Start with an illustrative quote that sets the
framework and focus for the piece. That allows you a way into talking about the
themes you want to explore.
It doesn’t always
fit in. It’s great theory and it’s good. You know, we’ve talked about how to
contextualise it and the wheel, all of that. It was very refreshing. But
my mentor, all she’s interested in is, oh, he failed, can we get him back in.
Not, ‘Can we develop this individual?’ Can we get him back in? What do you
think he failed on? And that’s the environment we’re in. And with the contracts
coming up for renewal.
This quote is one of several quotes drawn from interviews, tutorials, reflective
statements and classroom discussions that exemplify what Stronach (Stronach, 2002) refers to as the tightrope professionals walk
between the economy of performance and the ecology of practice. It is interesting
because this is an in service trainee teacher who has worked in literacy teaching
for about 10 years.
He is used to the SfL regime with its steers and levers. He’s clearly engaged and stimulated by the
course and the new ideas about literacy he in encountering, but experiences a
clear dis/connect between these ideas and approaches and a regime that does not
share the aspirations that seems to underpin what he is coming to understand as
a trainee.
He ask the question – can we develop him as a trainee. This is not a
phrase I have used in sessions or one that I am aware of in the literature. He also refers to the ‘clock’ exercise as a
wheel. The metaphor appears to be one that values a holistic view of literacy learning.
That treats literacy as an aspect of the student; there is a hint that teaching
is about addressing developmental needs along many planes – not just the skills
deficit that emerge from having failed a L1 or L2 test.
He is clear that this is target drive and inked to funding and this
creates a specific environment. Note that here it is not the harshness of a penal
regime that creates an ‘environment’ but the actions of his mentor.
Yes. And
I refer to the social aspects of literacy [...] say that I subscribe to her,
her little resume of what adult literacy teaching and writing should be, and
she talks about providing a context. She talks about interaction
between the teacher and the learner, and she talks about feedback and she talks
about the value of talk, and I must say that I’ve tried to live by those in
this exercise.
This quite is quite different. This tutor is pre-retirement and at the
end of a career in school based education has shifted to teaching literacy in
adult education. She works in a one-to-one open access workshop. Here she is talking
about completing the work required for an assignment. The sense of what she
says in is=n stark contrast in as much as she does not articulate any sense of disconnection
between what is theoretically sound and what the environment affords. I note
with interest that she says ‘what adult literacy should be’. Ads oppose to a
more forceful – what it is. This student
is none-the-less immersed in the ideas and experiences no tension in implementing
them at all.
ii
Theoretical Framework
Broadly competing theorisations
of literacy at the heart of the discussion and the significance these have for
the teaching of the diploma course. Acknowledge
that this distinction is inevitably too stark that it does not capture the
multiple constructions. More importantly – it is how teachers think and feel
about this that forms the basis of this study. These are research or policy
based ideas.
a) that trainee
teachers will have their own constructions of literacy as a pedagogic subject.
I am reminded here of Ellis, that they have not a Venn construct of literacy / pedagogy
with a bit in the middle where they overlap as ‘literacy pedagogy’. But
actually they have a single construct called literacy that defines the material
they draw upon in their teaching
b) that my sense is
that they see these constructions as having entirely different domains. These
may be commons sense distinctions. That theory and practice are separate. But –
there is literacy out of school and literacy in school rather than literacy - articulated
in different ways and treated in distinct ways in these domains and the
schooled treatment of home literacies creates a difficulty for learners.
Kell and Wilson have
suggested that literacy as skills and literacy as social practice do exist in relation
to each other. Scottish adult literacy, the wheel; metaphors of literacy.
iii
More direct exposition of these explored: lit review
a) b) & c)
iv
Methods – research participants and sites; data sources & procedures
(interview protocol); researchers positions; data analysis
v
Research findings: A) i.
ii.
B)
i.
ii. C)
etc
vi Discussion and implications
a) b) & c)
STRONACH, I. 2002. Towards an
uncertain politics of professionalism: teacher and nurse identities in flux. Journal of Education Policy, 17, 109.
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