Return-Path: <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id hA3FraV16253; Mon, 3 Nov 2003 10:53:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 10:53:36 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <A1DF203D7C27D411A4EC00D0B7805580503479@wrl_ntserver.jcplin.org> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Jenny Ransone" <JRansone@jcplin.org> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2599] Re: query X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 9076 Lines: 181 Hi George, I'll try to answer your questions. First I'll deal with training. Since I have no knowledge of your training, I can only suggest that, yes, you would have to at the very least add some things to training. As I said, I have been working with EFF for quite some time and at this point the EFF philosophy and framework are imbedded in my training. My orientation includes an introduction to EFF. I present the EFF model as our philosophy of adult education. For example, literacy is not about reading, writing, speaking and listening, it includes all 16 skills on the EFF skills wheel. I also use the EFF framework to plan and facilitate all tutor training so tutors are always seeing EFF in action. At first what I did was, as I became comfortable with aspects of the EFF Framework, I had a workshop for tutors on that piece. I believe it is very important to only add what can be adequately supported by staff members, so slow and steady is my advice. I might suggest beginning with the goal setting tools that are available at http://cls.coe.utk.edu/efftlc/step1.htm since they are easy to grasp and very useful for tutors and students. Let me try to give an example of how things might look if your program were an "EFF" program. You said that you have small groups, not one on one tutoring, but I assume you still do individual goal setting with students before they begin tutoring. So you have three students who generally share a reading level. When they meet with the tutor they might share their goals with each other and discuss whether those goals are about the family member, community member, or worker role. They would also look at the commonalities and differences in their stated goals. This discussion would lead to a decision by the group of what they want to work on for the next few weeks. Let's say that they decide they want to be able to read the movie ads and schedules in the paper. The tutor might ask them which of the 16 skills they think will be necessary to achieve this. Let's go with the obvious choice of Read With Understanding. The tutor would then use the Components of Performance for the standard Read With Understanding and the Entertainment section of the newspaper to create a lesson/lessons for the group. This is a very simplified example since it does not include all aspects of the EFF Teaching/Learning Cycle, but I hope it gives you the basic feel of an EFF lesson. So how will your curriculum fit in? I don't know, but possibly as resources to base the activities on. I can tell you that my office has nearly no "curriculum." Instead we have many resources with strategies that tutors can use with the context that comes out of the students' goals and interests. As for tutors who are at a loss, well I have to think that since we are in the volunteer business we will always have this issue. The only thing that I can say is that I have come to the place where I don't have to say, "This is EFF." We simply are EFF and whether the tutors can name it or not is not important to me. We simply keep in closer contact with those tutors who seem to be confused and offer all the support we can. I could go on and on, but I think this is enough for one post. I encourage you to keep learning about and experimenting with EFF as I believe it is the most holistic and current method of adult literacy instruction. Jenny Ransone Program Coordinator Adult Learning Center Johnson County Public Library 401 South State Street Franklin, IN 46131 (317) 738-4677 -----Original Message----- From: George E. Demetrion [mailto:socrates555@juno.com] Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 7:56 AM To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2594] Re: query Thanks to everyone for the excellent feedback. It's obvious that there are some programs that are similar enough to ours in which EFF has been successfully implemented. That knoweldege, itself, is important data, regardless of problems that others may have had either (a) in implementing EFF, or (b) in determining whether the framework fits their educational, programmatic, and organizational structure. While briefly introducing EFF to one of our tutors who has a very solid grasp of how systems and organizations work, he emphasized the importance of identifying and articulating the benefits of what EFF potentially could bring to the program. That identification I will be doing, along with an analysis of the barriers and problem in a force-field analysis of costs and benefits. As part of that information gathering process, anyone thinking of moving forward with EFF in volunteer literacy programs would do well to listen closely to the collective experience of Jenny, Taylor, and Caroline. As a start (and I think it's worthwhile to have this discussion on the list, perhaps with more in-depth probing off-list), let me pose a query both to these folks and obviously anyone else who would care to respond: In terms of program implementation, how has EFF shifted what your students and tutors do together in their sessions? More specifically (and perhaps speculatively), can you talk about the shift in emphasis from a program where a wide range of instructional materials on various life themes (related to the instrumental, human interest, cultural, and aesthetic (fiction) has been the basis for both an emphasis on reading development and engaged discussion on a variety of themes (our program), to one that would be more problem focused (I presume) based on a clearer focus on goals for which the EFF model would ideally fit, in particular, for a small group setting organized on approximate reading levels (We no longer provide one-to-one tutoring). In your thinking can you include what would remain the same in terms of curriculum and instructional focus as well as what would likely be different? In bringing this out, if I thought the model we are working on (where a wide array of materials and themes are presented and tutors (mostly) choose what to work on, was working exceedingly well, I wouldn't be at this point in my re-thinking. To be sure, when this model works well, especially with our more gifted tutors who particularly like this format, there may not be much to change--though even with these folks an effective presentation of the EFF framework might well enhance what they are doing. The more perplexing issue is among tutors who may not understand contextual-based instruction well and who equate literacy predominantly (or exclusively) with reading and don't see the value in linking instruction to critical areas in people's lives. We discuss this (of course) in our training and the recommended materials that I have organized (or created) are linked both to levels and to the key topics of employment, family, civics, health, culture, and learning to learn. There are also a lot of other texts available and what often happens is that tutors become comfortable with two or three (and in some cases one!) sources, so that the reality is that instruction becomes material rather than content driven in the dynamic sense in linking up with areas that students are powerfully interested in. To be sure, there's some middle ground here in our student-generated texts, the News for You, the human interest stories, materials on culture, etc., and creative tutors do wonders with these resources. Even still, others seem to be at a loss, which may be linked to not quite having the connection between what they are seeking to accomplish in their sessions and what students want and need. And of course, everyone wants reading and that is always a bottom-line focus, to which obviously, there's much merit, though there's more, much more, and it is that which we also want to include. On a related note, the more improvisational style that I initially fostered coming out of models and themes of progressive adult literacy education of the early 1990s, where I cut my teeth, confronts a general quest for more structure that seems more pervasive in the current area. I personally think the tension between improvisation and structure is an important dynamic tension that I want to honor, to which I think EFF has the potential of helping us to realize, perhaps in a more creative way than that which is currently the case for us. I also have a sense that any serious implementation of EFF would require some significant changes in (a) tutor training and staff development and (b) curriculum design that would require some serious and sustained commitment on our part. That, combined with a lingering apprehension that EFF might very well represent an overshooting of what we could reasonably accomplish in our context. Obviously, stages of implementation and some experimental initiatives are important bridges in the mediation of such a shift, which in any final analysis, may remain partial (to a few of our groups or site), or perhaps program wide. Let me stop at this point. George Demetrion Literacy Volunteers of Greaterv Hartford george.demetrion@lvgh.org socrates555@juno.com
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