Sessions
Pre-conference sessions (3.00 pm Thursday, May 7, 2009)
3.00 - 4.00 p.m. Pre-conference Session Block P (Choose 1 of 2)
P1 • Cool e-learning tools and resources for ALBE learners
Debbie Soccio, e-Works
So, what is happening in e-learning? More specifically - what is happening that can support delivery in the LLN classroom? There are many cool e-learning tools that are available to enhance your teaching and learning activities. Have you considered using voice tools? Have you tried podcasting? Do you know how to customise existing resources for your specific class needs? What about Websms? Participants will be able to see a range of resources that are freely available through the Learning Object Repository Network within the Australian Flexible Learning Framework specifically targeted at LLN learners. In this workshop, you will have the opportunity to interact with some cool e-tools and resources that can be used to support ALBE teachers and students.
Debbie has worked in the adult literacy field for 17 years. She currently works for e-Works as a senior e-learning consultant focussing on embedding e-learning into training programs. She is particularly interested in assisting staff to incorporate the use of multimedia to document the journeys that students are taking in their own lives and in their formal learning. Debbie is interested in using new technologies, including audio based activities in online learning and using digital stories to provide interactive multimedia materials for students.
P2 • Weaving through the Assessment Maze
Pauline Morrow and Lidia Interlandi, Kangan Batman TAFE
Sit back, watch, listen and feel free to interrupt as two seasoned practitioners describe how they steered their way through the newly re-accredited CGEA to come up with an integrated assessment task(s). Take away the assessment(s) to adapt to other levels and possibly extend to other units.
Pauline Morrow has been at Kangan Batman TAFE for many years. Currently she is the coordinator of Adult Literacy at the Broadmeadows campus. She has been involved in numerous presentations at VALBEC and ACAL conferences. As well has been involved in running professional development in the new CGEA.
Lidia Interlandi has been teaching at Kangan Batman TAFE for 10 years. She has been involved in teaching adult literacy, ESL and ELICOS. She has also been involved in running professional development in the CGEA.
4.30 - 5.30 p.m. Pre-conference Session Block Q (Choose 1 of 2)
Q1 • Introduction to the Australian Core Skills Framework
Philippa McLean, Centre for Adult Education
The Australian Core Skills Framework, ACSF, is a tool which describes and measures English language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) skills. The ACSF underpins the quality management of Australian government LLN programs and is a key component of the infrastructure which exists to support and improve Australian adults’ LLN skills. The ACSF builds on the National Reporting System, NRS. This interactive workshop will outline the full ACSF and the Summary document and the potential applications of the ACSF. This will include discussion of the organising principles of the ACSF as well as a more detailed look at the core skills, indicators, performance features and sample activities.
The workshop will outline how the ACSF provides:
(i) a consistent national approach to the identification of the core skills requirements in diverse personal, community, work and training contexts
(ii) a common reference point for describing and discussing performance in the five core skill areas.
Philippa McLean has extensive experience in language literacy and numeracy delivery and assessment. As well she has worked on a number of national LLN projects particularly focussed on professional development, assessment and resource development. Philippa is a member of the consortium that has developed the Australian Core Skills Framework and is rolling out this document. Current project work includes the development of a set of resources for the new CGEA mapped to both the ACSF and the NRS; project management to build the capacity of LLN teachers in the Victorian ACE sector; management of a project to revise the A Frame quality tool for pre-accredited teaching and learning.
Q2 • Using a theme based approach to teaching Numeracy and Science
Chris Tully and Vicki Doukas, Kangan Batman TAFE
This will be a ‘hands on’, interactive workshop. Vicki and Chris will show how the numeracy and science concepts can be taught using a theme rather than topic based approach. The theme we will investigate will be 'the environment'. We hope to provide you with lots of activities that you can use as is in your class room. These are activities that we have found engage our students both young and old. Vicki and Chris also hope to give you ideas about how to run with a theme across two or more subject areas. This theme could be anything from health to Australia. So come and have some fun.
Vicki Doukas has been at Kangan Batman TAFE for 5 years and has taught numeracy and science to VCAL students, women returning to study and VCE.
