The Curriculum

Adult Literacy and Numeracy (ALN) Curriculum Framework for Scotlandpart2

Part Two: Practice
 
1. The Curriculum
 
The curriculum is based on three principles. It should:
 
  • Promote self-determination among learners, helping them to make informed choices about how and what they learn and to take responsibility for their learning. It should also do this by making sure that literacy and numeracy learning is seen as part of an individual?s lifelong learning journey and keeping abreast of changing demands of the new literacies as society and technology require. It is not a quick remedial input.
  • Develop an understanding of literacy and numeracy with particular emphasis on critical awareness of how and why communications of all sorts are produced and how they are intended to have an effect on us. This involves considering who produced the communication in whatever form (text, statistics, graffiti, etc), who the intended audience was, what message the producer was trying to get across both explicitly and implicitly and how the reader might be affected by it. De-coding communications in this way enables tutors and learners to see that all communications have a purpose and none are neutral.

Encouraging critical literacy is a major strand of literacy practice in one area. It is not considered an advanced skill for abler learners; rather every opportunity is taken to open up discussion. For instance, one learner was asked why he always wrote Doctor and Teacher using initial capital letters. An interesting discussion ensued about important people in the community and how we write about them.

Tutors are encouraged to use local and national newspapers, current pictures and those resources which encourage discussion and opinion-giving. It is acknowledged that tutors and learners may feel more secure practising handwriting and spelling skills but monthly volunteer meetings and regular supervision for tutors encourage creative and critical practice.
  • Recognise and respect difference and diversity through making sure that programmes are responsive to learners? preferred uses of literacy and numeracy and their values and contexts.

Respecting Language Diversity
 
A group comprising six men, a tutor and two volunteers worked on individual projects for the first hour of their session, then the tutor led the rest of the session.
 
One of the volunteer tutors introduced one of the learners as having a family from the Scots travellers community. The tutor asked about the man?s knowledge of the Cant (secret language of the travellers derived from Roma). The learner mentioned a few words but all the men in the group knew them as Edinburgh dialect words. The tutor explained the historic background to land enclosure and the arrival of gypsies in the 16th century as itinerant harvesters to the south and east of Edinburgh as a reason why so many Cant or Roma words were in the dialect.
 
He asked everyone to contribute Edinburgh dialect words and made a list on the board of those words which were also Cant or Roma. Some of the words are also of Hindi origins as identified by a Hindi speaker in another group. Thus the group made a linguistic connection between working class Edinburgh and India over a period of 500 years.

Cant/Roma or Hindi words in Edinburgh dialect

chore                      
peeve                   
shan                
barry                  
chavvie               
raj                          
manashae             
deekin                 
gadgie                 
giddie                  
hornie                 
tam                    
naggings

thief or to steal (Cant, Roma and Hindi)
a generic term for alcoholic drink (Cant, Roma and Hindi)
bad (Cant/Roma)
beautiful/good (Cant/Roma /Hindi)
son/young man (Cant)
mad /angry (Cant/Roma/Hindi)
woman (Cant)
looking (Cant/Roma Hindi - deco)
man (Cant)
children (Cant)
policeman (Cant)
beer
pal/friend 

This session was extremely energised and productive, the words tumbling out. The men were amused and proud of their own dialect, and enjoyed sharing and remembering it. They gave examples of using some of the words:
 
I felt really barry when Celtic won the match at the weekend.

My manashae went raj when she smelt the tam in my kear.

My naggings is a barry chavvie. 
 
The man who was of travelling folk had the natural authority as a Cant speaker and there was clearly a lot more language and lore the group could explore.
 
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