Firstly, I
want to explore how trainee teachers registered on a University Diploma in
Literacy and ESOL course embody different conceptions of literacy.
I am conscious in this undertaking of this seemingly being an
area that has been discussed in detail from within a professional community of
teacher educators and while it may be recently discovered terrain for me –
there is a significant body of work available to which this is a contribution.
What is distinct about this discussion is I am not here driven by a desire to
improve my practice as a teacher educator – as such (though that desire is
always lurking). Nor am I using a social practices theoretical framework to
critique a skills based approach as such.
My intention is to map trainee teachers’ changing perspective
– to see if and how their view changes and if so – along what lines, and what
key points in the programme and propelled by what particular engagements. Although
broadly I am asking about trainees’ engagement with different conceptions of
literacy, I anticipate that what will emerge are conflicting and contradictory
views and it is the nature of this contestation I want to explore. I appreciate the reflexivity that this
requires as in part I am implicated in trainees developing understanding: their
changing conception may be amongst other things a reflection of my professional
prowess.
Given that this research stands outside of a policy infrastructure
that aligns itself to the delivery of government policy – I am not a practitioner
nor am I connected to any organisation with an interest in the success of
policy and am able to dominate notions of both literacy or literacies – as far
as this study is concerned. Literacy as social practices based on empirical
research is a stark critique of a skills based approach and while they are not entirely
irreconcilable, adopting a literacies approach would seem to undermine much of
the infrastructure that defines the skills of life legacy that still dominates
adult literacy and ESOL teaching.
One of my current trainees quite expresses it quite well: ‘all
of this is very interesting but at the end of the day, I still have to tick
that box’.
What I explore with trainees are their own hybrid literacies,
or hybrid literacy conceptions. Am here echoing Wilson third space literacies,
Kell and the notion of literacy as shell that prohibits the formation of
literacies to emerge. But my intention is to explore trainees hybrid literacies.
That is the study looks at their changing ideas but in so doing I explore not their
explicit answer to the question: what do you understand by the term literacy,
what does it mean to be a competent literacy user. I also invite them to
reflect on the implications so literacy as social practice and to annotate their
own approaches to completing an assignment. I exploring their own reconciliations
of literacy and literacies my focus is not restricted to an entirely academic arena
but explores research participants literacies in different places and spaces.
The second exploration is methodological.
Although based largely on as aspect of my practice, I have
not framed this research as action research in that I do not particularly seek
to improve upon my any aspect of the programme as a result of this study. I am
however conscious of being deeply implicated within the study and to ensure my altering
presence part of the material under study.
The study makes
use of situational analysis: grounded theory pushed around the post-modern turn.
(I will need to add to this – for now – it’s blogged ,
as they say – it’s late, I will return at a later stage in a different colour)
Individual Human elements / actors
Literacy
students: case studies
Theorists –
Barton, Hamilton, Un-named author
Mentors
John Hayes (policy
Post16)
|
Non-human elements / actants
Online
spaces & electronic communications
Visual representations
of literacy (Curriculum documents & statistics)
ILPs /
Lesson Plans / Schemes of Work / Materials
Assignments
|
Collective Human elements / actors
Students (ESOL
/ Literacy)
Coalition
Policy
New Labour Policy
|
Implicated / silent actors / actants
Race, gender
and class
|
Key events in situation
Election
Spending review
and budget
Events in
organisations
|
|
Discursive constructions, individual or collective
human actors
The literacy / ESOL learner
Good / Proper English
Teachers metaphors for teaching
|
Discursive constructions of non-human actants
Race /
gender / class: irrelevant in official discourse & learning outcomes
|
Political / economic elements
Work context
ie teaching numeracy
|
Socio cultural / symbolic elements
Qualification
The literate
adult
|
Temporal elements: US national historical frame
Pre-Skills
for Life
Skills for
Life
Coalition
|
Spatial elements
Training
Rooms
workplaces
Tutorial rooms
Classroom
|
Major issue debates (usually contested)
conceptions
of literacy
|
Related discourses (historical narrative &/or
visual)
changing conceptions
of literacy
|