Chris Tully has taught Numeracy at Kangan Batman TAFE for 17 years. Chris has taught across a number of areas at TAFE including VCE, indigenous education, CALD adults and in industry. She has been involved in curriculum development and inservices for numeracy teachers.
6.00 - 7.30 p.m. Book launch
"Reading the Fine Print: A History of the Victorian Adult Literacy and Basic Education Council 1978-2008"
Conference Sessions (Friday, May 8, 2009)
9.00 am Opening
Welcome
Brunswick Women's Choir
Keynote
Creating Environments for Creative Learning - The Artful Dodgers Studios
Rebecca Lister currently works as the Arts and Culture Coordinator, Program Development, Jesuit Social Services. She has worked for the past 20 years in the community cultural development sector and the professional theatre industry. Over this period of time she has developed a wide range of arts programs and has a wealth of experience working with diverse groups of people with particular success with groups of disengaged youth.
The focus of her keynote will be on the Artful Dodgers Studios that form part of the Jesuit Social Services, Gateway program. The Studios operate on an informal, flexible learning model that assists young people to develop skills and competencies in a non-threatening, vibrant and safe arts space. Young people engage in community cultural development projects that enhance their artistic skills, work readiness skills, community connectedness and promote health and wellbeing. This environment provides those who have had negative experiences of learning a welcome opportunity to practise and develop their artistic skills.
The Gateway program assists young people to develop pathways to mainstream education, training and employment through the delivery of a broad range of programs and also aims to address ‘at risk’ young people’s health and wellbeing concerns.
Rebecca Lister also works as a playwright, director, dramaturge, project manager, arts organiser and teacher.
Book re-launch
"Reading the Fine Print: A History of the Victorian Adult Literacy and Basic Education Council 1978-2008"
Morning Tea
Session A - 60 minutes - choose 1 of 3
A1 • Exploring an intensive reading pedagogy in adult literacy
Dr David Rose, Director Reading to Learn; Faculty of Education and Social Work and the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney.
This paper reports on the application of an intensive explicit reading pedagogy, Reading to Learn, in adult literacy classrooms. Reading to Learn has repeatedly demonstrated outstanding results in school and academic contexts, at over double expected learning rates (see references). Its potential in ALBE contexts was evaluated in a study funded by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research in 2007. The study was a partnership between practising teachers and researcher/teacher educators. It identified advances in reading abilities for many students well beyond those anticipated by teachers and students alike. Teachers also reported very positive outcomes for their own professional development. Importantly the study also identified a number of system level features that would need to be in place to support a broader adoption of the pedagogy.
Dr David Rose is the director of Reading to Learn, an international literacy program that trains teachers across school and university sectors, www.readingtolearn.com.au. He is also an Associate of both the Faculty of Education and Social Work and the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. His research interests include literacy pedagogy and teacher education, language and cultural contexts and language evolution. He is the author of The Western Desert Code: an Australian cryptogrammar. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 2001, Working with Discourse: meaning beyond the clause (with J.R. Martin). London: Continuum, 2003/2007 and Genre Relations: mapping culture (also with J.R. Martin). London: Equinox, 2008.
A2 • Twenty-first Century Graffiti
Dr Lachlan MacDowall, VCA, Melbourne University
This presentation will explore the place of writing in contemporary culture through an examination of Melbourne graffiti and street art. The session decodes the complex patterns and rules of public graffiti in Melbourne - tags, murals, stickers, stencils and slogans – and looks at how graffiti combines different forms of literacy, written and visual. Contemporary graffiti also provides a way of thinking about young people's creative engagement with reading, writing and visual culture. Participants will have the opportunity to collaborate on their own graffiti sketches, combining text, images and forms of graffiti ornamentation. Take away from this session an understanding of a contemporary youth sub-culture and some ideas about combining written and visual literacies
Dr Lachlan MacDowall teaches in the Community Cultural Development program in the Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne. He is currently writing a book on Australian graffiti.
Lachlan is interviewed in an ABC Background Briefing episode 'Grafitti, art and fear' first broadcast on March 22
"As old as mankind, graffiti can be seen as cultural expression and a tourist attraction, or as vandalism inspiring fear. It can morph into high art, political comment, or territorial border security."
