1. What works in workplace literacy?
Content Starter Set
Content Starter Set
What works in workplace literacy?
Heide Spruck Wrigley, Ph.D.
Workforce Summit, Austin
TX 2008 1

2. Numbers and Needs The Perfect Storm (See ETS Report)
As the US is in need of skilled workers, fewer youth and adults have the basic skills they need to succeed in training. As the nation will increasingly have to rely on immigrant workers, more individuals are entering the US who have only a high school education (or less). As studies show that finding jobs that pay a living wage requires at least some college, a very small number of ABE or ESL students are transferring from adult basic education to a community college or to other forms of skills training
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3. Using Immigration Data to Make your Case
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4. What Works: Lessons Learned
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Components
Actions
Policy
Start with demand positions; get employers on your side – link adult education to pre-employment and incumbent worker training
Funding
Be brave - show how little difference you are currently able to make and lobby for new models that will get people jobs that can sustain a family
LEP and Adult Ed
Rethink the sequential system and offer a multi-track system that creates a community ESL and family literacy track that is separate from basic ESL for work and training
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Tips: If the text in the cells is more than one line long, change their animation from Wipe From Left to Wipe From Top.
Variations: If you do not need to label columns, delete the heading row.
If you need more rows: (1) Reduce the height of the existing rows. (2) Move up rows 2 through 5 to create space for the extra rows. (3) Duplicate the last row (Edit  Duplicate) as many times as necessary. (4) Position the added rows. (5) Adjust the animation order of the new rows. (If you are unsure how to edit a custom animation effect, search for “animation” in the Microsoft Office PowerPoint help.)
Job Training
Work with adult ed to create models that combine basic skills education and occupational skills training – combine funds from ED and DOL
Instruction
Teach in portable chunks and provide enough time on task for the most important “take aways” for students.

5. Workforce Literacy and ESL
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Workforce Literacy and ESL
Promising Practices
This section contains pieces you may want to include on your slides and instructions on maintaining a consistent color scheme.

6. Work-based Learning in the Adult Literacy Classroom
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Work-based Learning in the Adult Literacy Classroom

7. What Works Get to know the perspective of the workers (Toyota)
Include both social language – and (sub)-technical language
Focus discussion of behaviours on cross-cultural differences – allow students’ different perspectivs to emerge (Hmong)
Invite students to demonstrate to you and to themselves (what can you do now, that you couldn’t do before?)
Use Can-Do Lists
We have Simple Can-Do Assessments for the workplace

8. Content Starter Set
Find out what matters to supervisors (“What’s the one thing that drives you crazy?”
Ask employees (“if you can only learn one thing in this class that will help you at work, what will it be?”)
Start with what people are expert in (their own lives and their work) –
Invite students to tell their story – (Your First Job) in multiple ways (sketches; story boards; digital pictures; posters)
Involve supervisors and staff – ask workers to conduct simple surveys and interviews and present their findings

9. Teach Listening Comprehension
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Present mini-lectures on interesting topics (cool news; technology; famous companies)
Present a scenario or critical incident
Use PowerPoints or pictures to illustrate
Focus on
Global listening (“what’s going on here?”)
Listening for details
Instructions and sequencing
Take advantage of YouTube video clips

10. Content Starter Set

11. Tales of Mere Existence
Using YouTube for Listening Comprehension
If your students are LEP, type up the text and read before and after listening; play the clip several times

12. Curriculum Resources

13. Curriculum Resources Work-related ESL
A few that I’ve been involved with:
LaGuardia Community College Curriculum
Hotel T.E.A.C.H
Texas Learns: Industry-specific ESL
May I Help You? ( Heide for free electronic copy the scenarios might give you some idea)
Communicating in the Real World (Wiley and Wrigley, Prentice Hall)

14. Keep in Mind
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Consider the demand of the workplace and get lots of examples and samples of the most critical needs in terms of
Functional literacy
Communication skills (social and technical)
Phone skills
Customer interactions
Peer interactions
Socio-cultural issues
Work-related vocabulary
Problem solving and decision making
Team work

15. Include Objects that Represent the Work (The Log)
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16. Working with Tools and Artifacts
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Students bring in tool that’s been in their family for a generation or more
Show others and discuss the relationship of the tool to their family history
Answer questions about the tool, such as
What is it?
Who used it?
What does it do?
What do you want your children to know about it?
Students create an in-class show case where they demonstrate the tool and ask each other questions
Teacher creates unit on tools that links traditional tools to new jobs and tools (e.g., lasers)

17. Scenarios for Work-based Problem Solving
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Scenarios for Work-based Problem Solving

18. Literacywork International
Teaching with Scenarios
An Integrated Strategy-based Approach to Teaching Work-based ESL
Tips for Teaching

19. Lesson Flow Interactive Teacher Presentation Story Map Discussion
Preview
Story Map Discussion
Think-Pair-Share Comprehen-sion Check
Retelling
Shared Reading
Discussing Options
Create Dialogue and Role Play
Language and Vocabulary Practice
Culture Notes
Literacywork International
LESSON FLOW

20. Telling the Story
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21. From Listening Comprehension to Reading
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22. Model Both Task and Language for Level 1 Learners
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Model Both Task and Language for Level 1 Learners
Speak Slowly, Demonstrate and Repeat

23. Content Starter Set
My First Job
This video can be seen on YouTube

24. Community Projects Focused on Work
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Community Projects Focused on Work
Displaced workers from Socorro, TX decide to fix up a broken down school in
El Faro, Chihuahua, Mexico

25. Wall board; paint; putty; saw; putty knife; paint brush
Integrate Language Development
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Link Vocabulary, critical thinking and project ideas
Problem
What We
Need to Do
Materials and Tools
Holes in the wall
Fix the wall
Wall board; paint; putty; saw; putty knife; paint brush

26. Community Improvement Projects
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Connecting Drawings, Vocabulary and Projects

27. Tools for Change
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Students use digital cameras to document process and study vocabulary

28. Take a Multi-Media Approach
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Take a Multi-Media Approach
Speak Slowly, Demonstrate and Repeat

29. Put the Technology in the Hands of the Learners
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Have students take pictures of their work stations, put them on overheads and invite students to explain what they do; help students to create “personal dictionaries” for the words that are particular to their job
Invite students to create How To segments, using story board, digital pictures of video
Involve students in projects and have them present results to supervisors (What was our First Job?), using PowerPoint
Have students act out silly scenarios – video-tape them and put them on YouTube (get releases!)

30. Money, Money, Money
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