Practice

Teaching and learning resources

Skillsworkshop : a continually growing collection of Skills for Life and Functional Skills English and maths, ESOL and digital skills resources curated by Maggie Harnew. Most of the resources are created, and tried and tested, by practitioners.

Excellence Gateway: the Education and Training Foundation’s resources portal with thousands of resources covering a broad range of topics and including guidance, effective practice, teaching materials, research and CPD materials.

NALA's Tutors Information Hub contains some great downloadable literacy and numeracy workbooks.

Training and CPD resources

Engaging Parents and Families - a Toolkit for Practitioners: a resource from Education Scotland updated in 2021

Enhance Digital Teaching Platform: support from the Education & Training Foundation with embedding Essential Digital Skills includes online self-study CPD materials and an online community of practice.

Excellence Gateway Starter Kits: guidance and resources to support organisations starting out with literacy, language and numeracy delivery and help more established organisations 'take stock' of where they are at and plan for improvement. Toolkits cover a range of topics including dyslexia support, accessible learning

NALA's Tutors information hub contains some online guidance for 'Getting Started as a tutor' in teaching reading, writing, maths and more, as well as further teaching guidelines and reference books addressing a range of issues and contexts.

Courses and events

Campaign for Learning events: Camworkshops relevant to learning at work and family learning.

Enhance Digital Teaching Platform: regular CPD events organised by the Education & Training Foundation to support practitioners with embedding Essential Digital Skills.

NATECLA's Events list: a frequently updated list of upcoming events for ESOL teachers such as webinars and conferences.

MOOCs

Also keep an eye on online learning platforms such as Coursera, EDx and FutureLearn to see which MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are currently running.

At the time of writing, Coursera has courses by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis on Literacy Teaching and Learning: Aims, Approaches and Pedagogies and Multimodal Literacies: Communication and Learning in the Era of Digital Media, and Futurelearn has a course called Educational Research That Matters: Ways of Researching which might have relevance to adult literacies research.

Books

Teaching Adult Literacy: Principles and Practice By Nora Hughes and Irene Schwab (2010)

In this book, the authors offer friendly guidance on how to work with adult learners to develop their literacy skills and practices. They challenge the negative view of adult literacy learners as social ‘problems’, often described in terms of their deficits. They promote an alternative view of people who have rich resources and skills in many areas of their lives which they can bring to the learning process.

Why Literacy Matters: Understanding the Effects of Literacy Education for Adultsz By Ralf St. Clair (2010)

This book draws on decades of literacy research from around the world to contribute to the continuing debate about what literacy means and how it affects people throughout their lives.

Powerful Literacies By Jim Crowther, Mary Hamilton and Lynn Tett (2001)

First published in 2001, when literacy was propelled to the forefront of an agenda of social inclusion, participation and active citizenship, this book sought to interrogate the ideas, assumptions and policies that inform literacy practice.

More Powerful Literacies By Lynn Tett, Mary Hamilton and Jim Crowther (2012)

Building on the original Powerful Literacies, this title considers the developments in theory, technology and policy that were having an impact on learning and teaching literacies and addresses the policy context of the time of lifelong learning, active citizenship and social inclusion.