A3 • Navigating our way through the Skills environment
Panel: Sally Thompson, ACEVIC; Leanne Fitzgerald, Coonara Community Centre; Verna Kearney, ACFE
Information about the Victorian Government’s Skills Reforms is slowly evolving but for much of the VET and ACE sector there appears to be a “wait’n see” approach as the full impact of the changes will not really be known for some time.
The key changes in the VET sector promoted by the government will be increasing access for eligible Victorians to a government supported training place and increasing investment from those who benefit most from training: government; businesses; and individuals; a long awaited strengthening of the capacity of TAFE and Adult, Community and Further Education (ACFE) sectors; improving choice and contestability by enabling individuals and businesses to access government supported training at a broader range of public, private and community providers; and improving information to make it easier for individuals and businesses to understand and use the training system.
How will this be implemented and what impacts will there be beyond the rhetoric? This panel will explore some of the changes and provide insights to the longer term impacts for wider VET and ACE sectors.
Sally Thompson is the Executive Officer of Adult Community Education Victoria and a former President of VALBEC. She began her career as an ALBE teacher before working for 12 years in middle and senior management roles in the community education, TAFE and Indigenous Higher Education sectors. These roles included managing the Learning Innovation Resource Nexus; a staff professional development, innovation and ebusiness centre for a regional TAFE institute and managing vocational education and training for the Institute for Aboriginal Development, based in Alice Springs.
In 2006 she lived and worked in Zhejiang province, China conducting corporate training with staff of Bax Global; a multinational logistics company and working as the training and development manager for the International Coach Academy.
Leanne Fitzgerald has been the Team Leader at Coonara Community House in Upper Ferntree Gully for fifteen years but her passion for adult learning began even earlier in her previous career in public and academic libraries. Leanne has been a member of the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council of ACFE, a board member of ANHLC, and a member of various sector-based steering committees.
Verna Kearney is the Manager, Learner Outcomes in ACFE within the Department of Planning and Community Development. This role includes implementation of the ACFE components of Skills statement and management of the ACFE Board purchasing. Verna has also worked on other ACFE Board initiatives including the highly effective Sustainable ACE Businesses projects. Verna has a long career in the ACE sector having been the ACFE Regional Manager in the Grampians region for four years, an ACE sector employee at BRACE in Ballarat for over four years where she managed their VET, JobSkills and NEISS programs and as a member of the Grampians Regional Council of ACFE. Her earlier background was in teaching – in the primary education sector and also in VET and labour market programs with the Brotherhood of St. Lawrence.
Session B - 60 minutes - choose 1 of 4
B1 • Emerging ways of teaching groups of adults using Accelerated Literacy methods
Wendy Cowey, School for Social and Policy Research, Charles Darwin University
Accelerated Literacy (AL) is a pedagogy which helps learners to read and write complex texts with the support of their teachers and peers. It has been developed over the past eight years by Dr Brian Gray and Wendy Cowey of Charles Darwin University.
Accelerated Literacy (AL) is a method of teaching all aspects of literacy that has been introduced into about 70 Northern Territory schools including several secondary schools. Where it has been used in secondary schools it has been used predominantly with groups of students who are two or more years behind their peers in literacy achievement. In this context some students have progressed as much as seven years in one school year in their oral reading ability. The AL method was used successfully in a series of workshops conducted for Indigenous Assistant Teachers in Alice Springs and Darwin last year. It revealed the effectiveness of scaffolding techniques used in AL as well as raising issues about how this learning could be continued while ensuring that there is 'handover' that is a crucial stage of development. This presentation will illustrate this work with information about the AL teaching methodology as well as observations about the issues that arise from teaching literacy to adults whose school experience has been limited or unsuccessful previously.
