de Silva Joyce, H. & Feez, S.

2012, Text-based language and literacy education: programming and methodology, Phoenix Education,
Sydney, N.S.W., pp. 66-72.

Step 7 Providing independent practice

When students have mastered the target language, they reinforce their mastery through repeated
independent practice across different contexts of use.

When whole texts are used as the basis for language education, language learning can be aligned
with the achievement of specific purposes in community, educational or vocational contexts. To
achieve specific purposes in these contexts, students need access to everyday entry-level
knowledge, as well as to specialised knowledge, including knowledge about language, a specialised
area of knowledge in its own right.
Access to a specialised area of knowledge or skill is often identified as a specific type of literacy, for
example, science literacy, computer literacy, visual literacy and critical literacy (Barton 2007; Korner,
Mclnnes and Rose 2007). With literacy demands for effective participation in community, education
and employment contexts increasing, and the expansion of communication technologies, the need
for students to access a range of specialised areas of knowledge and skill has escalated to the extent
that in the twenty-first century the notion of literacy needs to be reconceived as a plurality of
literacies (Unsworth 2001: 8). Working with whole texts in real contexts of use is an effective means
for transforming the everyday experience of students into specialised educational knowledge
(Gibbons 2002).

Learning language for real contexts of use

... an intellectually challenging and real-life-oriented curriculum presents many more
opportunities for language learning (and for explicit teaching) precisely because such skills
and knowledge are presented within meaningful contexts, are used in the service of broader
educational goals and integrated into authentic tasks, and involve students in language-
based collaborative work.
Gibbons 2009: 12

The first of the seven steps presented above- ANALYSING LEARNING NEEDS AND SETIING LEARNING
OUTCOMES- involves an analysis of the language learning needs of the students in order to identify
language learning outcomes and to set language learning objectives. An approach for undertaking
this analysis is introduced below and a methodology for incorporating the remaining steps into a
teaching and learning sequence will be presented in the following chapters.

Analysing language learning needs

Needs analysis is an analysis to determine what students need to be able to do in English in their
educational or professional situation (Carter and Nunan 2001: 224). Needs analysis strategies are
used to collect information about:
the background of the students
the contexts in which students need to use language
the types of texts students will need to use and the language features of those texts
This information is then used to link these language learning needs to curriculum outcomes and to
set language learning objectives customised to the specific needs of the students. The following
table sets out the information that will assist teachers to design well-targetted sequences of
language teaching and learning, the activities teachers can use to gather information about students
and the questions teacher might ask in relation to needs.

- 66 - - - - - - , - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Text-based language & literacy education -

 Language Learning Needs
Information to gather Information gathering activities
i
I
lr- Personal language learning goals, priorities, - Initial or placement assessment tasks
plans and aspirations - Individual interviews
\/_ Background information about the students - Brainstorming and discussions
1- Obstacles or barriers to learning students
might experience
- Completing tables, drawing diagrams and
pictures
- Surveys
- Journal writing

Questions about student needs

- What are the interests and motivations of the students?

- What are student expectations, goals and perceptions of what they need?
- What are the preferred learning styles of the students?
- What are student attitudes towards classroom learning in general and learning the target
language in particular?
- What resources do the students have beyond the classroom, which can include family and
community support and a place and time for study?
- What are the current levels of English proficiency of the students, including their strengths and
weaknesses

Language learning goals and plans

Giving students the opportunity to formulate personal language learning goals and design plans for
achieving those goals helps them recognise the relevance of language learning outcomes to their
own lives, and, thus, contributes to student engagement and motivation. This process also clarifies
student attitudes, hopes and expectations. Activities, in which students formulate learning goals and
design learning plans, can also provide opportunities to build group cohesion, establish classroom
routines, introduce skills and strategies and practise language, especially spoken language.
Activities used to help students identify learning goals and design learning plans vary according to
whether the students are children, adolescents or adults, whether English is a first language and
whether students are literate. They also vary according to prior learning experiences. Activities can
be done individually, in pairs, in small groups or as a whole-class. The students can then record their
learning goals and plans using a first and/or additional language, spoken and/or written language,
posters, charts, tables, images- including artwork, symbols or diagrams and paper-based and/or
digital media.

The teacher will usually need to show students models of how to record learning goals and plans, but
students should be encouraged to personalisethe way they record their goals and plans as much as
Possible. Records of learning goals and plans can be kept private and filed in a work folder, or they
can be shared and displayed in a prominent place, so students can refer to them, review them and
alter them as the teaching and learning progresses. Learning goals and plans are not fixed, so
students must feel that they can change their goals and plans as they build their knowledge, skills
and understandings. Two sample activities for formulating learning goals and designing learning
Plans are presented below.

