Thank you everyone for this incredibly active and fruitful discussion. EPALE's aim is to provide a platform for adult learning professionals to exchange ideas, network and collaborate. If you want to continue this discussion on EPALE, we recommend that you create a community of practice on adult literacy. This is a great opportunity to discuss further topics and establish professional connections.

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Dear Collegues, I am working as a trainer for German as a Foreign/Second language in a region in Austria.

In the Adult Literacy project in 2013 we were coping e.g. with low reading skills in Austria which according to PIAAC study were partly linked also to migration.

Upskilling pathways for asylum seekers often starts with alphabetisation classes. We see differences between learners who just have to learn the German characters and those who were illiterates at home. I did not understand in the first weeks that some could not read the translation that was projected onto the wall until I pressed the loudspeaker symbol or a collegue could read the word in Arabic or Farsi/Persian. Adult literacy is linked to basic education and indirectly also to problem solving competences when it comes to do exercises according to pre-defined schemes.

Online learning with smart phones is encouraging. Easy videos with drawings, selected written words and spoken texts have worked best. There is a clear need for more videos that are suited for alphabetisation and A1 beginners classes. As a trainer we have to support the learners to find the right choice of online resources.

Hello all.

How encouraging to note all these inetresting and intriguing comments, information, ideas and suggestion. 

I will tackle illiteracy from the perspective that adults per se  are not necessarily illiterate in reading/writing, but from the survival point of view, i.e. that of keeping "our heads above water" in a world that has become increasingly connected to technological advances, but forgetting the basic human needs.

We all know of people who in the past(and even nowadays) weren't fortunate enough to either finish their education for reasons ranging from social,emotional,physical, mental or other similar isssues ; others in some parts of the world didn't/dont have access to education , or their culture(this especially applies to woman)bars them from doing so.

Unless these people have their basic needs satisfied( Maslow's hierarchy of needs),immaterial of race, class,gender,or religion they will remain oblivious to the educational campaigns and services provided to the general public.

These people need constant support to make them believe in themselves and that they count , a voice to represent them, physical and psychological help, monitoring and encouragement to say the least. Only when holistic support is offered, can they begin to move forward.

Vulnerable people who fall into this category are migrants, single parents and women who are financially dependent on their male partners.Research shows that financial abuse is a tactic used by abusers to gain power and control.

This vicious circle can only be broken thorough literacy, leading to gainful work , independence and personal growth.

In Malta, thousands of Euros are dedicated every year towards Adult Literacy; progress has been noted, yet  the desired percentage has not yet been reached and the imbalance still persists.

With regards to methodology and how teachers engage their adult learners,we need to be aware that there isn't a one size fits all learning style.Learners are individuals who range from kinestethic,visual, auditory or  conventional. It is not an easy task, but  by setting attainable SMART(  Specific,Measurable,Attainable,Relevant,Time-bound) goals, we can help make learning an adventure instead of a chore, building on and exploiting their skills and hidden talents.

I conclude by posting a facebook link about the schooling system in Finland.

Where To Invade Next (Finland Schools)

Dear all, so many interesting comments and discussions! Being a former teacher in languages, this is great! Due to certain facts I could not continue my points of view, which I started earlier but I will just briefly explain what I meant by the example from Botkyrka Library south of Stockholm, Sweden. This was in 2014 and it was a Grundvig project. What was interesting here (the project was also highlighted as one of the best practices that year) was that so many people were involved and the inhabitants of this municipality were involved to a very high level. This from specific citizens, women in different ages to families with children and older people. Here some links to this event and to the project:

https://www.facebook.com/events/498086770292797

https://literacyforallnetwork.wordpress.com/tag/literacy-for-all-botkyrka-2014/

https://www.ifla.org/node/8382

http://www.bi-international.de/download/file/ReportUNESCO-BID.pdf

Here some more info and a link to a project. I also consider you to go to the page for the European Language Label, where you can find many interesting projects on this theme!

https://www.skolverket.se/om-skolverket/publikationer/visa-enskild-publikation?_xurl_=http%3A%2F%2Fwww5.skolverket.se%2Fwtpub%2Fws%2Fskolbok%2Fwpubext%2Ftrycksak%2FRecord%3Fk%3D3745

https://www.facebook.com/ProjectLandofHope/posts/1171580872880746

Dear all,

Thank you very much for your very active participation. 

