EU-Speak 2 International Study Circle
Skills, Knowledge, Understanding and Attitudes
European Speakers of Other Languages:
Teaching Adult Immigrants and Training their Teachers
Skills, Knowledge, Understanding and Attitudes that Teachers and Administrators working with LESLLA learners
want to have and believe are important for their professional/in-service development.
1.
Literacy From Global, Local, and Individual Perspectives
Skills
Knowledge and Understanding
The teacher:
- bases course plans, materials, and instruction on learners’
backgrounds, situations, potential, and expectations for learning.
The teacher:
- understands the learner’s background, including their culture,
country current situation, and learning experiences;
- knows about the other languages learners speak and is aware that
these influence their acquisition of linguistic competence in a
second language;
- knows about the writing systems/orthographies of the languages
the learners speak;
- understands and has knowledge of the complexity of literacy skills
and how reading and writing are entwined;
- understands, when planning classes and when teaching, that
learners’ competence and skills in their mother-tongue/first
language/and other languages that they know affect literacy
development in the new language that they are learning;
- is familiar with the similarities and differences between spoken
and written language as this applies in multilingual and
multicultural contexts;
- is aware of the potential challenges to learning of psychological
and physical conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) and visual and hearing impairments.
2.
Skills
The teacher:
- creates a learning environment based on the principles of adult
pedagogy and uses teaching methods consistent with adult
pedagogy;
- knows how to carry out lesson planning, classroom management,
Attitudes
The teacher:
- approaches teaching from the perspective of the knowledge,
skills, attitudes, needs, and expectations of the learners;
- values the linguistic, often multilingual, backgrounds of
his/her learners;
- has high expectations for what the learners can achieve both
during a given class session and over the medium and longer
term;
- works with other teachers to continue learning as much as
possible.
Adult Formal Learning in a Creative and Critical Learning Environment
Knowledge and Understanding
The teacher:
- is aware of the kinds of oral and written information that learners
encounter and use in their daily lives;
- knows the needs and expectations of the adult learners.
Attitudes
The teacher:
- understands that as adults, learners bring with them a lifetime
of experiences and knowledge of their own;
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- realizes that learners are part of the 21 century and must
develop their own critical thinking skills.
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and to create a learner-centered classroom that includes direct
instruction;
uses teaching methods that facilitate learners’ active participation
in a classroom environment that allows them to contribute their
own knowledge and experiences;
evaluates and adjusts his/her own teaching methods and
materials;
tracks learners’ progress;
has high expectations for their learners’ potential.
3. Materials for Adult Learning
Knowledge and Understanding
Skills
The teacher:
- can select, develop, and use materials in their classes that loweducated immigrant adults encounter in their daily lives;
- can use a variety of multimodal materials for teaching reading and
writing, and modify them to meet learners’ needs in their daily
lives and work-related situations;
- can analyze different kinds of texts from a multicultural, adult
perspective and adapt them to fit the learners’ needs;
- uses teaching methods that facilitate learners’ active participation
and allows them to contribute their own personal experience;
- uses commonly used digital tools, such as smartphones and
tablets.
4.
Skills
The teacher:
- knows current teaching materials suitable for developing loweducated adult immigrants’ oral language and literacy skills;
- knows about multimodal materials for teaching reading and
writing.
Attitudes
The teacher:
- recognizes that materials for low-educated immigrant adults
should be authentic and adult-centered and represent
materials that they encounter daily outside the classroom;
- values the use of multimodal materials to address the learning
styles of each learner to meet their needs.
Teaching Oral Proficiency/Linguistic and Communicative Competence Without Written Support
Knowledge and Understanding
The teacher:
- can use authentic conversational situations in teaching that
reflect learners’ daily experiences;
- can use methods to teach oral language skills – vocabulary,
pronunciation, grammar, and pragmatics - in a second language
for low-educated immigrant adults;
- can use methods that develop the learners’ pronunciation,
prosody, phonological awareness, and oral communicative
competence.
The teacher:
- is aware of the need to consider whether oral proficiency in the
target language should receive more classroom focus than
literacy at the start;
- is aware of the route followed by low-educated adult learners in
their development of oral proficiency/linguistic competence;
- knows about the learning processes these in which these adults
engage in developing linguistic competence;
- understands the role of interaction along with notions such as
scaffolding and Zone of Proximal Development in the classroom.
Attitudes
The teacher:
- values the role of oral communication in language and literacy
learning.
5. Initial and Functional Literacy
Knowledge and Understanding
Skills
The teacher:
- can guide learners in the process of developing word recognition,
comprehension and fluency in reading
- can guide learners in developing writing skills they can apply
independently outside the classroom in everyday situations ;
- can work systematically to develop learners’ awareness of the
components of written language in order to help and enable them
to break the alphabetic code;
- can show learners that different kinds of texts can be recognized
and partly understood not only by the written text but also by
the way they are laid out, by the pictures, links they contain,
other textual features.
The teacher:
- understands how linguistic competence underpins literacy;
- knows about the basis of decoding in phonological awareness;
- is aware of the steps involved in literacy development including
the components of beginning writing and word-level (decoding)
and text-level (comprehension) reading;
- is aware of the different genres involved in literacy.
6.
Skills
The teacher:
- uses methods of teaching appropriate to developing basic
mathematic skills that are directly applicable to learners’ lives.
Basic Everyday Mathematics (numeracy)
Knowledge and Understanding
The teacher:
- knows the concepts of everyday numeracy;
- is familiar with the language-related dimensions of the subject of
mathematics;
- knows how to build on the mathematical knowledge and skills
that learners may have.
Attitudes
The teacher:
- sees the importance of learners developing the skills to read
independently and the skills to express themselves in writing;
- realises that limited can result in low self-esteem and that it is
possible to help learners believe in their ability to continue to
learn throughout their lives and learn independently.
Attitudes
The teacher:
- expects those without home language literacy to already have
some mathematical skills as part of their life skills;
- is aware that everyday numeracy and literacy are entwined.
This project reference EACEA 539478-LLP-1-2013-UK-GRUNDTVIG-GMP has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication (communication) reflects only the views of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.