-Text-based language & literacy education 67-

 Sample activity 1 Identifying learning goals
1 Students identify and discuss with each other, and the teacher, the language they need to
learn and why.
2 Students organise language goals and reasons under different headings in a table or by
mapping them in graphic form such as a mind map. Language goals might include reading a
newspaper, storybook or textbook, writing an essay for school or university, filling in a form,
writing a letter to a penfriend or a grandchild, applying for a job or making a presentation at
a work meeting.
3 Students number the goals according to importance.
4 School students can ask their parents what they think to compare viewpoints

Sample activity 2 Designing a learning plan

Represent the learning plan as a journey based on the following questions:
- What is your starting point? What can you already do?
- What are your intermediate goals? How will you get there?
- What is your final goal? How will you get there?
- What will you do if a goal is too easy, beyond your reach or conflicts with another goal?

Background information
Students bring a range of life experiences to the classroom and some of these can have an impact on
language learning, so it can be helpful to collect background information about students. This
information can be used to identify areas of need that apply to the whole class or to individual
students. Background information can be gathered from enrolment information, assessments used
to place students in the class and from student interviews prior to the start of the class. lt is
important to remember that information about students is personal and strict protocols apply in
order to maintain confidentiality, and to respect and protect the privacy of individuals. Background
information can be recorded on class profile grids, which will differ from one teaching context to the
next. A sample profile grid is presented at Appendix C.

Barriers to learning
Some students will face barriers to learning. These barriers can be noted in the comment section of
the class profile grid. Sample learning barriers and related strategies to assist students are presented
in the table below. These strategies can be implemented by the teacher, with assistance from a head
teacher, principal or counsellor.

BARRIERS TO LEARNING STRATEGIES

Family-related problems such as

financial pressures, family break
* Understand impact of problem(s) on learning

down, homelessness
Physical disability such as poor
eyesight, hearing loss, mobility
issues
learning disability such as problems
with perception or memory
* Provide information about and referral to relevant support services
in community
Apply strategies identified in the institutional disability plan, which
*
might provide for assistive technologies or referral to relevant
specialist, disability support services
* Assess the learning disability accurately through referral to
relevant specialist

* Develop individualised program for student

* Model and teach strategies for managing problem, with assistance

from specialists

- 68 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Text-based language & literacy education -

 BARRIERS TO LEARNING STRATEGIES

Limited or disrupted education

* Assess effect of this experience accurately
I * Model and teach learning skills and strategies
Design opportunities for student to experience success in learning
History of failure in formal education
*
program
Low self-confidence
Model and teach effective learning skills and strategies
*
Refer student to educational counsellor or other specialist
*
Problems related to the refugee or
* Refer student to appropriate counselling
migrant experience which can Provide opportunities for students to share experiences with
include settlement pressures, effects
*
others of similar backgrounds
of torture and trauma
* Understand impact of experience(s) on learning

Analysing context and text

Context analysis
An analysis of the context in which students need to use language gathers information about the
cultural context, what students have to do with English in that context and the situations in which
students will need to use language.
Gathering information about the cultural context_ for example, a community setting or institution,
involves researching the social purposes students need to achieve in that cultural context, and the
types of texts, or genres, students need in order to achieve those purposes. Gathering information
about the situations in which students will need to use language involves researching the varieties of
language, or registers, students will need to use in those situations. This is done through analysing
the field, tenor and mode (see Chapter 1) of the situation.
A first step in context analysis can be carried out with students during classroom activities. These
activities help students focus their attention on those aspects of the context that impact on language
use. Teachers can involve students in analysing the contexts in which they need or wish to use
language by using the three following charts.

CHART 1 Communication Network

A communication network can be used to explore, with the students, language learning needs in
everyday, educational or vocational contexts. This exploration can be done with an individual
student in an interview, in groups or in a role-play or brainstorm. The following procedure can be
used to create a communication network (Joyce 1992: 40).
1 Each student has a blank communication
network and writes their name in the box in
the middle of a large page, either paper-
based or digital.
2 In the surrounding boxes students write
names of all the people who they need or
wish to communicate with. Students add a
word to describe their relationship- teacher,
examiner, manager, team member,
colleague, friend etc (TENOR).

