Teacher Agency and Policy Response in the Adult ESL Literacy Classroom

Edited by ANNE BURNS Aston University University of New South Wales CELIA ROBERTS Kings College London Teacher Agency and Policy Response in the Adult ESL Literacy Classroom SUE OLLERHEA

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Edited by ANNE BURNS

Aston University

University of New South Wales

CELIA ROBERTS

Kings College London

Teacher Agency and Policy Response in the Adult ESL Literacy Classroom

SUE OLLERHEAD

Macquarie University

Sydney, Australia

doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.230742_1

& This article reports on a small-scale study that examines how Paula and Lucy,1both teachers of very low-literate adult English as a second language (ESL) learners, interpret and respond to Australia’s Language, Literacy, and Numeracy Program (LLNP) policy in different ways The study investigates their diverging backgrounds and pedagogical and personal attitudes and beliefs, focusing particularly on the extent to which they feel empowered to exercise agency in their teaching.2 In doing so, it explores a potential link between teachers’ ability to act agentively and the ways in which they respond to policy conditions In examining these issues, the study focuses on specific policy-driven constraints and ‘‘enablements’’ (Toohey, 2007) experienced by each teacher in the course of her teaching work

1 Pseudonyms have been used to protect the identity of the teachers.

2 The empirical data underpinning this study were collected as part of a wider, multisite case study into low-level adult ESL literacy instruction, which included over 10 hours of semistructured interviews conducted with head teachers and teachers, as well as over

45 hours of classroom-based observation.

BACKGROUND TO AUSTRALIAN ADULT LITERACY POLICY

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a shift in Australia’s language and literacy policy saw literacy education transformed from what Searle describes as a ‘‘small-scale, community-orientated, marginalised field based on humanistic principles’’ (2002, p 5) to a core foundation of the country’s economy, when it became organised under the vocational education and training sector According to Searle, this resulted in what were once humanistic goals, such as identifying and responding to an individual’s social and personal needs, being quickly subsumed by industry goals such as productivity and cost-effectiveness (p 7)

Australian literacy policy has always been characterised by a distinct separation of funding amongst various government sectors The Department of Immigration and Citizenship funds adult ESL teaching through the Adult Migrant English Program, whereas funding for adult literacy and numeracy teaching is administered through the Department

of Employment, Education, and Workplace Relations (2009) through labour-oriented programs such as the LLNP and the Workplace English Language and Literacy program (Burns & de Silva Joyce, 2007) This has led some stakeholders in the field (Hammond & Derewianka, 1999; Lo Bianco & Wickert, 2001; Searle, 2002) to comment that adult literacy policy environment tends to be mass-directed and generalised, rather than aimed at meeting the myriad needs of a widely divergent client base

It is within this policy context that the Australian LLNP, instituted in

1992, claimed to provide high quality, flexible training to its clients, to meet a growing need for vocationally oriented literacy and numeracy training Its clients, who are mostly referred by the government’s social security agency Centrelink, attend training for a maximum of 19 hours a week, in blocks of up to 160 hours, after which they are assessed using the National Reporting System (NRS; 2009).3

PERCEIVED TEACHER CONSTRAINTS UNDER LLNP POLICY

The numerous policy-related challenges experienced by teachers working in the LLNP are well documented (Australian Council for Adult Literacy, 2009; McKenna & Fitzpatrick, 2005; McGuirk, 2001) Prevalent amongst these are the program’s considerable demands on accountability that result in increased administration and reporting loads,

3 The National Reporting System is Australia’s nationally recognised instrument for reporting outcomes of adult English language, literacy, and numeracy programs.

as well as highly prescribed time frames, within which teachers are obliged

to measure student gains in language proficiency Students are expected

to attain two NRS improvements within each 160-hour block of tuition, which assumes that they are able to acquire literacy skills in a linear manner Searle (2002) described this imperative as the LLNP’s decontextualised, building-block approach to literacy teaching, which fits neatly into what Street (1984) termed an autonomous or deficit model of literacy

Added to this requirement is the doubling of the assessment burden for teachers, who have to report student progress against both the NRS and the outcomes of the various curricula used by their institutions The sacrificing

of valuable classroom time in favour of assessment and reporting duties, which are mostly driven by funding and tender conditions, is generally felt

by teachers to be counterproductive to their efforts to meet learners’ individual needs (Australian Council for Adult Literacy, 2009)

Teacher comments cited in this study also reflect concern about their capacity to deal with the emergence of a new student population in adult literacy classes, comprising learners with very little literacy in their first languages (L1s) and very little experience of formal learning According

to Murray (2003), this learner population poses significant challenges which need to be addressed in terms of specialised teacher training and program planning Gunn (2003) related that classes that combine both L1-literate and nonliterate students often result in nonliterate students being disadvantaged In reality, however, policy-driven funding con-straints dictate that very little, if any, explicit training is given to teachers

of low-literate learners, and the combination of L1-literate and nonliterate learners is a common occurrence in adult literacy class-rooms In this way, policy conditions would seem to act against teachers’ ability to act agentively in the best interests of their students