Wendy Cowey, Manager of Resources and Professional Development, National Accelerated Literacy Program, School for Social and Policy Research, Charles Darwin University
B2 • Cyber Bullying or Online Harassment - A TAFE perspective
Barbara Reeckman and Laine Cannard, NMIT
In 2007 and 2008 Barbara and Laine received an NMIT Faculty for Further Education research grant to investigate the impact of cyber bullying on Youth Unit students and devise strategies to address this in a TAFE context. This presentation examines our research results, the current literature on cyber bullying and the impact of cyber bullying on student well being. Strategies to address cyber bullying at both a classroom and institutional level will be discussed. Classroom materials, which cover VCAL and CGEA learning outcomes, will be presented.
Barbara Reeckman is a Senior Managed Individual Pathways Officer in the Youth Unit at the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE. She has a Masters in Student Welfare from the University of Melbourne. She taught extensively in Secondary Schools, International Schools and TAFE before retraining in counselling, family therapy and student welfare.
Laine Cannard is a teacher in the Youth Unit at the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE. Initially she worked as primary school teacher and in adult literacy, before retraining in ESL. Laine has worked extensively in the adult community and TAFE sectors. She has considerable experience working with disadvantaged and disengaged young people in TAFE and community partnership projects.
B3 • Lollies and Coffee - VCAL meets ESL
Sue Paull and Ruth Patching, Diamond Valley Learning Centre
How do you encourage youth to make connections beyond their mobiles? This was the challenge for staff in our VCAL youth program, a staff normally accustomed to the joys of motivated adult learners. The DVLC community was an obvious place to connect to, and a plan was developed to link VCAL students with an ESL class. Over a number of sessions, lollies and coffee at hand, generations and cultures edged closer together in a real-life Chat Room. Week by week the project evolved and yielded uplifting and often surprising outcomes. In the workshop, a panel comprising students, a teacher and a coordinator will give an overview of the project and its outcomes. There will be an opportunity to draw on the skills of those present to discuss similar projects, and in this way assist our current planning for Chat Room‚ version 2.
Sue Paull has been a teacher and Adult Literacy/ESL Coordinator at the Diamond Valley Learning Centre, Greensborough for 13 years. Although starting her teaching in schools, she has taught adult literacy and ESL classes for almost 20 years at CAE, TAFE and a number of community education providers.
Ruth Patching taught in schools for a number of years before moving into teaching adult literacy and ESL in a range of settings. For the past four years she has coordinated the VCAL and VCE program at Diamond Valley Learning Centre, catering for an increasing number of teenage early school leavers.
B4 • Scaffolding applied literacy into community services study
Julianne Krusche, University of Ballarat
This workshop outlines a model for integrating applied literacy skills into vocational study in the community services area. Students enrol in Certificate IV in Community Services Work and Certificate III in General Education for Adults. The purpose of the CGEA is to equip the students with the formal literacy skills to support them in their current study, future study aspirations and workplace needs. When devising the program close attention was given to the development of employability skills as a response to the Victorian Government Skills Reforms. The workshop will outline how the concept of applied literacy was introduced to the students, how the skills were taught and assessed (full integration into community services) and the outcomes for the students.
Julianne Krusche has worked as an LLN practitioner in TAFE for the past 15 years where she has taught CGEA, VCAL with students aged 15 years and onwards. Completing research in 2004 about applied literacy allowed Julianne to develop and experiment with various models to integrate LLN into vocational delivery. Some of these models have included VCAL in the Automotive Department and development of applied literacy models in the Community Services, Children's Services and Health Services departments.
This session will provide an opportunity to hear about some new resources and discuss with the developers and colleagues how they may be applied in new ways of working with literacy, language and numeracy learners.
Rosie McKenry and Bruce Mitchell will present their teaching resource "Sound English" which they developed for pre-literate adults and youth in both ESL and CGEA programs. www.soundenglish.com.au
St Luke’s Innovative Resources representative Nola Tranter will demonstrate a range of their products including "Strength Cards", "Team Building Kit", "Get Them Talking Youth Kit", "Deep Speak: the world according to you" and "Optimism Boosters". www.innovativeresources.org
Lynda Achren and Jan Livingstone from AMES will present three new resources:
"Keys to work: A teaching kit for developing the employability skills of CALD learners", "Good Better Best!" Series of grammar books and "That's work! Workplace communication for elementary learners of English CD ROM" www.ames.net.au
Session C - 60 minutes - choose 1 of 6
C1 • Navigating the CGEA: new directions and inspiration towards a learning destination
Nadia Casarotto and Elizabeth Davidson and 4 panel members from Victoria University
This workshop will consist of a panel of practitioners who will showcase innovative practices in implementing the CGEA curriculum. This will encourage exploration of new laneways, alternative pathways and destinations.
