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Carry on, continue, endure, prevail

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The words in this blog title are all synonyms for “persist”. And they’re all what we hope adult students will do, when they first join our literacy classes. We want them to succeed!

And yet, too often, a student who started well begins to falter. Maybe they miss a class on a dismal, cold, rainy evening, or when the car just wouldn’t start. Perhaps a lower-than-hoped-for test score makes them feel demoralized.

Or maybe we just don’t know why – one week they’re there, and the next week they’re not – and we never see them again.

What’s going on? How do we help ALL our students carry on, continue, endure – and ultimately, prevail?

There have been a lot of studies done on this topic, and often presented to literacy programs in the form of “retention”. You need to work out how to retain your students, some of the popular wisdom goes. 

But the concept of Adult Learner Persistence turns that on its head. Instead of working on ways to make the program do better at retention, how do we find ways to help adult students tap into their own personal motivations to persist?

The New England Literacy Resource Center did a marvelous study on this exact topic in 2008. 15 years later, their findings are still monumentally important and can inform literacy programs of all kinds and in all places. You can read about their findings and download the entire report here – and we encourage you to do so.

But we also want to make it easy for you – so we’re taking a look at the study and its core findings together on Tuesday, September 19. In this free webinar, we’ll look at:

  • Retention vs persistence
  • The 6 Drivers of Persistence:
  1. A Sense of Belonging & Community
  2. Clarity of Purpose
  3. Agency
  4. Competence
  5. Stability
  6. Relevance
  • The role Plain Language plays in Adult Learner Persistence
  • A practical look at the drivers in action

Interested in joining us?

Registration is open now for this free online training event.

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Four Ways to Address Workplace Skills in the Classroom

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This is a guest post from Rob Jenkins of National Geographic Learning.

You can visit their booth at the 2023 Literacy Texas Annual Conference.

workforce skills

Beginning in 1992, the United States developed standards identifying workplace soft skills for workforce preparation. While these standards changed and new ones were introduced, the same underlying skills were always there: critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and technology skills.

Below we discuss four ways to address workplace skills in the Adult Education classroom.

#1 Teach Academic Skills

In workshops I give regularly, I enjoy presenting participants with several workplace skills and then asking them to address which ones might be good skills for students in the classroom. A few of them are: combine ideas and information, make decisions and solve problems, exercise leadership roles, manage time, and complete tasks as assigned.

Of course, the answer participants give is All of them. We suggest that teachers make the obvious link between workplace skills and academic skills as often as they can. Give students opportunities to lead, to manage tasks, and to solve problems.

You can do this in every class, and you might consider incorporating workplace-like simulations where students create projects. In Stand Out, we call these “team projects”. You can find them in every unit.

#2 Teach "Soft Skills"

We teach in context and incorporate soft skills like critical thinking into every lesson, so learning is relevant. These activities are NOT an afterthought that we do if we have time.

Students should be collaborating in every lesson. They should be solving problems regularly, and they should be applying what they have learned.

Of course, students are asked to fill-in the blanks occasionally and participate in dialogs that require substitutions, but if you stop there, student learning will not be as robust as it could be. As mentioned earlier, these soft skills are the skills they will need in the workplace.

An example of a team project from Stand Out, Fourth Edition

#3 Help Students Make Connections

It is not enough to incorporate these previous ideas. Students should be aware of why they are doing what they are doing.

Help them to see the connection between the activity they are doing in the classroom and activities they will be asked to do in the workplace. Point out that they will likely have to work in a team at work and communicate clearly to be successful.

For those not pursuing a job, no problem; these skills also help them in life and college!

#4 Help Students See Their Potential

In my experience, students who are asked at the beginning of the term what their goals are, regularly reply that they want to learn English. When probing deeper, students look confused because they haven’t thought that far ahead. If we are satisfied with these responses, we are doing a disservice to our students.

Students will be more motivated to learn if they have long-term goals. We suggest that teachers look for ways to introduce their students to opportunities. Help them be aware of career choices.

For example, if they are learning about health, we share information about careers like nursing and provide information about average salaries, education, and the size of the workforce. Then we ask them to reflect on what it might be like for them to pursue such a career.

For over thirty years, workforce preparation has been addressed in standards and through funding in the United States. Adult Education programs look for new ways to meet the needs of their students while addressing the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).

