Adult ESOL Literacy in Ireland: Building an Awareness of Transferable Pedagogies for ESOL Literacy

Adult ESOL Literacy in Ireland - Building an Awareness of Transferable Pedagogies

Recent adult literacy strategies in Ireland have focused on active participation and social cohesion and the requirement to address unmet literacy needs of the most vulnerable in our society (Government of Ireland, 2021). The vulnerable includes migrants who need English language to fully participate in society. English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) is provided in the vocational education sector, called Further Education and Training (FET) in Ireland. ESOL and ESOL literacy is provided through the literacy programme.
Tutors of ESOL literacy need familiarity with both ESOL and literacy pedagogy (Spiegel and Sunderland, 2006). ‘FET staff need to be aware of the distinctions and overlaps between language and literacy needs of learners’ (Grummell, 2022 p.69) which may suggest a problem of practice. Many ESOL teacher education programmes do not focus on the necessary skills for working with learners with unmet literacy needs. An ESOL learner is considered to have transferable skills that will help with new language acquisition, whereas an ESOL literacy learner may have limited educational experience and no transferable skills for language acquisition (Council of Europe, 2018/2020) which ESOL literacy staff need to be cognizant of (Grummell, 2022).
Reflections on practice with adult education practitioners, in a professional learning and development context, indicate some ESOL and literacy pedagogies are transferable and may enhance ESOL literacy tuition. Literacy and second language acquisition for the linguistic integration of adult migrants (LASLLIAM) provides a reference which supports the teaching of ESOL literacy using the principles of literacy as a social practice and linguistic integration (Council of Europe, 2022). This presentation aims to explore current ESOL and literacy pedagogies alongside the LASLLIAM Reference guide (Council of Europe, 2022).


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Council of Europe (2022) Literacy and Second Language Acquisition for the Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants Reference guide. Available at: https://rm.coe.int/prems-008922-eng-2518-literacy-and-second-language-learning-couv-texte/1680a70e18 [accessed 29 May 2023].
Government of Ireland (2021) Adult Literacy for Life A 10-year adult literacy, numeracy and digital literacy strategy. Available at: https://www.adultliteracyforlife.ie/f/120607/x/133e8d1481/15607_all_strategy_web.pdf (Accessed: 9 February 2023).
Grummell, B. (2022) Inclusion of Adult Literacy Support in Further Education and Training in Ireland: Research. Available at: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/16873/1/BG_inclusion.pdf (Accessed: 4 April 2023).
SOLAS (2018) English language provision and language assessment for low-skilled and unemployed migrants. Recommendations for good practice at NFQ levels 1-3 in ETBs Available at: https://www.solas.ie/f/70398/x/7a61ee6ee9/english-language-provision-and-language-assessment.pdf [accessed 12 March 2023].
Spiegel, M. and Sunderland, H. (2006) Teaching Basic Literacy to ESOL Learners. London South Bank University.