The discussion will not be moderated beyond 20:00 CET today, but it will stay open and you can add your comments tonight or tomorrow. 

David Mallows and I will attempt to set up a sort of summary of all the many themes that we have dealt with. 

Stay connected!

Graciela

Dear Participants,

I’m so glad to be part of this conversation and experience other points of views and opinions. My research topic is dyslexic adults in the higher education. With a growing number of dyslexic students in Hungary I think it is important to mention dyslexia in the connection with literacy.

A skill profiles of the dyslexic students  and the teaching methods strongly influence their educational career and as a result of this success in their life.  I would like to mention hereby the relevant definiton of Carlos ("capacity to use information for daily life" ), because in my opinion it’s really matter how adults with special learning needs can use their literacy skills  in the everyday life. The professionals working with these people have a responsibility to maximize their success through their skills.

My comment maybe reveal a different point of view, but I think we can discuss about literacy in other aspects as well. It is important for me to represent the interests of socially and culturally disadvantaged adults.

Thank you for the interesting conversation and I hope we will follow up each other in the future. :) 

Katalin Gatas-Aubelj from Budapest, Hungary

I`m learning designer and I work every day with different texts on a computer, with young people and older adults…

Today's literacy requires skill to navigate and click on the right place, more simple texts, excitement and attractiveness. Technology has changed life. It may be important to develop digital literacy and, with this, we can develop traditional literacy skills. Resources have changed.

There is no time to think and understand, it is necessary to act all the time. :)

My name is Merle Koik, I work in library and also I am an ambassador of Epale in Estonia. I would like to mention the role that libraries can play in helping people manage different literacy problems. As members of the local community, the employees of our library have noticed that a lot of people lack the self-confidence and the courage to go to different trainings to develop personal skills. They suffer from a low self-esteem in this regard. A library, on the other hand, is an organization they are used to visit and they often turn to our librarians for help. This comfortableness with the library as an institution is a very good possibility to engage people to raise their literacy skills. One good example: we offer free individual training service to our library readers with low digital skills and this is really popular.

Hello to everyone. I am Ramon Mangion, an EPALE Ambassador for Malta and Curriculum Administrator at the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology.

Some interesting comments were posted in this discussion. I particularly noted a comment regarding the fact that there are  wise people who may be not be literate. However I would like to go beyond that, and comment on literacy as a central key component linked to many areas. 

Firstly let's go back to the basics and look at some general consequences of adult iliteracy :

• Issues with understanding  essential information
• Unemployment or precarious work
• Reduced access to lifelong learning and development opportunities
• Low self esteem

This can eventually then also link with other basic skills such as digital literacy, particularly in this day and age when everything is online. This includes government services, banking services, communication services such as internet, television and cable services and bill payments. Once again a lack of other basic skills further exacerbates the points that I mentioned above. Hence this is why I see 'adult literacy' as a fundamental component and thus every effort should be made to improve current literacy figures.

One of the questions posed as part of this discussion is 'What needs improvement in literacy teaching and learning' ?   We need to first understand the problem ( if any). Is there a problem ?  Is it an issue of access ? is it an issue of incorrect approaches to teaching literacy ? I am keeping these questions open on purpose.

Considering the Maltese context, I can surely say that a significant amount of money was spent , and is still being spent by the government and NGO's to create and improve literacy programmes. Such programmes target a wide range of adults from different walks of life, and age groups. If I had to provide a constructive comment, I would say that maybe apart from  focusing on providing literacy skills, efforts should also be made for campaigns that target awareness and which look at why literacy is important ? What programmes are available ? How can help be sought ?. This can also be done in partnership with various stakeholders such as employers,education institutions, government entitites and community groups. 

Any comments are appreciated. I tried to provide some brief points regarding this discussion. 

Hi everybody,

My name is Laurence Martin and I am Director of a French association (APapp) which is supporting a pedagogical label existing since 30 years : the APP (Ateliers de Pédagogie Personnalisée). Our teachnig approach is based on guided self-training to help people get needed competences in personal and professional life. Our method is highly based on humanely and attention, considering welcomed people in their global situation, giving them an active role during all the training process, as a stakeholder and not only a learner.

Showing them that they already have numerous skills and competences, giving them enough self confidence to actively involve themselves in VET actions.

In France 7 % of the active population has strong literacy difficulties and they are hidding it. As they have this difficulty, they consider themselves often as unskilled. Our role is to show them how skilled they are to find issues to face it.