The simple answer to achieving these goals is through effective instruction. Good teaching, simply stated, is when students are actively participating and developing skills which are relevant to life, college, and career.

sample lesson from Stand Out

To learn more about the fourth edition of Stand Out visit ELTNGL.com/StandOut.

Author: Rob Jenkins

Rob Jenkins is a popular presenter and author of English as a Second Language topics. He is a retired faculty member from Santa Ana College School of Continuing Education where he taught ESL for 27 years and served as faculty development coordinator for 20. He was honored with several faculty awards from his college and the Best Practice of Model Program Award in 2013 from the Association of Community and Continuing Education. Rob and Staci Johnson received the 2013 Heinle Outstanding Achievement Award from National Geographic Learning for their textbook series, Stand Out.

Adults only?

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“Andragogy” and “pedagogy” can seem like niche academic words – does the difference between them really matter?

At the recent South Plains Literacy Symposium, one of the most popular breakout sessions was A is for Adult: An Introduction to Andragogy. The session was an in-depth exploration of some of the major tenets of teaching adults, and some of the motivators, barriers, and drivers of persistence specific to adults.

And we say, hallelujah!

Too often, our field has taken the approach that “teaching is teaching” – and assumed that someone with experience teaching children must automatically also be able to teach adults effectively. Of course, that’s sometimes true – but it’s far from automatic. 

So what are the key differences?

Malcolm Knowles is one of the foremost experts in this area, and he’s broken his definitions down into five assumptions and four principles. Let’s take a look.

Knowles' 5 Assumptions of Adult Learners

1. Self-Concept
People become more self-directed as they age and mature.

2. Adult Learner Experience
People gain practical and theoretical experience as they age, and bring it to the learning process.

3. Readiness to Learn
Adults have a strong motivation to learn things that help them accomplish relevant tasks and gain practical skills.

4. Orientation to Learning
Adult learners are motivated to solve problems, moving from “knowing about” a topic to “knowing how” to do a specific task.

5. Motivation to Learn
Motivation for adults is usually internal, rather than external – and motivations are individual for each learner.

Knowles' 4 Principles of Andragogy

  1. Adults need to know why they need to learn something.
  2. Adults need to learn experientially – by doing.
  3. Adults approach learning as problem-solving.
  4. Adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value.

 

So much changes for us as we age – in both our bodies and our minds.

Doesn’t it make sense for the way we’re taught to change as well?

Find resources to help you explore andragogy – and build it into your literacy program – in our Resources library.

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Volunteers filling the gap

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"In a nation whose education system is among the most unequal in the industrialized world, where race and geography play an outsize role in determining one’s path to success, many Americans are being failed twice: first, by public schools that lack qualified teachers, resources for students with disabilities and adequate reading instruction; and next, by the backup system intended to catch those failed by the first."
ProPublica

In December 2022, ProPublica published an article about the ongoing literacy crisis in the United States. This blog post is the third in a series of reflections on that article.

More than 43 million adults in the United States can’t read, write, or do basic math above a third-grade level, and when you look at the equivalent of a sixth-grade level, that number balloons to a staggering 130 million. 

You’d hope that the majority of those folks could be in classes, catching up – but no. Only around 3% of adults who need literacy classes are actually getting them. 

There are many reasons for that – the ProPublica article that inspired this series of blog posts goes into some of them – but a crucial issue is the availability of classes. Whether a class has a cost; whether the location is convenient; whether a prospective student can fit the times into their already packed schedule – these are all factors, along with the availability of instructors.

"We found that in some states, programs keep adults on waitlists, unable to meet demand. Some students succeed in these programs, but many drop out within weeks or months, before they are able to make progress. Students often find themselves in overstuffed classes led by uncertified part-time or volunteer teachers... And most programs across the country lack the specialized staff to help adults with learning disabilities that public schools failed to have diagnosed."
ProPublica

For decades now, when professional instructors aren’t available (or are unaffordable), adult literacy programs have often turned to volunteers. Millions of American adults can read, write, and speak English because of the efforts and dedication of volunteers.

Volunteer support is a core activity for Literacy Texas. Regional symposia, our online resource library, on-demand training and professional development on our YouTube channel – these are investments in the quality of volunteer-led classes around the state.

Because if an adult student is going to organize their work schedule to get to class, and find childcare and the gas money to make it across town and be in their seat every Tuesday and Thursday evening – shouldn’t we offer them the highest quality lesson?

