THE LIMITS OF MY LANGUAGE MEAN THE LIMITS OF MY EDUCATION:

A LITERACY PERSPECTIVE ON THE EDUCATION OF EDUCATORS

Mihaela TILINCA & Ildiko PATAKI

National Centre for VET Development, Ministry of Education, Romania

Literacy is embedded in [adult] education

Literacy is…

… the ability to read, write and use numbers, to handle information, express ideas and opinions, make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners (Tett, Hamilton, Hillier, 2006:46)

…the ability to participate effectively in social processes by working with written language (Halliday, 1996:367)

… the practice of using resources of language for making sense and for exchanging meanings (Hasan 1996:382)

Literacy sets limits on what [adult] learners are and become

Educators’ approach to literacy …

…positions their learners towards creating of and engaging with knowledge

active or passive participants? producers or just re-producers of knowledge?

...frames their learners’ relationship with their own history and life outside the ‘classroom’

capitalisation on learners’ experience outside the classroom or separation from their life in family, community or workplace?

…signals the ‘acceptable’ social role for their learners in social dialogue and practices

allowing access to symbolic resources or denying it? empowered and in control of content, floor, information, etc, or lacking power?

Literacy practices & events in education shape learning & learners

Educators frame learning through literacy practices

…’defining’ the space and the time for learning e.g. lecture, workshop, classroom, exam, dialogue: the educator signals

what resources and positions are institutionally available for the learners at the level of content, type of interaction with other social actors

…choosing & using texts to be read or written the choices indicate to the learners what is ‘valued’ as knowledge: e.g. essays

only or ‘real life’ texts? do the text types cover the range existing outside classrooms

…setting and negotiating tasks for learners how task are formulated positions learners as active or passive in the process

of meaning making and knowledge creation

…the talk they do with their learners about and around texts e.g. task setting, feedback, evaluation, marking as important literacy

tools used by learners in the process of meaning making and making sense of own learning

Literacy awareness/competences as part of any educators’ profile

Food for thought and further work

…reading, writing and talk around/about texts are present in any knowledge making process, whether educators and learners are conscious of that or not

… to attain their aim educators should ‘teach’ their learners how to draw on different literacy practices and resources in order to engage in the social and institutional processes of the knowledge society and of the ‘new economy’

What steps can/should be taken

• to equip adult educators with competences helping them to embed literacy consciously in their work?

• to introduce literacy indicators in assessing quality in adult education?

Literacy awareness/competences as part of any educators’ profile

Food for thought and further work

…reading, writing and talk around/about texts are present in any knowledge making process, whether educators and learners are conscious of that or not

… to attain their aim educators should ‘teach’ their learners how to draw on different literacy practices and resources in order to engage in the social and institutional processes of the knowledge society and of the ‘new economy’

What steps can/should be taken

• to equip adult educators with competences helping them to embed literacy consciously in their work?

• to introduce literacy indicators in assessing quality in adult education?