Name / Project title

Train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors

Contact

Name : Marga Tubbing

Address : Parkstraat 105 2514 JH Den Haag, the Netherlands

Telephone no. : +31 (06) 443 49 008

Email : marga@lezenenschrijven.nl

Website : www.lezenenschrijven.nl

Country

Netherlands

Website

www.lezenenschrijven.nl

Lead organisation

Reading & Writing Foundation (Stichting Lezen en Schrijven)

Main partners

- ABC Foundation (Stichting ABC)

- The Light Fantastic (for meeting 5, the media training session for the language ambassadors)

Period of activity

The train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' ('Zeg het voort') language ambassadors was originally developed in 2006, as one of the projects that made up the 'Plan of Attack to Combat Functional Illiteracy. Involved from A to Z'. CINOP edited material that had originally been produced by a welfare organisation, conducted the training sessions, and in 2011 digitised the material and uploaded it to the www.basisvaardigheden.nl website, so that it was freely available across the entire sector.
In 2015, the Reading & Writing Foundation published a revised version of the material in conjunction with the ABC Foundation (which promotes the interests of people with literacy problems in the Netherlands). The material is currently being used in a number of different places in the Netherlands, and will remain in use in the coming years.

Language

Dutch

Objectives

The material from the train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors has the objective of making a contribution to breaking the taboo around functional illiteracy, raising awareness of the issue and recruiting new students.
The material is meant to equip teachers to train people who were functionally illiterate and who made the decision to pursue education, and help them to become fully-fledged language ambassadors. These teachers will complete the train-the-trainer programme so that they can then themselves go on to teach the 'Spread the Word' course to future language ambassadors. Language ambassadors have played, and continue to play, an instrumental role in guiding people with literacy problems towards reading and writing courses, and make a significant contribution to breaking down the taboos that surround literacy issues.

Target group

The primary target group for the material in the train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors is teachers who are working with low-literacy students and will be training students to become language ambassadors. The material consists of a number of different components. The manual is specifically intended for the teachers who will be teaching the 'Spread the Word' training sessions. The teachers' material also includes an intake form for future language ambassadors, two recruitment brochures, two games and wall charts showing the various components of the training programme. An information pack containing recent promotional material completes the resources at their disposal.

The secondary target group consists of those people with (former) literacy problems who are trained to become language ambassadors in the 'Spread the Word' training programme. In the teaching pack, the portfolio binder containing loose worksheets is meant for the future language ambassadors taking the 'Spread the Word' course.
 

Number of people involved

In the period from 2006-2010, CINOP was responsible for organising the train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors. During this period, around 80 teachers from virtually all 40 regional training centres (ROCs) were trained. These teachers went on to teach 'Spread the Word' courses to more than two hundred language ambassadors. 

The programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors is currently organised by the Reading & Writing Foundation and the ABC Foundation. The train-the-trainer course as it was initially developed is no longer taught in its original form. As part of the new approach, potential new trainers attend a training session being given to language ambassadors. They then go on to run training sessions for groups of future language ambassadors at their own teaching locations. It is not known how many teachers are currently active.

The training for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors takes place throughout the country. The programme was run eight times in 2015, with four to six language ambassadors being trained each time.

Main activities

The train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors includes the following activities for the primary target group (i.e. teachers):

• recruiting teachers to undergo the train-the-trainer programme.
• teaching the train-the-trainer programme to groups of teachers.

The training originally consisted of five half-day sessions in which the teachers covered the following topics:

- the profile of a language ambassador

- the activities of a language ambassador

- the recruitment of language ambassadors

- intake meetings with language ambassadors

- regional coordination and support for language ambassadors

The 'Spread the Word' training for future language ambassadors makes up part of the programme.
This training consists of five parts, which are usually spread across five half-day sessions:

Session 1: getting to know each other

Session 2: asking questions and listening

Session 3: my story

Session 4: telling your story and keeping your portfolio updated

Session 5: media training

The first four meetings work towards the language ambassador telling their personal story. It is important in this process that the language ambassadors gradually build their confidence, get more insight into their strengths and become adept at giving and receiving feedback. The fifth meeting is about dealing with the media and gives the language ambassadors the opportunity to learn about and practise skills such as dealing with journalists appropriately and giving interviews.

The language ambassadors that have been trained receive a certificate and can be deployed in all sorts of activities aimed at breaking down the taboos surrounding literacy issues, recruiting students for reading and writing groups, providing advice to organisations wishing to adjust their communications for people with literacy issues, providing information in conjunction with employees from the ABC Foundation and the Reading & Writing Foundation during meetings with stakeholders such as employers, and helping to train intermediaries (referrers) to recognise people with literacy issues and make appropriate referrals to the range of courses available.

Some ambassadors are also involved in liaising with government at the municipal and sometimes national level, and holding them to their responsibility to allocate sufficient funding for the provision of quality basic skills education. 

Methods for recruiting participants

The Reading & Writing Foundation and the ABC Foundation recruit teachers and volunteers to take part in the training programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors by promoting the programme among adult education providers, i.e. regional training centres (ROCs) and other institutions offering language courses. Both teachers and experienced, knowledgeable volunteers can be trained to become language ambassadors. Before starting training, applicants will first undergo a profile check by the organisations involved.  

Professionals involved

Professionals from the Reading & Writing Foundation and volunteers from the ABC Foundation are involved in the train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors. In addition, professionals from The Light Fantastic[1] contribute to session 5 (the media training) of the 'Spread the Word' training programme.  