This blog post is a reflection on the ProPublica article, “A Fifth of American Adults Struggle to Read. Why Are We Failing to Teach Them?” Find previous installments here and here.

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The tension between learning and earning

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"In a nation whose education system is among the most unequal in the industrialized world, where race and geography play an outsize role in determining one’s path to success, many Americans are being failed twice: first, by public schools that lack qualified teachers, resources for students with disabilities and adequate reading instruction; and next, by the backup system intended to catch those failed by the first."
ProPublica

In December 2022, ProPublica published an article about the ongoing literacy crisis in the United States. This blog post is one of a series of reflections on that article.

Folks with low literacy usually don’t need someone to point that out to them. They’re usually crucially aware of their lack of skills – and what that lack is stopping them from achieving.

But the devil’s always in the details. Someone might know they need to take a class – but how much will that class cost? How far away is it, and how much will they pay in gas or bus fares to get to and from the class?

Most crucially of all – how does a low-income person fit classes into their week?

ProPublica reporters heard time and again that in communities stricken with low literacy, programs had to close sites because not enough students had enrolled. Meanwhile, more than two dozen adults in these hot spots told us that a lack of transportation or child care or busy work schedules prohibited them from attending classes.
ProPublica

How would you manage that Catch-22? You can’t afford not to work – but all you can get is a minimum-wage position with an inflexible schedule. Maybe you need a second job in order to make rent. Maybe it’s an exhausting job where you’re on your feet all day. And family and home responsibilities like making sure kids do homework, caring for babies or elderly relatives, cooking, cleaning, and laundry don’t take a break.

How do we solve the tension between learning, and earning?

The article highlighted Skills for Life, a Detroit program that provides paid time to learn alongside a city job. It was the turning point for Steve Binion, whose story is outlined in the article. And once someone’s broken the dead-end link of low literacy and low pay, their prospects improve dramatically – along with those of their family and the community.

What can we learn – and emulate – from these programs that work?

This blog post is a reflection on the ProPublica article, “A Fifth of American Adults Struggle to Read. Why Are We Failing to Teach Them?” Find the previous installment here.

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When $9 is far from enough

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"In a nation whose education system is among the most unequal in the industrialized world, where race and geography play an outsize role in determining one’s path to success, many Americans are being failed twice: first, by public schools that lack qualified teachers, resources for students with disabilities and adequate reading instruction; and next, by the backup system intended to catch those failed by the first."
ProPublica

In December 2022, ProPublica published an article about the ongoing literacy crisis in the United States. This blog post is the first in a series of reflections on that article.

$9. That’s how much the state of Texas currently allocates for adult education, per eligible student.

What can you buy with $9 these days? That won’t even get you two dozen eggs in most grocery stores. What do we think it can realistically do for the almost 5 million Texas adults in need of literacy help?

Across the United States, only around 3% of the adults who need literacy help are getting it – a figure that holds true for Texas as well. And despite our best efforts across the literacy field – and the valiant intervention of nonprofits, libraries, and other programs to help fill the gap – that number hasn’t changed in any meaningful way in decades.

While we try to figure out what’s to be done, people, families, communities, counties, states, and the entire nation are all suffering. 

"In other wealthy countries, adults with limited education who were born into families with little history of schooling are twice as likely to surpass their parents’ literacy skills. Here, one’s destiny is uniquely entrenched... If there were local programs that could teach adults the reading skills they never got, those parents could help educate their kids and get better jobs... The entire county would benefit."
ProPublica

It’s a sobering picture.

Shouldn’t every person in America have the opportunity to learn to read?

This blog post is a reflection on the ProPublica article, “A Fifth of American Adults Struggle to Read. Why Are We Failing to Teach Them?” Look for more blog posts on this topic in coming weeks.

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The gift of simplicity

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“The point of communication is to be understood.”

That’s – well, it’s kinda obvious, right? What else would communication be about?!

And yet how often do we explicitly learn to craft our messages for better understanding – and even more crucially, to vary the format and even the content when necessary?

All of us appreciate not being confused. Knowing that, some of the first focused work on making communications clearer came from the legal and health fields. There’s now plainlanguage.gov, the Clear Communication Index from the CDC, and even a plain language contracts project right here in Texas. And we all appreciate their work, every time we have to read a medical or legal document or form and we actually know what it said when we get to the end.