Learning approach can be linked to their personal interests : cooking, travelling, helping kids for their homeworks... Limiting competences to the professional field is the best way to fail reaching everybody.

Dear all,

My name is Nicoletta Ioannou and I was the Cyprus National Coordinator for the implementation of the EU Agenda for Adult Learning in 2014-15. In the framework of Cyprus’ project we organized an Information Day on the issue of how to widen access of adults to education and training and enhance their basic skills.  I am glad to mention that a member of the Executive Committee of the European Basic Skills Network participated in the event and highlighted the issue of basic skills provision from a European perspective. I could not agree more that basic skills are the foundation of highly adaptive workforce but mostly for the active participation of the individuals in the community and social life.  Among the several themes raised in the event was also the fact that experiences and know how from several European countries with advance practice of basic skills provision and teacher training facilities can be of best use for countries such as Cyprus that have limited experience on this issue.

Interestingly, in the aforementioned Info Day, a lot of challenges were raised by the stakeholders that participated in the event, such as representatives of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Labour, Welfare and Social Insurance, the Human Resource Development Authority and participants of second chance schools. Below, I share some of these challenges:

• Establishment of stronger synergies among all stakeholders involved in the sector.
• Introduction of mechanisms to trace adults who are at-risk of social exclusion through the cooperation of Ministries, the business sector and the local authorities.
• Provision of individual support for each adult in order to identify his/her needs, and provide appropriate guidance regarding the available programmes and other existing opportunities.
• Motives to adults with low basic skills so as to return to education.
• Childcare services for adults who wish to attend second chance schools.
• Establishment of stronger links between education and labour market needs.
• Provision of accurate and constant information on the existing education and training opportunities through information campaigns and other actions.
• Strengthening learning in the workplace and increase the flexibility of the existing programmes.
• Focus on validation of all types of learning (including non-formal and informal learning) and using of existing or currently developed mechanisms, including the National Qualifications Framework to enable adults to continue their educational paths. 
• Empowering adult educators who work with vulnerable adult learners, mostly through relevant training.
• Defining basic skills and the levels of skills proficiency in the Cyprus context
• Development of policies that target adults with low basic skills, unemployed, elderly people, immigrants, employed adults with low basic skills and early school leavers.
• Ensuring that individuals who participate in these programmes acquire an adequate level of basic skills.

Referring to Christiana’s post and David’s comment, I would say that many of the challenges mentioned above, can be considered as barriers of adults to participate in education. These are related to policy issues (e.g. explicit policies on basic skills provision), effective communication among the respective stakeholders, raise awareness campaigns to make available opportunities known to the adult learners, individualized support and provision of motives. In my opinion, dealing with the above in a systematic way can enhance participation of adults.  

Thank you for the absolutely important issue of adult literacy. I would like to comment on Estera Mozina’s posting because I am from Hungary, Budapest, which being in the same central European region, shares some historic and cultural aspects with Slovenia.

My name is Agnes Stepan and I work for the Association of Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge (Hungarian TIT) where there are numerous educational programmes: projects and courses for adult learners. This institute was founded in 1841 with almost the same aims. The most important areas seem to be the teaching of foreign languages to the “adult” to enable them to be part of the modern multicultural Europe.

While the number of speakers of foreign languages is growing, there is still a lot to be done in the field of minorities. The Hungarian government has done/ does a lot to support the various minority groups living and flourishing in Hungary and has achieved lots of success among the German, the Serbian, the Slovakian, the Armenian, the Rumanian, the Croatian groups, who can use and practise their mother tongues, and culture, but there is still a lot to do to help the Roma people. I agree with Estera’s opinion in seeing the life skills of these communities.

Talking about our improvements, we have to mention that a number of Roma people have been able to finish their higher education, professional trainings, and they are able to adopt to the working society and become its successful citizens.

We would like to extend and “export” our achievements to the Hungarian communities outside our borders, because we believe that after getting to know each other we will be somehow similar and “similis simili gaudet”.

Agnes Stepan

Thank you for your input, Carlos. I think I agree with you. Particularly with your first paragraph!

Regarding the problem we face: there is a place for talking about 'initial literacy', because the cognitive process of breaking the code should be addressed differently than the training needed to continuously develop your literacy to be able to maintain a level of functionality. It is useful to distinguish between two very different types of training!

