The NSWALNC will hold the Annual General Meeting online on 5.30 pm Thursday 22 June. The 2023-24 Executive will be elected at the AGM. All are welcome.
Literacy and numeracy are lifelong and life-wide resources for engaging in social practices in the home, community and work. In recent decades, government policies in many countries in the Anglosphere have narrowed the focus of adult literacy and numeracy programs to employability skills training, and a competency-based training (CBT) model with tightly defined outcomes within accredited training. This reduces both the scope of programs and teachers’ and students’ agency to tailor the programs according to the students’ needs, interests and aspirations. From research and our experiences, we know that many adults want more than ‘basic skills’ when they attend adult literacy and numeracy classes. Often their needs and goals include reducing a sense of social alienation, building self-confidence and esteem to participate in learning and in the community, learning about contemporary economic, civic and social issues and exploring new purpose and goals in life.
This conference is a forum for exploring spaces and approaches to expand the scope of literacy and numeracy programs to enable students to gain personally meaningful educational outcomes through program participation. Invitations are extended for workshops and research presentations that deepen our collective understanding of what we can do to deliver more than instrumental skills to adult learners.
Call for Papers and Presentations will be out soon. Registration opens in July.
The NSWALNC held a webinar on Thursday 27 April on “The Referendum on the Voice to Parliament: Exploring the role of adult educators in engaging students in the debate”. The webinar was an opportunity for adult literacy and numeracy teachers to discuss, share and debate how we can support our learners' engagement with the Referendum on the Voice to Parliament. While recognising curriculum and assessment pressures that all teachers face, as adult educators we also have an obligation to create spaces to teach our learners the knowledge and skills they need to exercise their citizenship responsibility to be engaged in this important issue.
Date: Thursday 27 April 2023
Video: https://youtu.be/5EREdr-yDWE
Cost: NSWALNC 2023 Members Free; Non-Members $20.00
· Implement an artifactual literacies project in your class
· Celebrate the students' writings through an exhibition in your college
· Nominate a selection of your students' work to be displayed on the NSWALNC Online Artifactual Literacies Gallery
Artifactual literacies as a pedagogy is based on the idea that every learner will have an artifact to which they attach personal signifiance and meaning. The artifact can be used to elicit the learner's memories, passions, knowledge and cultural practices that can be transformed into different types of oral, written and multimodal texts. It can be the basis of their identity text.
Creating multimodal texts that give voice to who the learners are: their values and beliefs, their background, their 'ruling passions', what they want others to see in them.
Room D6.06 at Ultimo TAFE for the workshop - 5.30 - 7.00pm
Thursday 13th October 2022, the first Thursday of next term
Register:
https://www.trybooking.com/
The NSW Adult Literacy and Numeracy Council will hold its Annual General Meeting via Zoom at 6.30 pm Thursday 23 June 2022. The AGM will elect the President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and committee members. Members are encouraged to nominate for offices and to join the Committee. Registration details to follow.
Since March 2020, when the pandemic prevented face to face classes, adult literacy and numeracy teachers have been negotiating unprecedented challenges staying connected with their learners. In many education sectors, remote delivery using digital technologies was adopted as a solution during periods of lockdown, with varying degrees of success. However, this was not a viable option for many classes with disadvantaged learners.
What the experience of the pandemic has highlighted for us is both the fragility of the connections we develop with learners, particularly those with limited economic and technology resources, and the significance to these learners of our efforts to improvise ways of staying connected with them.
This conference takes up the theme of connecting with learners and their community, celebrating this as a key principle in the work we do. The conference will provide an opportunity to hear from researchers on studies they have undertaken that are related to this theme, and we invite you to share your initiatives, strategies and reflections on this theme with all of us.