But those of us who work in adult and family literacy know that’s not always enough.

What about when the audience is primarily people who don’t speak English as a native language? Or primarily people who find reading challenging? And what about when the audience is people who are in both groups at the same time?

One of the best gifts we can give the adult learners in our classes is the gift of simplicity. And plain language that’s adequate for native English speakers, and those who read fluently, won’t always cut it for people with greater barriers.

So how can you make plain language – even plainer? What resources are out there to help you be more conscious of both your spoken and written communication – and to truly consider adults with low literacy?

Thankfully, there are many more resources than there used to be.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) used to be one of the few places you could find ANY plain language material – and their resources are still very good! There’s also Communicate Health, including their wonderful plain language newsletter, We Heart Health Literacy.

And in recent years, the clear communication banner has been taken up by more and more literacy folks. Two of our favorites:

We also invite you to bookmark the page on Plain Language here on this website, and return to it as you have need.

But ultimately? The single best thing you can bring to your plain language journey – whether you’re just starting or you’ve been on this road for a while – is intentionality.

When we see our conscious use of plainer language as a way to break down barriers, to welcome newcomers, to put people at their ease, to make sure people have information that they need – then we’re already halfway there.

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5 Things You Might Be Missing About Awards

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Let’s face it, there are a lot of awards out there. From Student of the Year to Volunteer of the Month to Community Rockstar to who knows what else, we get offered a lot of places to nominate the folks in our programs (including the Literacy Texas Annual Awards, which open every spring and are presented every year at the annual conference in the summer). It can be… a lot.

And it’s just possible that you see these awards go by, and you think something like, “One day we should nominate someone for that… but who has the time?” You wouldn’t be alone.

But it’s also possible that you’re missing some of the reasons you really should be nominating volunteers and students for awards – and not just the Literacy Texas ones! I’m here to make the case for nominating everyone you can for every award possible. Here’s why:

trophies

5. They might win

OK, this one you’re probably not missing. In fact, it’s likely the first thing most people think of when it comes to awards: What’s the prize? Is it “worth it”? Could the agency win money?

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with any of that. Some awards DO come with money, or books, or another prize, and others come with recognition for your agency.

And winning is nice. Letting someone know they’ve won can be even nicer. And there are people who have lived their whole life and, in their own words, “never won anything”. YOUR nomination could be the first time they get publicly recognized. YOU could make that happen. Just imagine.

All of that is pretty compelling, but there are four more reasons, and I’d argue they just get more important from here.

4. You get to celebrate people you think are amazing

Hopefully you’re doing this sometimes anyway, awards or not. But there’s a saying about “not saving things to say over a coffin lid” and it’s good advice.

We sometimes think people know how we feel about them, and MAYBE they do, but pulling together an award nomination for a volunteer or student at your agency can uncover stories and sayings and other facts about them that you never knew before – and is always an excuse for a celebration (maybe even cupcakes!). Because despite everything going on right now – there is always something to celebrate. 

3. You get to TELL people that you think they're amazing

One of the things I genuinely liked the most, when I was working as a program director at a volunteer-based adult literacy organization, was telling volunteers and students that we wanted to nominate them for an award. See point #5 above – many said that was the first time that had ever happened. And that was always touching. 

But it just got better from there. Because as part of the nomination process, we would spend 10 minutes at the end of a staff meeting, just brainstorming as a team about what we all knew about these wonderful people. We’d gather the best of what we came up with together, complete the nomination, and submit it.

And then we’d go one step further – we’d take a few more minutes and put the nomination content together in a simple document, add our logo and any photos we had of that person in action at our agency, print it off, and give it to the nominee.

Y’all. That was ALWAYS moving. Sometimes there were tears. And usually, the person would say something like, “I never knew y’all thought all of this about me!” They had something to take home and read over again (and again!), words of praise and joy. They KNEW, without a shadow of a doubt, how much we appreciated and admired them. Volunteers knew we saw everything they did for the students, and how priceless that was to us. Students knew that we witnessed their efforts and were there alongside them cheering them on as they took steps toward the next success.

That felt like winning every time, regardless of whether our nominee actually got chosen for that award or not.

2. You model appreciation to others on your team

Remember how I said we used to brainstorm our nomination content at staff meetings, as a group? That wasn’t by accident. Of course it was a practical way to gather a lot of information in a short amount of time, so I recommend it for that reason alone. But it makes celebration, and articulating positive thoughts and compliments, a natural and accepted part of work.

