New Publications from NIACE

New titles including a handbook for adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL practitioners, researching literacy with adult learners and effective Skills for Life teacher training

Insights from research and practice
A handbook for adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL practitioners
Edited by Margaret Herrington and Alex Kendall
ISBN: 1 86201 202 4 (Paperback), £28.95
ISBN: 1 86201 244 X (Hardback), £74.95
July 2005, 692pp

Insights from research and practice draws together the key issues and debates that have emerged in the field of adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL over the past 20 years.

Featuring a careful selection of articles from the Research and Practice in Adult Literacy (RaPAL) journal, this text offers a rich and authoritative mix of voices, critically examining theories, methods, policies and practices.

The work is organised thematically, relating the key debates in areas such as assessment and accreditation, curriculum content and process, management of provision and the nature of literacy and numeracy.

This book is essential reading for those who need to keep abreast of current policy issues, while those new to the field will find invaluable first-hand accounts from leading researchers and from practitioners wrestling with the challenges of tertiary education.

As well as providing a link with the tradition of democratic practice in literacy and numeracy education, the book also looks forward, inviting practitioners to adopt a longitudinal approach to research in practice.

Written by the teachers, managers, students and researchers who comprise the RAPAL network, Insights from research and practice is the indispensable guide to the live issues in current policy and practice.

Outside the classroom
Researching literacy with adult learners
Edited by Ellayne Fowler and Jane Mace
ISBN: 1 86201 223 7
July 2005, 156pp, £16.95

There is a large body of research that shows literacy is a matter of context and social relationships – rather than a skills-deficient model of inadequacy and lack.

Drawing on this research, Outside the classroom explores how, by using the social practice view of literacy, teachers and policy makers can look beyond the skills focus of the classroom to see something of the networks and environments in which learners operate.

Expounding the links between theory and practice, the authors set out both the key concepts central to the social practice view of literacy and the crucial aspects of teaching practice. Each is illustrated by a related group of portraits, researched and written by teachers of adult literacy in partnership with learners, offering a rich and varied collage of literacy lives. The authors bring these together in the concluding section, signalling further directions for teaching and research.

For anyone interested in the social realities of reading and writing, this is an invaluable resource for professional development, participatory research and teaching practice in adult literacy education.

A forthcoming publication that focuses on delivering good practice to practitioners in this area is:
Teaching practice and mentoring
The key to effective Skills for Life teacher training
Jay Derrick and Jamie Dicks
ISBN 1 86201 237 7, September 2005, approx 54pp, £8.95

This guide identifies good practice in relation to mentoring in initial teacher training, and offers advice on how to achieve it. Following the recent OFSTED Report on initial teacher training which specifically identified mentoring and support for teaching practice as a general weakness across most programmes, this timely book suggests ways of supporting mentors more effectively, through partnership working, strategic planning, training, professional development, and the provision of materials and resources. It argues that mentors should be seen as key members of the teams delivering teacher training programmes, even when based in different provider organisations and demonstrates the value of regionally-managed systems for building and maintaining ‘communities of practice’ through professional networks for trainers and mentors.

NIACE have also published a resource based around creative writing, which might also be of interest to you. Below is some information about it:

Creative writing
Education, culture and community
Rebecca O’Rourke
ISBN: 1 86201 161 3, July 2005, 270pp, £18.95

Creative writing: Education, culture and community offers the first conceptual account of creative writing, one of the most popular – and controversial – educational subjects in Britain today.

O’Rourke, a long-established member of the creative writing community, provides a comprehensive and accessible guide to the issues and tensions associated with creative writing and puts them in the context of current policy debates. These debates include how best to manage, teach and learn creative writing; how to value and evaluate these activities; and the interface between arts activity and educational inclusiveness.

This compelling and lucid text arguesthat the current dominance of educational values and processes in cultural policy is problematic for advocates of cultural action as a catalyst for radical social change. The book offers both a detailed ethnographic study and a careful historical account of creative writing in cultural policy and educational provision, and provides a contextual framework that highlights the contribution of adult education to cultural change and community development.

For further details and to order on-line, visit the Literacy, Language and Numeracy Publications section of the NIACE website.