunes etc via the ‘Kazaa’ website; reading fiction.

1. The dominance of leisure and home-related literacy practices over formal course-related literacy practices in terms of number and value;

2. ‘Home/college’ overlap literacy is not related to the course.

Quote: “Having fun, playing games, texting, computers”.

Question: When does the course connect with his world?

S: […] Write an essay or burn a CD? There you go - CD! Oh … but writing an essay! I cannae be arsed writing this f****** essay. Oh my God, [that would be] such a load of sh***!

Stephen - a catering student

ANALYSIS

For Stephen, there is an absence of boundary objects and practices that link contexts, identifications; we expect these would enhance learning.

Student’s role: boundary maintenance/overlap

Differentiation: what’s ‘important’ in different subjects with different identifications, motivations, affordances and constraints.

Resonance - across contexts, identifications, modes, aims and goals of literacy practices’

Arising Issues

Boundary practices and objects exist - Literacy does function across contexts. Subject affordances, student resistance?

Teaching: how address the multiple identifications, contextualisation, practices of students - inclusive pedagogy via textual mediation?

Is learning inherently polycontextual? the transfer debate

Which practices and contexts are valued and surfaced? Boundary zones or colonising spaces?

Implications for Teaching

Textually mediated teaching, learning and lives

SUMMARY

doing Mediating means

Subject(s) Object Outcome

learning

Textual mediation

Resonance and dissonance in textuality across contexts