Regarding gaps: I agree with you that such a negative approach may put the target group off. But talking to policy makers about the gap between existing and desired average level of functional literacy in the population does not at all mean that you look at the target group as people in a situation of inferiority nor indeed that you lack respect for them or the wish to empower them for autonomous learning. Quite the contrary.

Hi everybody,

My name is Agnes Nemeth, I'm from Budapest, Hungary, involved in higher education and adult education.

I totally agree with Armando and Estela, for me literacy is a skill to gather information for your daily life.

This skill should be developed from primary school, taught children how to think and get access to the info they need. Still, adult people, who could not fulfill this aim and learn how to do it, are in short of the key competences for a successful life.

Therefore yes, I think the role of digital education is getting essential.

If an adult needs some info, he/she tries to surf the Net. Doing so he has to scroll for info, read, and learn how to read information as gist, selective or detailed way. Step by step he will learn how to get the necessary info, how to compare it and will have to choose the best alternative. Here we can say that this person during this process develops his reading skills.

At the same time this person would need to fill in questionnaires, order things or subscribe to different places. So, while developing his reading skills, he will develop his writing competence, too.

Eventually, this person will feel himself more and more self-confident, having been able to do the above mentioned things. He will start listening to instructions, announcements, look at different materials; first at popular science, later on other issues, too.

In the end, this self confidence will make him want to learn more and more, he will not be embarrassed to speak; as he has got a lot of knowledge by now, enabling him to make up his own opinion and express it with ease.

I think this is the future, either at my field: learning and teaching foreign languages or at other professional fields.

The less burden, density, complexity, nuances, inject into the concept of literacy, the greater capacity we will have to influence a real progression in the European situation in this matter.
The simpler the better!
But it is important to reaffirm that we are not only faced with the elementary operations of reading and writing. Adults with high levels of schooling, including the Higher level, are unable to complete forms of finance to declare their taxes, do not know how to respond to their bank that has just increased the provision of home loan and can not read / support a map to define a tourist route in a city.
That's why it's so uninteresting to talk about Basic Literacy. Literacy, period.
Use the information available to act. The information elements to consider are those of the subject, those of which he is the bearer and those that the context places as the field of application.
It is a process of mobilization and adequacy. Different from the concept of competence that requires a combinatorial and creative operation between knowledge, skills and attitudes.
And make no mistake. The best way to support processes of improvement in the literacy of each person is not from "needs" and seek to bridge the so-called gap between the current state and the desired state. The needs-based process is always a reason to press on the side of "structural needs, economy, development, etc." It would be useful to base improvement programs on "priorities" in what is truly important to the person and that will make him act for something that is achievable and compatible with his own motivations and goals.
But this is already asking to be caught up in literacy from the point of view of the development of people, which some consider a waste of time and even a joke of bad taste

... and which is worth watching:

David Mallows wrote: "If we lived in a different context, reading and writing would be less valued than, for example growing food, or mending houses, or dancing very well. But we don't and so we strive to educate others in literacy so that they can navigate our literate world. The important thing is that we don't forget that there are other skills, competences, attributes that should be valued - and often those who lack literacy make up for it in other ways. 

This reminds me greatly of the thoughts of Alberto Melo which I was lucky enough to capture on video and you can see here."

Do watch that video. It's a wonderful contribution to our discussion.

Hi All

My name is Kenneth Camilleri and I am currently responsible for the accreditation of programmes in General Education.

I am new to the platform and was enticed to this online discussion considering its relevence vis a vis our national education strategy. Like Martin Dobes above I am more of a practitioner and as Gina Ebner suggested earlier on the needs of policy makers are rather more basic/direct. Although I found the discussions on the definitions of Literacy interesting I have to say I found the link to the Norwigian even more useful and relevant. I will definitely promote similar initiatives with the local sectorial skills council. Thanks Graciela Sbertoli for bringing it up and Martin Dobes for provoking discussion.

On another note Malta is currently promoting the design and accreditation of programmes in a wide spectrum of different areas that integrate core literacy (understood as English, Maltese, ICT & Numeracy Literacy) in their Learning Outcomes. By focusing on functional literacy one hopes to improve the overall level of Literacy. 

Although basic education is neither a particularly new area of education nor a "niche offer" there is no uniform picture of what is basic education about. 