Role of each professional

The professionals from the Reading & Writing Foundation are responsible for the design, publication and dissemination of the materials for the train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors.
The professionals and volunteers from the Reading & Writing Foundation and the ABC Foundation are jointly responsible for the regional coordination required in training language ambassadors:
there is one contact with responsibility for coordinating this in each region. This can be a language director, a regional employee or a volunteer. The contact is the spider in the web of the regional language ambassador network. In many regions, the contact will be someone from the ABC Foundation.

He or she has final responsibility for those providing the support and supervision of ambassadors, is familiar with the activities and materials of the Reading & Writing Foundation and the ABC Foundation, knows how the language ambassadors can be utilised and organises meetings, training sessions, outings and any follow-up training for language ambassadors within his or her department/region.
The contact also serves as the first point of contact for organisations wishing to make use of the services of a language ambassador. He or she is familiar with the competencies of the language ambassadors and knows which of the language ambassadors would be best for which activities.

When organising activities for language ambassadors, the contact can always turn to the ABC Foundation and the Reading & Writing Foundation for support. The professionals from The Light Fantastic design and run the fifth meeting of the 'Spread the Word' training programme, in which future language ambassadors learn about and are able to practise skills such as dealing with journalists appropriately and giving interviews.

Conceptual basis underlying the good practice examples

The conceptual basis underlying the train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors is that the best way to reach people with literacy issues from disadvantaged educational backgrounds is through other people from the same target group who have been in their shoes. The many taboos surrounding literacy issues (among non-immigrants) and the negative experiences people may have had in school make recruiting from this specific target group of people with literacy issues a very difficult process, one in which well-trained language ambassadors can play a key role.
The second basic assumption behind the concept of using language ambassadors is that it is absolutely essential that those ambassadors receive good mentoring and supervision from their teachers.

Finally, if you want to show people what it means to struggle with reading and writing, ambassadors are indispensable. Language ambassadors know first-hand what it is like to push past the taboos and get to work on improving their own literacy, which for many can be a long and difficult road. They also know the benefits to their everyday life, career and personal development of having taken the plunge and enrolled in a literacy course.

For this reason, the train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors is aimed at equipping people who have already undergone education to address their literacy issues, so that they can, in turn, reach out to other people with literacy issues and play a role in breaking through the taboos surrounding this topic. As part of this, the programme devotes a great deal of attention to boosting the confidence and self-image of the language ambassadors, and helping them to tell their personal stories effectively, so that each story can help contribute to transcending the taboos surrounding the subject.

Resources and Materials List

The material for the training programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors consists of:

• Manual for teachers running the 'Spread the Word' training
• Recruitment brochures (for participants and for teachers/language volunteers)
• Portfolio binders for participants
• Loose worksheets for participants, to go in their portfolio binders
• Wall charts: four sets to be used in the first four training sessions
• 'Getting to know each other' game
• 'Learning about your strengths' game

Financing

The train-the-trainer programme for language ambassadors that was developed in 2006 was funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science as part of the project 'Plan of Attack to Combat Functional Illiteracy 2006-2010: Involved From A to Z'. The revised version of the train-the-trainer programme published in 2015 by the Reading & Writing Foundation and the ABC Foundation was also funded by resources made available by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science for the purpose.

Evaluation

The new version of the 'Spread the Word' training programme for language ambassadors was piloted in Rotterdam in 2015. This is not a version of the original train-the-trainer course, but a training programme for language ambassadors themselves, which is attended by potential trainers/supervisors.
This pilot has been evaluated, mainly with the aim of identifying areas for improvement when translating the programme for a Europe-wide rollout.

The most important overall findings that emerged from this evaluation were as follows:

• Add points relating to preconditions (finances, aftercare, supervision, structure).
• Add a preparatory session in which language ambassadors can get to know each other in a relaxed way.
• Propose follow-up sessions in which language ambassadors can build on their skills in greater depth.
• Make the telling of one's personal story into an even more integral part of the training.

Political impact and policies

Preventing and combating functional illiteracy has been a key priority for the Dutch government for many years, especially for the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, but also, and increasingly, for the Ministries of Social Affairs and Employment and of Health, Welfare and Sport. The training of language ambassador trainers, and training and certifying of language ambassadors, were mentioned explicitly for the first time in the 'Plan of Attack to Combat Functional Illiteracy 2006-2010: Involved From A to Z'.

In the period 2012-2015, during the Literacy Action Plan[2], no explicit attention was given to the training of new ambassadors, and the abolition of the forced sourcing of educational tools in the period 2015-2018 means the loss of a nationwide, structured network of ambassador supervisors at every regional training centre who are each responsible for their own group of ambassadors.

With the new national structure described above, the Reading & Writing Foundation and the ABC Foundation are continuing the utilisation of language ambassadors.
Over the past few years, we have seen at the regional level of politics that municipalities are supporting the use of language ambassadors in their policy plans for adult education, and that some regional training centres are given the scope to start or continue educating and supervising language ambassadors.

In 2016, a new action programme aimed at preventing and combating functional illiteracy will be launched: 'Language Matters' ('Tel mee met Taal'). Reaching people with literacy issues will continue to be a key priority in this programme, which means that, in principle, there is the scope to train and use language ambassadors. It is not yet clear what explicit role the language ambassadors, and the training of language ambassadors, will be given. The extent to which national politics will incorporate language ambassadors in the 'Language Matters' programme will become clearer over the next few years.

Transferability

The train-the-trainer programme for 'Spread the Word' language ambassadors is to be translated so that it can be used in other European countries as well. In the Netherlands, there has been a structured approach to training language ambassadors for many years now. They are frequently employed in campaigns aimed at breaking down taboos, and a wide range of regional and national networks and tools is available to this end. If the programme is adopted by other countries, it must be integrated into their existing structures.

Reference List

'Spread the Word' language ambassadors training manual, Reading & Writing Foundation, The Hague (2015)