Panel presentation will be followed by discussion and questions. Sample materials will be provided.
Nadia Casarotto is CMM for General Studies&Further Education. The focus of her work is on curriculum and resource development including the recent development of the ESL Framework and professional development materials on integrating employability skills into ESL and literacy curriculum.
Elizabeth Davidson is CMM for General Studies&Further Education. The focus of her work is on curriculum and resource development including the CGEA and the ESL Framework.
C2 • Putting theory into practice in an Accelerated Literacy lesson
Wendy Cowey, Manager of
Resources and Professional Development,
National
Accelerated Literacy Program, School for Social
and Policy Research, Charles Darwin University
This workshop will take participants through the stages of an Accelerated Literacy lesson based on a text passage from 'Island of the Blue Dolphins' by Scott O'Dell. The short study will aim to show the potential of Accelerated Literacy to engage students in learning not only how and why writers use descriptions in their texts but also how to apply this technique to their own writing.
C3 • Big Deal! - a responsible gambling education program for young people
Jean Evans, Centre for Adult Education
This workshop will report on a gambling education project funded by the Department of Justice to address problem gambling among young people. Specifically, it will familiarise participants with resources and activities contained in the Big Deal! Trainer Kit and Implementation Guide. These include a DVD with three problem-gambling scenarios; a CD with a digital story telling project; best practice examples for delivering the Big Deal! program and a range of delivery options; as well as numeracy resources, games and hands on activities. The education program aims to help young people develop personal skills and strategies for coping with gambling and a range of other life issues. Activities have been mapped to the VCAL and CGEA curricula.
Currently, Jean Evans works at CAE, co-ordinating the Big Deal! Gambling Education Project and teaching in the Access Education and Training section. Previously, she has worked within the TAFE systems in WA, NSW and Queensland to deliver adult literacy, language and numeracy training in WELL Programs, the LLNP program, and in community classes; as well as providing LLN support to students undertaking other vocational courses with TAFE.
C4 • Uncovering Pompeii: What can we learn in the laneways of this ancient Roman city?
Liz Suda, Melbourne Museum
The 'A Day in Pompeii' exhibition to be held at Melbourne Museum this winter, promises to be a memorable experience. Visitors will be taken back in time to witness the ferocious eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD, and be moved by the haunting body casts of those who perished. The exhibition will bring this ancient civilization back to life through its evocative representations of daily life.
How relevant is the study of ancient civilizations to the adult educator? How might a visit to this exhibition stimulate reading, writing, speaking and listening activities? Take a walk with me through the laneways of Ancient Pompeii, to uncover the secrets of a civilization that is not so different to our own. Let's see how we might enliven our students, help them to navigate their way through the past, and in so doing gain deeper insights into the world we live in today.
Liz Suda works at Melbourne Museum developing education programs and resources for primary, secondary and adult learners. She has a long history in the adult literacy field, a passion for literacy and the development of knowledge in its broadest sense, and is on a lifelong quest to make learning exciting and engaging for all.
C5 • Adult literacy and numeracy in ACE capability
building project 2008-2009.
"Not another community
of practice!"
Mary-Ann Tonini and Sue Neale, Kyabram Community and Learning Centre.
The aim of this community of practice has been to link policy, research and theory to practice as well as provide a space for literacy and numeracy practitioners to come together in a way that acknowledges our professional identity. The community of practice involved us in a range of activities including maths games, reading articles on topics of interest, sharing tips on websites, teaching and learning experiences, lesson plans and of course fine food. The group met face to face in Melbourne and online. On the way we learnt about the ALLS data, enthused about the new ACSF, gave feedback on a research wiki and mucked around in the computer room like a bunch of year 9s. We talked about what is unique to our jobs and what we need as practitioners and braved the scrutiny of our peers to improve our teaching in a climate of uncertainty and change for our organisations and for our sector.