The regularly recurring demand for a "clear" definition of basic education relapses as unheard of as it emerges: 

- Basic education may be more than a fixed educational offer for a narrowly defined addressee group, some say.

- Basic education as a concept is not comprehensible, too fluid, not concrete enough, the others say.

The fact is that basic education courses with various faces, have multiplied over the last few years. In particular policy making and governmental programme planning documents provide frameworks of conditions and (quality) requirements. Also the possible location of basic education in the European/National qualification frameworks could be seen as a call to define what basic education is about. Therefore we are wondering: to what extent does it require a clear description of basic education in order to position itself against other areas of education and other policy areas? Is there a need for a defnition within the basic education scene? Who is needed to adequately basic education? Or does basic education through clear positioning build its own borders and run the risk of losing its inherent diversity?

Best wishes from Austria,

Ricarda (EPALE ambassador NSS Germany)

I saw a post making reference to the New London Group (have long been a fan) and now can't find it in the feed. Any ideas?

Ros

Hello,

My name is Kevin Morgan and I work at ProLiteracy, a nonprofit organization based in Syracuse, New York. Our mission is to increase adult literacy rates in the United States where 36 million adults have low literacy skills as well as partner with other programs internationally to address the 800 million adults with low literacy rates worldwide.

What do we mean by adult literacy? We define "adult" as an adult who is 16 years old or older. Typically they fall into one of three groups. Adult basic education (low literacy level), Adult secondary education (higher literacy level but no high school degree) and ESL, varying degrees of literacy levels but english is a second language. Historically "literacy" has been defined as reading, writing and basic math skills. However that has broadened to now include Financial Literacy (the ability to budget, save, etc.), Health Literacy (the ability to interact with the healthcare system and live a healthy lifestyle), and Digital Literacy (the ability to interact with digital devices). In addition the concept of workforce training is more and more coming under the "literacy umbrella". Often times this education includes so called "soft skills" such as showing up to work on time, how to follow instructions, how to interact with a team, etc.

The main challenge in supporting adults who wish to improve their literacy skills is scaling the education resources. Both government and private funding is flat or declining and often targets childhood education only. We have 1000 member programs around the U.S., many are community based organizations that report a waiting list of adults seeking literacy education. The demand is there but resources are limited. We believe increasing adult literacy rates can positively impact social issues such as poverty, crime, job creation and civic participation. We recently published a white paper, The Case for Investment in Adult Basic Education, that showed increases in income for those adults who received at least 100 hours of instruction. David Mallows mentioned the PIAAC study in another thread, that study is also an execellent source of data.

Hello everybody. It was nice to read all the posts - and there are really many of them. I myself feel more of a practician than a theory maker as for the past 10 years, I have been trying to find new approaches in human resources development and adult education in the Czech Republic. 

When I was going through all the comments, a rather provocative question occurred to me: What if there is no sense in searching for the right definition of literacy in a world that is changing so fast?

In prehistoric time, man was expected to perform activities like hunting, stone shaping, pottery making etc. in order to survive and be successful in the society. From the beginning of the 20th century, people who couldn´t read and write could not reach a certain level of education and further skills which casted them out of the skilled and successful society. In our time, we talk about applied or functional literacy as necessary for a man to successfully participate in a society. 

There have truly been constant changes in what was needed and expected from a man to live and develop in the world. But what is a phenomenon: these changes become so fast that the definition of is really needed from us to be able to perform is widening every year. This is why - at least in my humble opinion - many people come with new and new definitions and include areas like ecological literacy and so no to the wider context of basic adult literacy.

We might expect these discussion about what is literacy will become even wilder in the future. For a period of my life, I lived in countries like India, Pakistan, or the Middle East. I spoke to many young people who just finished their studies and they asked me about Europe and how much they want to go and find a job and live there. But even if they received higher education, their skills were different than skills which are usually expected here in the EU. I am not talking just about job relate skills, but also cultural and societal skills. Thus, the definition of what is basic for a man to be able to live a happy social and working life depends not only on historical period, but also on a country where he or she lives. 

This is why I named this post as “floating definitions”. Changes are so fast and our minds are sometimes too slow – at least the one of mine. But we can perhaps say there will be one skill which will be needed for everyone, regardless of age and future time: ability to learn.

I tried to rethink this theme in this blog /en/blog/literacy-skills-difference-between-now-and-then.

Thanks everybody for your posts...