Review of Adult Learning and Literacy, Vol. 6: Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice: A Project of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy

318 Pages·2005·1.55 MB·English

by  John Comings

Review of Adult Learning
and Literacy
VOLUME 6
Connecting Research, Policy,
and Practice
Review of Adult Learning and Literacy, Volume 6, is an important part of
the Dissemination Initiative of the National Center for the Study of Adult
Learning and Literacy (NCSALL). NCSALL is a collaborative effort of
the Harvard Graduate School of Education; World Education, a nonprofi t
organization based in Boston; the Center for Literacy Studies at the University
of Tennessee; Rutgers University in New Jersey; and Portland State University
in Oregon. NCSALL is funded by the Educational Research and Development
Centers Program, Award Number R309B60002, as administered by the U.S.
Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.
NCSALL is pursuing a program of basic and applied research that is meant
to improve programs that provide educational services for adults who have
low literacy skills, who speak limited English, or who do not have a high
school degree.
The contents of Review of Adult Learning and Literacy, Volume 6, do
not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the U.S. Department
of Education, nor are they endorsed by the federal government.
Review of Adult Learning
and Literacy
VOLUME 6
Connecting Research, Policy,
and Practice
Edited by
John Comings
Barbara Garner
Cristine Smith
A Project of the
National Center for the Study
of Adult Learning and Literacy
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
2006 Mahwah, New Jersey London
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
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Copyright © 2006 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
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Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
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ISBN 1-4106-1733-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0–8058–5459–2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0–8058–5460–6 (pbk)
Contents
Foreword vii
John Oxenham
Preface xi
List of Tables and Figures xvii
Chapter 1 The Year 2003 in Review 1
Noreen Lopez
Chapter 2 Demographic Change and Low-Literacy Americans 19
Brad Edmondson
Chapter 3 The Role of Vocabulary Instruction in Adult 43
Basic Education
Mary E. Curtis
Chapter 4 Research in Spelling: Implications for Adult 71
Basic Education
Diane J. Sawyer and M. Tara Joyce
Chapter 5 Issues in Teaching Speaking Skills to Adult 113
ESOL Learners
Kathleen M. Bailey
Chapter 6 The Preparation and Stability of the ABE 165
Teaching Workforce: Current Conditions
and Future Prospects
M Cecil Smith
v
vi CONTENTS
Chapter 7 Overview of the Adult Literacy System in Ireland 197
and Current Issues in Its Implementation
Inez Bailey
Chapter 8 Beyond Single Interests: Broad-Based Organizing 241
as a Vehicle for Promoting Adult Literacy
Michael A. Cowan
Resources on Community Organizing 265
Michael A. Cowan
About the Editors 277
About the Contributors 279
Author Index 285
Subject Index 295
Foreword
In April 2000, the World Education Forum1 in Dakar, Senegal, set six
goals for achieving education for all. The goals encompassed the span of
human life from early childhood through to the golden years. The fourth
goal committed the world to “achieving a 50% improvement in levels of
adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic
and continuing education for all adults,” while the sixth goal aimed at
“improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence
of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved
by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.” About
a year later, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed those goals
and incorporated them into its Millennium Development Goals,2 which
aimed to reduce poverty, enhance health, and make good quality educa-
tion universally available. Achieving the World Education Forum goal of
halving current rates of adult illiteracy around the world by 2015 requires
enabling some 400 to 500 million people, most of them women, to read,
write, and manipulate numbers usefully—in other words, some 40 to 50
million people every year between now and the target date.
Let us not bother ourselves with yet another attempt to defi ne literacy
and numeracy. Let us just ask whether we know enough about adult learn-
ing and literacy to accomplish the goal within the next dozen years.
1The Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All: Meeting Our Collective Commit-
ments, adopted by the World Education Forum (Dakar, Senegal, April 26–28, 2000), Paris,
UNESCO, 2000, para. 7.
2United Nations General Assembly, Resolution A/56/326, September 6, 2001.
vii
viii FOREWORD
What prompts me to pose the question is information found in Volume
3 of NCSALL’s Review of Adult Learning and Literacy, “The Year 2000
in Review.” Although the Review deals mainly with the United States, and
I have worked mainly in Africa and Asia, what Lennox McLendon and
John Kruidenier observed resonates with my experience. Lennox noted
that adult educators remain challenged to provide the data that Congress
needs; John said that they have actually resisted collecting assessment data
(p. 103). Both echo the experiences of UNESCO, the World Bank, and
several governments, in trying to get adult educators to tell them in sys-
tematic, verifi able terms what works under what conditions, at what cost,
and with what impact on personal fulfi llment and family and community
well-being. Can adult educators provide incontestable data to answer this
question confi dently: What does it take to ensure that at least 65 out of
every 100 fully able-bodied, nonliterate adults of average intelligence who
enroll in a literacy education course master reading, writing, and numeri-
cal skills suffi ciently to make a satisfactory difference to their lives?
Active adult educators themselves have suffi cient personal experience
of working with people not to bother with the question. Whether we look
at Bangladesh, Nicaragua, or Zimbabwe—not to mention the 50 states in
America—we fi nd educators, both professional and nonprofessional, who
have seen how unschooled people benefi t from and appreciate mastering
literacy. These educators devote large portions of their lives to helping
more people do the same. Whether these educators work for governments,
nongovernmental organizations, community-based organizations, or on
their own, in the United States or elsewhere, they educate with convic-
tion, dedication, and perseverance. They do not need research and data
to persuade them of the human value of what they are doing for their
neighbors.
On the other hand, these educators certainly wish that they had more
resources to educate more people more effectively. They also wish that
obtaining resources were not such a continual struggle and drain on energy
and even more on that very scarce resource—time. If they could demon-
strate that their graduates contributed as much—and possibly more—to
their society than equivalent investments in agriculture, small enterprises,
better water supplies, more comprehensive health services, or better roads
would, they might actually reverse the situation and fi nd resources pursu-
ing them for a change. Their allies—the education policymakers and plan-
ners in Bolivia, Nepal, Zambia, Washington, DC, and the 50 state capitals
of the United States, who have the responsibility to achieve the Millen-
nium Development Goals in their state or country—would be so grateful
FOREWORD ix
for demonstrations of effectiveness. Publications like this review would
be just the place for assembling them. It could open ready access to clues
for enabling committed adult educators to aid their adult learners to learn
more effectively, both in the United States and around the globe.
—John Oxenham