-Text-based language & literacy education 69-

1 In each box the student also writes: Person/ position

the purpose for commun icating with each person Supervisor

(TEXT TYPES/GENRES) Purpose for commun icating
what they commun icate about (FIELD) To report work progress

how they commu nicate- face to face, telephone, What we commun icate about
email, reports etc (MODE) IT projects I customer complaints
whether they find the commun ication easy or Ways of commun icating
difficult, and how successful they usually are with Face to face I email I telephone
this type of commun ication Success of commun ication
Harder on phone and email

develop an English
The followin g two diagrams show how the communication network was used to
nurses were
course for overseas-trained nurses who were working in Australian hospitals. The
workplace teacher
required to learn English for nursing as part of the nurse registration process. The
educators and
used the commun ication network to explore, with the nurses, unit managers, nurse
wards. The first
other medical staff, the language requirem ents of nursing on a range of hospital
work and the
diagram shows the range of people nurses communicate with in their day-to-day
how the teacher was
mode- spoken or written - of that communication. The second diagram shows
program that
able to identify the text-type s the nurses needed to learn and to design a modular
allowed for continuous enrolme nt.

Hospital Communication Network for Nurses

Pharmacist
Enrol~ Nurses Sea.trtty GuiU$
Other Co-nursesJWard Staff Aunn.fU$
X·Aay Techolclan and Staff Ambulance • TraospQrt Orivets
Volunteers
Telephone Operator
Pob
S • SPOKEN
W•WRITTEN

Debbie Navara 1990 in Joyce 1992: 41

70 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Text-based language & literacy education

-
-
 Modular Program for Nurses

Debbie Navara 1990 in Joyce 1992: 41

ICHART 2 Sequence of Events Framework

If students are learning to manage the literacy demands of a particular context, how language is
integrated into that context can be analysed using a sequence of events framework- which is one
way of exploring the relationship of oral language to written language in social contexts (Joyce 1992: I
42). This approach is based on the concept of literacy as a social activity, involving literacy practices
and literacy events (Barton 2007: 34). Not only do students have to learn to understand and/or
create spoken and written texts, they also have to know how these texts interrelate in particular
contexts and the conventions, or practices, surrounding the use of those texts.
A sequence of events framework can be used to identify the types of spoken and written texts
students need to use in specific contexts, and the way these texts are typically sequenced. In
addition, this type of framework reveals how spoken and written texts interrelate for successful
communication in the context. A teaching and learning program can then be designed to provide
opportunities for students to learn the language as it occurs in real life (Burns, Joyce and Gollin 1996}.
If spoken and written texts are sequenced and integrated in a language education program in the
same way they are used outside the classroom, students will be better prepared for real-life use of
these texts. Two sample language event sequences are provided below.
Booking a flight event sequence

Ask friends about Go on line to Contact a travel Discuss options Book and pay Discuss travel
the destination, research flight agent for with friends and for the flight plans with
the best time to times and costs assistance colleagues. online friends
travel, places to
visit, and the
best airline deals
I

I
-Text-based language & literacy education 71-
 Completing a school project event sequence

Read the Check Read info in Take notes Present and Draft project Edit final draft
instructions understanding texts in from discuss text and and finalise
of instructions library and on information findings with prepare presentation
and final Internet texts, as well teachers and illustrations,
product as lessons and peers in conferencing
requirement spoken informal and as needed
with teacher presentations, formal with teacher
audio/video settings
recordings etc
as relevant
L _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ~

CHART 3 KWL Chart

A KWL chart can be used to help students recall prior knowledge and experience relevant to the
context in which they are learning to use language. The chart also gives students an opportunity to let
the teacher and their classmates know what they would like to learn about, in order to set some
personal goals and objectives. At the end of the program it becomes a self-assessment tool that
students can use to review what they have learnt. This chart can also help students structure
independent research tasks.

Topic
K w L
WHAT I KNOW WHA.T I WANT TO KNOW WHAT I ,kEARNT

Students can add colour, symbols and images to the charts they create. They can also compare and
discuss their charts, review and adjust them over time as they build their knowledge of the context,
and use them as an informal means of assessing progress and achievement.
As part of the context analysis, teachers can observe students operating in that context, for example,
a school classroom in which students are working on a curriculum topic, or a workplace where health
and safety is a significant issue. Information collected in a context analysis of a text is sometimes
called macro level knowledge about the text.

Social interconnectedness of texts

We see the workplace as a tapestry and literacies as multiple threads woven into the whole.
The threads are many and densely interwoven to make a whole cloth ... to have a whole
working environment, we need many threads, including literacy threads. But if we take
individual literacy threads out of their place in the weave of everyday working life,
extracting them from situations in which they are lived, we lose the meaning they derive
from being part of a whole. This idea is both remarkably simple and yet complicated,
especially when it comes to learning.
Belfiore, Defoe, Folinsbee, Hunter and Jackson 2004: 2

- 72 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Text-based language & literacy education -