Teachers’ difficulties with elements of language and literacy policy are

by no means unique to Australia’s LLNP In Haque and Cray’s (2007) report on constraints experienced by Canadian language teachers working under the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program, they concluded that the starting point for dealing with adverse teaching conditions lies not in offering makeshift assistance in the form of improved resources and reduced class sizes, but rather in addressing the core issues of the LINC policy itself and the way in which

it is implemented (p 641)

AGENCY AND PRACTICE

Sociolinguists such as Hornberger (Hornberger & Skilton-Sylvester, 2000), who are concerned with the power relations inherent in literacy

teaching practices, argued that teachers have the potential to occupy transformative roles, even within highly constraining policy environ-ments Hornberger saw the power relations present in literacy teaching environments as being flexible and open to transformation through what teachers do in everyday practices She put forward a pedagogy of multiliteracies that includes critical framing and cultural practice models as examples of instructional practices where the traditional power relations governing literacy tuition are contested at a microlevel

in the classroom

Hornberger viewed teachers’ potentially transformative power as being largely dependent on the extent to which they possess or display agency, an attribute described in broad terms by Pickering (1995) as the ability of individuals to exercise choice and discretion in their everyday practices Taking this concept further, Giddens (1984) placed emphasis on the transformative potential of agency, which he described as ‘‘the capability of the individual to make a difference to a pre-existing state of affairs or course

of events’’ (p 14) In the context of this study, the ‘‘pre-existing state of affairs’’ is viewed as the constraining conditions of LLNP policy, and ‘‘the capability of the individual to make a difference’’ is conceptualised as conscious efforts by the teacher to resist feelings of powerlessness and negativity experienced as a by-product of these conditions

The view of agency adopted in this article emphasises the importance

of the social settings in which adult literacy instruction takes place Toohey (2007) stressed that teachers are not simply agentive in their own right, but rather that societal factors, such as the institutional culture in which teaching takes place, impose constraints on, and enable, their agency (p 232)

In Stritikus’ (2003) explication of what he termed the ‘‘policy-to-practice connection’’ (p 30), he drew on elements of sociocultural theory to illustrate how the way teachers implement policy in the classroom is not influenced only by policy itself, or by curricula and their supporting materials, but also by the context in which their teaching takes place, their beliefs and attitudes towards pedagogy, as well as their political and personal ideologies (p 33)

It is through the lenses of these theoretical frameworks that the agentive behaviour of Paula and Lucy in response to LLNP policy is observed

THE TEACHING CONTEXT

Both Paula and Lucy work at a large vocational training college, which

is accredited to run the LLNP The college is located in an ethnically and socially diverse commercial hub, on the outskirts of a major Australian city A local government area comprising 280,000 residents, it is home to

a large migrant population, with 31% of residents having been born overseas, and 23% of residents coming from non-English-speaking backgrounds (data retrieved June 8, 2009, from http://council.gov.au; anonymity of city name is preserved)

The college’s languages program caters for over eight levels of English language proficiency, ranging from preliterate beginner to advanced, vocationally oriented classes Both Paula and Lucy teach at what they term marginally post-beginner levels, where their classrooms comprise roughly 25 students each Most of their students attend class for 5 hours a day, 3 days a week

Paula and Lucy describe their students as having mostly refugee backgrounds, coming from strife-torn regions of Africa and Asia, where their schooling was severely disrupted as a result of violent conflict and displacement Most students had very little or no literacy skills in their first languages (L1s) and also very little experience of formal learning situations

THE INSTITUTIONAL CULTURE

An interview with the college’s head teacher Rose provided an insight into the pervading culture surrounding the LLNP, including teacher attitudes towards instructing very low-literate students Rose identified the high administrative load dictated by the NRS as a major disincentive for teachers She described a situation in which a once energetic, creative teaching environment had been affected by an air of despondency emanating from the plethora of daily, bureaucratic tasks that teachers had to complete

I think some of the teachers feel that we’re so assessment and reporting-driven, that quality teaching is disappearing because all their time is taken up with paperwork instead of being creative and saying these students are having difficulty, how can I present the matter in a way that they would understand

it And, they haven’t got the energy and the time now, because it’s just being drowned in paperwork

In Rose’s opinion, the adult literacy teaching sector as a whole was largely unprepared for responding to the complex needs of students with very little or no formal learning She described an almost ambush-like situation, where teachers were not sufficiently warned or equipped for the multiple, intense, and complex challenges they would face in teaching students with markedly low levels of literacy and often highly specific and complex social and settlement needs