The more we did it, the easier it became. Staff started to keep an eye out for fun stories that could be included in some nomination some day. One even kept a list. And it became more natural for all of us to voice that appreciation to volunteers and students throughout the week, and make positivity a daily element of our working lives.

1. You stop and feel appreciation yourself

Don’t underestimate the power of this. I don’t know you, but you’re reading this, so you probably work in adult literacy in Texas. So I know you’re tired; in fact, you were probably exhausted BEFORE the pandemic, and now – well, there probably aren’t words to describe how overworked and stressed you’ve been. And when you’re constantly exhausted and anxious, it’s very easy to fall into the habit of seeing everything with a deficit mindset – how are we going to pay for – to manage – to do – to finish – ? That’s very normal.

Being conscious of stopping, thinking, gathering positive thoughts and stories from others, writing them into a short but coherent whole, and then handing the whole beautiful account to the person you appreciate so much is all good for your body, mind, and spirit.

So – start a list of awards you can nominate folks for. You’ll have local opportunities, as well as statewide and even national awards. Take that little extra time to sit with the team and talk about what makes people wonderful. Write it up into a simple nomination. Give it to the person with a smile. So many people will be glad you did.

Nominations for the Literacy Texas Annual Awards are open now, and winners will be recognized in August. You can find out more, and submit your nominations, here.

Student Goals

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4 Things You Must Consider When Developing Adult Literacy Curriculum

No matter what age we’re working with, our students learn best when motivated. Whether internal or external, practical or aspirational, the stronger the “why”, the better they perform. As educators, we must never lose sight of this, even as we coordinate our students’ educational goals with various state and federal standards. 

As we set our instructional intentions, we need to keep (among many other things!) these four things in mind:

1) Blended Learning: Don’t just wheel in a television.

Of course, nowadays it’s more likely to be a projector or a Youtube link, but multimedia should no longer be thought of as a supplement. The pandemic provided an opportunity to explore technology as the foundation, as a flexible way to cater a lesson to each student’s needs, learning style, and living situation. The Online Learning Consortium defines blended/hybrid learning as “integrating online with traditional face-to-face class activities in a planned, pedagogically valuable manner.” 

Technology isn’t a novelty anymore. Inside the classroom and out, it’s essential to understand and use it skillfully. 

2) Upskilling: Preparing for the test that matters. 

“Upskilling is the process of acquiring new and relevant competencies needed today and in the near future.” (Digitalhrtech.com) It’s an understatement to say that the world is evolving. People hoping to find meaningful employment need an increasingly diverse set of skills and experience to keep up with this change. Dallas is #3 in the nation for job creation in the tech industry. We need to be aware of these broader changes happening around us and consider how they will affect our student’s goals. That means not only knowing but keeping tabs on our student’s goals, and supporting their needs through how we curate our instruction.

Upskilling can include digital skills (social media, UX/UI), analytics skills (critical thinking, research), soft skills (creativity, persuasion, communication), and many other skills that we’d do well to integrate into our classrooms.

3) Family Literacy: Who’s teaching who?

Teaching an adult means teaching the citizen, the parent, the employee, the friend, and all the other roles that person has taken on in their life. Family literacy means recognizing and fostering the parent’s role as a primary teacher in their children’s lives. Read talk more about the ties of family to literacy in this article. 

4) Health Literacy: The gap between the textbook and real life. 

Specialized language can be difficult even in our mother tongue. One particular area where this is true is with medical jargon, pharmaceuticals, and simply navigating our health system. Simply being able to read complicated instructions doesn’t equal meaningful comprehension. Is there a way to meet your student’s goals, comply with state and federal standards, and address challenges like health literacy that students might not even be aware they must face? 

But how?

You see the importance of these considerations, but creating an effective instructional strategy can be daunting. Thankfully, the 2021 Literacy Texas Annual Conference offers solutions to this challenge. Join us August 2-4 as speaker Ann Beeson presents “Student Goals & Instructional Standards: Coordinating your Curriculum and Instruction for Success”. She offers the resources and strategies you’ll need to keep your student’s goals front and center while also staying on target to achieve external standards.
Visit https://www.literacytexas.org/calendar/2021-literacy-texas-annual-conference/ to register and learn about the other speakers and sessions offered at this extraordinary event.

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