We also hope to produce workable literacy and numeracy resources that we can pass on to colleagues through a website and existing networks. This workshop will reflect on the community of practice as professional development and a learning opportunity for both the individual and the group.
Sue Neale and Mary-Ann Tonini have worked successfully together, team teaching integrated, multi-level literacy and numeracy to a diverse range of clients for the last three years at Kyabram Community and Learning Centre.
C6 • ESL and numeracy: Incorporating numeracy into the new ESL Framework entry level course
Dianne Parslow, CAE and Gail Pratley, Swinburne TAFE
This workshop will look at the ESL and numeracy units in the new entry level ESL Framework course and show how a variety of tasks can be used to cover language and numeracy simultaneously. This will be a ‘hands on’ workshop and participants will take away lots of teaching ideas for the new curriculum. Topics include: time, money, measurement, direction.
Dianne Parslow has been involved in ESL, Literacy and numeracy for many years. Dianne was part of the team who wrote the numeracy units used in the new curriculum and has run PD sessions on integrating numeracy & literacy, CGEA, ESL and curriculum issues. She is currently acting Centre Manager of the Access department at CAE.
Gail Pratley has taught literacy, numeracy and ICT for many years to a range of students in a variety of education settings. She currently teaches CGEA and VCAL in the Youth Unit at Swinburne TAFE, Croydon campus.
Afternoon Keynote
Cleaning up the language highways and byways: Linguistic prescription and taboo
Professor Kate Burridge, Chair of Linguistics Monash University
In this talk Kate will explore popular perceptions of language, in particular linguistic prescription. She will focus not on formal acts of censorship such as might be carried out by a language academy, but on the attitudes and activities of ordinary people in, say, letters to newspapers or comments on radio. In these contexts, language users act as self-appointed censors and take it upon themselves to condemn those words and constructions that they feel do not measure up to the standards they perceive should hold sway.
Her comments have been inspired by published letters to editors and personal letters and emails she has received over the years. The remarks are also informed by more than sixteen years involvement with the ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), preparing and presenting weekly programs on language for radio and more recently television. Much of this work involves “talkback” radio whereby members of the public phone in and put directly on air their observations on language and queries about usage. Very often these calls involve complaints about change and the language of others; i.e. their so-called bad grammar, sloppy pronunciation, new-fangled words, vulgar colloquialisms, unwanted jargon and, of course, foreign items. The comments are often passionate and frequently angry.
She will argue that speakers’ concerns for the well-being of their language and the kind of linguistic censorship and puristic activities that accompany these concerns belong to our tabooing behaviour generally. Prescriptive practices are part of the human struggle to control unruly nature — in this case, to define language and to force the reality of ‘the boundless chaos of a living speech’ (as Samuel Johnson put it in his Preface) into neat classificatory systems. As with tabooing practices generally, linguistic purists see a very clear distinction between what is clean and what is dirty — in this case, what is desirable and undesirable in a language. Linguists who challenge these prescriptions are challenging their “cherished classifications”. Small wonder there is such a schism between linguistics and the wider community.
In adult and youth education contexts are perceptions of taboos and linguistic prescription impacting on communication and learning — and how do literacy and language professionals monitor their own impulses to clean up the language use of their students?
Kate Burridge, BA (Hons) (UWA), PhD (London) FAHA
Kate Burridge completed her undergraduate training in Linguistics and German at the University of Western Australia. This was followed by three years postgraduate study at the University of London. Kate completed her PhD in 1983 on syntactic change in medieval Dutch. She also taught at the Polytechnic of Central London before joining the Department of Linguistics at La Trobe University in 1984. In February, she moved to Monash University to take up the Professor of Linguistics. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities.
Her main areas of research are: grammatical change in Germanic languages; the Pennsylvania German spoken by Amish / Mennonite communities in Canada; the notion of linguistic taboo; the structure and history of English. Kate also presents weekly language segments on ABC Radio and Television.
Review and close
Drinks and networking
The conference is supported by Adult Community and Further Education