We were caught, the Sudanese crept up on us Maybe four years ago, none of

us had taught that kind of learner Then suddenly, the Sudanese were upon

us, and the Afghan women were upon us, and so we were kind of, we were existing teachers [of ABE students] and even if you had expertise at teaching lower levels at other providers, they were educated, they had literacy, so it’s completely different

Rose’s comments add weight to concerns about the lack of theoretical professional development given to teachers of very low-literate students and the absence of self-evaluation and reflection by such teachers on their teaching practices (see McCormack, 1994; McGuirk, 2001) Both of these factors were considered by Gunn (2003) as being essential to developing a deeper insight into the needs and backgrounds of preliterate and low-literate students

Both Paula and Lucy volunteered individual responses to the institutional culture in which they were working Although Paula had taught at other levels of English language proficiency, she found teaching more advanced students less interesting and satisfying and enjoyed the fundamental challenges posed by teaching very low-literate classes Paula saw teaching as a dual process of analysing and presenting language according to specific student needs and admitted that her teaching experiences provided a constant source of learning and self-questioning

I actually love the challenge of getting right down to the basics of a language and working out how to present it in its simplest form for people at beginner level It’s rewarding breaking the language down and thinking about how you can present it so that it’s meaningful to them I find it very challenging, very difficult actually

Lucy described how the immense effort she put into developing appropriate classroom materials for her students often resulted in frustration, when she realised that they were not responding to her prompts or progressing in terms of proficiency She used adjectives such

as ‘‘exhausting’’ and ‘‘depressing’’ to characterise her work, admitting that her teaching was as much a learning experience for her as it was for her students

I’ve been trying hard to do things, maybe I try to work out some impossible things I try very hard to do things in different ways Always you are learning You say, okay this must be the best way for them to learn, but it’s only from your point of view You are educated, you think that people know, that they can understand You can’t anticipate how they’re going to use that

Lucy relates how the first job she was given at the college was teaching a class of beginner literacy learners She admits to feeling completely

unprepared for the task, as the majority of her teaching experience was gained in a high school environment, where students were taught in their L1s Significantly, however, she viewed her lack of experience as a substantiating reason for being allocated a low-proficiency class, explaining, ‘‘Not everybody likes to teach level 1 It’s very hard to find level 1 teachers.’’

Both teachers acknowledged that the difficulties posed by teaching multilevel classrooms, compounded by the LLNP’s policy of continuous enrolment,4 often necessitated the preparation of materials for a number of levels within one class For Paula, this situation presented

an opportunity to promote both student autonomy and classroom collaboration

There are some students who you just have to sit down alongside and work individually with [them] The other students have to learn that they have to wait for that And they do learn, they learn patience it’s good for them to learn that there are different students with different skills

Despite the vast amount of time that both teachers spent preparing materials for their students, they admitted that there was very little sharing or cross-referencing of materials between the college’s teachers generally This meant that the institution had no documentation of successfully implemented practices and materials, and thus no coherent knowledge base from which to assess their effectiveness In this way, the institutional culture appeared to act against Freeman and Johnson’s (1998) proposed framework for analysing the knowledge base of literacy teaching practices, which entails examining the relationship between three closely related elements: the teacher-learner, pedagogical practice, and the social context in which the instruction takes place In other words, ‘‘who teaches what to whom, where?’’ (p 405)

TEACHER BACKGROUNDS

The first teacher featured in the study, Paula, had been teaching adult ESL literacy students for 5 years She had entered the ESL profession in her 50s, and held a Master’s degree in linguistics She had begun her ESL teaching with an international charity organisation, where her students were predominantly refugees and asylum seekers, a job she found very stimulating and rewarding As part of her training, she had completed a workshop on the treatment and rehabilitation of torture and trauma survivors

4 Continuous enrolment is a core tenet of LLNP policy, meaning that new students are able

to enter LLNP classrooms at any stage during a semester, regardless of course timetables.

The second teacher, Lucy, was a qualified high school teacher, who had worked in the education system of her home country for 10 years before migrating to Australia After leaving the profession for 16 years to raise her family, she enrolled in a TESOL certificate in Australia and eventually completed a Master’s degree in language teaching She taught for 2 years in the Australian high school system but found the culture very different to what she was used to as a teacher previously Lucy explained how, in her home country’s education system, both teaching content and pedagogical practices were strictly dictated by policy, which was closely adhered to by teachers Also, she described marked differences in the behaviour and attitude of her Australian students compared to those in her home country

Because high school [in Australia] is very different you know, with the way things are in X Yes the children are different and I think the culture When I was teaching [in X], the student is very disciplined They sit there and they listen

INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES

For Lucy, classroom teaching and support materials were deployed to present language in a methodical and structured way A series of four, hour-long observations of her lessons revealed that she consistently favoured a ‘‘form-focused’’ approach, described by Ellis (2001) as ‘‘any planned or incidental instructional activity that is intended to induce language learners to pay attention to linguistic form’’ (p 2) In Lucy’s classroom, this was evident in her practice of asking students to focus on the structure of short versus long words, and her breaking down of words into their composite syllables and phonemes by presenting them on different-coloured bits of paper However, Lucy admits that this systematic approach often failed:

When I prepare I think it’ll be perfect, then I put the words on the board with different colour for different syllables Then a word like ‘‘holiday’’ which has three syllables, they copy as 3 different words, ‘‘ho’’, ‘‘li’’ ‘‘day’’ It’s not one, 3!

So I think okay, I’ll have to find another way

Sustained observation of Lucy’s lessons also revealed markedly low levels

of student participation and engagement, with Lucy providing most of the input in the form of protracted, rhetorical ‘‘teacher talk’’ (see Gass, 1997; Lightbown & Spada, 2006; Ritchie & Bhatia, 1996) This can be witnessed in the following transcript from a portion of a lesson in which Lucy aimed to introduce her students to vocabulary associated with leisure activities:

Classroom Transcript 3.1

1 T: Today we’re going to be talking about ‘‘Going to the beach’’ because that’s what Australians like to do

2 T: How many of you have been to the beach?[10 s pause]

3 T: How many of you have been to the beach huh?[7 s pause]

4 S1: I go with school but windy, rainy

5 T: We all take children to the beach Why? Because they like

to play in the sand and water

6 T: Even adults like the beach father, mother, children like the beach

7 T: What else do people do if they don’t go to the beach on a Sunday, huh?

8 S2: I go to church in the morning

9 T: They have a barbeque!

In the above-mentioned lesson, Lucy’s earnest attempts at contextua-lising the vocabulary aims of her lesson resulted in prolonged descriptions, explanations and anecdotes on her part that met with little or no response from her students Through sustained observation,

it thus became apparent that Lucy was exerting substantial effort in the preparation and delivery of her lessons, yet was growing increasingly frustrated at what she perceived as a lack of progress by her students, whom she characterised as passive learners

Paula’s approach was to use a whole-text method of teaching, which she said she had ‘‘struggled along with’’ for years in the absence of any material assistance or training available for teachers of low-literate adults

She explained how she started by developing and reading her students very simple stories related to their life situations, for example, that of a young woman who came to Australia and wanted to work in childcare Each story had pictures that matched with the simple texts, which were all written in the present or past simple tense

We’d read the stories again and again, around the class, until the Sudanese5 almost did know it by heart, because they have such a good ear So then I’d collect all the stories from them, and then we’d work backwards, we’d generate them on the board

Paula would elicit key vocabulary and spelling from the stories from her students, who would then write them up on the board as a class

5 According to Paula, most low-level literacy classes at the college comprised high numbers

of students from Sudan.

I’d say, ‘‘How do you spell it?’’ and we’d sound it out, ad nauseum, until they gradually took wild guesses at the spelling and they learned some simple rules We’d generate the key words in random order, all over the whiteboard, and then learn to read those words out of context, so they were no longer just memorising the story

Paula would then present students with the pictures and the text, cut up separately, and ask them to match the simple texts with the pictures By this stage, her students had learned to recognise some of the words from the story as sight words She would repeat this exercise every week, using

a different story

For Paula, the key aspect of her self-devised teaching method was the promotion of active learning In her experience of having taught students who had never been to school, one of her key observations was that many of them were very passive learners She found this to be particularly the case with female students, many of whom she perceived

as occupying traditionally subservient positions to men in their house-holds She felt that this passivity often transferred to their classroom learning

But if you get the class to work collaboratively, eliciting words, spelling, and recreating texts, they forget their reservations and become active, rather than passive in their learning

Observed over a series of four, hour-long observations, Paula’s lessons were characterised by an energetic, lively atmosphere Interaction amongst students was generally very high, with Paula often playing a peripheral, facilitative role, while students proceeded with communica-tive tasks such as group surveys and small group discussions This dynamic learning environment was acknowledged and appreciated by her students, one of whom remarked:

I love here at [college] the way the teacher teaches She lets us laugh and enjoy to learn English To know more, to try, I’m happy with that But before that I was at [college] and the teacher talk and talk and I just want to finish Now I’m so happy I like the way I learn everything

DISCUSSION

Jennings (1996) asserted that it is teachers’ experiences, ideas, and beliefs that determine how they interpret educational policy, how they integrate both old and new knowledge, and how they translate policy into instructional practices