eVALBEC
November 2004
This is the electronic newsletter of the Victorian Adult Literacy and Basic Education
Council.
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IN
THIS ISSUE OF e-VALBEC:
1.
Minimum Fee List - dismay
2 “Real Texts and the CGEA” with Corinna Ridley - Nov 18
3. “Reading and writing weblogs: purpose, presentation and point of view” with
Colin Lankshear – Nov 16
4. The abolition of ANTA
5. Fine Print – Summer edition
6. ARIS Summer School
7. Adults Learning Mathematics –12th Annual Conference (ALM12)
8. Free Four Seasons in One Day Conference CD
9. Contacts update
10. ACAL goes for a double
11. Next VALBEC Committee Meeting
12. Unsubscribe?
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1. Minimum
Fee List
VALBEC is dismayed and appalled at the Victorian
state government's decision to withdraw the minimum fee paying courses list. This
withdrawal means that general education, literacy and numeracy and English as a second
language students would be eligible for the full tuition fee of $1.28 per SCH, capped
at $819 if they do not hold a Commonwealth Health Care Card, a Pensioner Concession
Card or a Veterans Gold Card. VALBEC is trying to collect evidence of the impact
of this policy decision on students individually, and programs and delivery in general. If
you have any anecdotal or statistical information on the impact to your students
and programs that could help strengthen our case to the state government, please
forward this to: info@valbec.org.au.
In addition VALBEC has put together a very short student survery which has been posted
to the website http://www.valbec.org.au.
Please support VALBEC by downloading the survey and encouraging your students to
complete it. It is vital that the government is made aware of the impact of
these changes across the state. Please mail completed surveys to: VALBEC, Box
861 Springvale South 3172
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2. “Real Texts and the CGEA” with Corinna
Ridley
3.30
-5.30 pm Thursday November 18
Laverton Community Centre 12 Crown Street Laverton (Mel 53 D11)
The event is free but RSVP to VALBEC is essential.
Email info@valbec.org.au or
Ph 03 9546 6982 (leave a message).
Adult literacy
teachers often use ‘real texts’ in the classroom. Junk mail, local papers,
brochures, bills and forms are all familiar materials, which adult learners will
encounter on a daily basis in the world outside the classroom. They are therefore
an obvious choice for teachers looking for relevant, motivating texts, which have
a purpose which goes beyond the teaching of reading skills, and an audience beyond
the classroom. However, ‘real texts’ also have a downside. They are often
more complex than adapted and modified text book imitations, don’t come with
a set of instructions for classroom use and often defy neat classification as a report,
exposition or narrative. Add to that the need to map them to a set of curriculum
outcomes and you could be forgiven for thinking that using such material is fine
in theory, but not so great in practice, especially for teachers and tutors new to
the field.
The Real Texts resource was developed with the assistance of ANTA innovative project
funding, to help reduce the load on teachers striving to offer students access to
authentic material. It uses a simple approach to text analysis, which encourages
a focus on the original context of the text, its audience and purpose, without using
metalanguage which might be unfamiliar to teachers – and their students – and
which can be applied simply to any text. It then offers a number of teaching ideas,
which could be used with the text, or with a similar text, aimed at developing reading
skills, building the learner’s ability to critically evaluate a text and using
the text as a springboard to other activities, such as further reading, writing or
in tasks related to the original purpose of the text.
This workshop will provide a practical introduction to the Real Texts resource, and
demonstrate how the resource can be used by teachers in planning their CGEA reading,
writing and oral communication programs. The workshop will also demonstrate how the
approach used can be extended to other authentic material.
Corinna Ridley has worked in the field of ESL and Literacy for more than 10
years and is currently an education officer at the CAE Centre for Language and Professional
Support. She is the author of the Real Texts resource and was also one of the team
of people who worked on the reaccreditation of the CGEA in 2002 and on the recent
redevelopment of the CGEA website. She is an experienced workshop presenter delivering
workshops on the CGEA, VCAL, ESL Literacy and on theories of reading and writing
as part of the Adult Literacy Teaching (ALT) Certificate.
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3. “Reading and writing weblogs: purpose, presentation
and point of view’’ with Colin Lankshear
6.30 – 7.30
pm Tuesday November 16
Carlton Neighbourhood Learning Centre 20 Princes Street Carlton North
Light
refreshments provided then stay on and have dinner and drinks at the adjacent Brandon
Hotel
The event is free but RSVP
to VALBEC is essential as numbers are limited.
Email info@valbec.org.au or
Ph 03 9546 6982 (leave a message).
(if leaving
a message or emailing indicate if you will also join us for dinner afterwards )
It may become just the latest technoliteracy fad; the most recent internet application
for which some pedagogical use must be found. That would be a pity. The weblog is
an elegant, versatile application that can be turned to diverse educational and everyday
purposes. This talk will introduce the technical basics of 'blogging' and discuss
ways in which it might be integrated into educationally worthwhile learning.
Colin Lankshear is a part-time professorial research fellow at the University
of Ballarat, an adjunct professor at Central Queensland University, a part-time teacher
at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a freelance educational researcher
and writer living in Mexico for most of the year. His most recent works include a
co-edited book titled Cyber Spaces/Social Spaces. Colin has recently dabbled
in the emerging environments of weblogs and has written about his explorations with
Michele Knobel Do-It-Yourself Broadcasting: Writing Weblogs in a Knowledge
Society that was presented to the American Education Research Association
Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 21, 2003.
For more information about Colin Lankshear http://uob-community.ballarat.edu.au/~clankshear/index.html
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4. The abolition of ANTA
You will have heard by now the announcement that
ANTA will be abolished from July 2005 and its responsibilities will be taken up by
DEST. VALBEC is, as yet, unsure of the implications of this for adult literacy
projects, we will keep the readership of eVALBEC informed as more information comes
to hand. If you would like to comment on this move you can send you thoughts to info@valbec.org.au
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5. Fine Print – Summer edition
Fine Print is supplied to members and subscribers.
Interested in membership or FP subscription? Just click this link
<mailto:info@valbec.org.au?subject=Membership_Info> (no
typing required!) and hit Send or send an e-mail with the words ‘Fine Print
Information Please’ in the subject line.
Features
- ACE
Community Building Hubs in action: Governance Training for Community Organisations by
Bernadette O’Connor, Sue Olney and Theresa Mitchell
- Bottling Magic – The Partner-Assisted Learning System by Judy Buckingham
- Pedagogies for Employability and Life: The ACE Experience by Jill Sanguinetti
- Beyond words: literacy learning through drama by Karen Dymke
Practical Matters
Switching onto Learning through
Audio by Simon Goodrich
Open Forum
- Finding
a voice: discovering a language in prison by Leni Shilton
- Ministerial Statement on ACE (varied)
Foreign Correspondence
- Building
community, training and partnerships. A postcard from Vietnam by Mary Collins
Policy update
- The
Impact of Policy on Practice in New Zealand by Katherine Percy
- Not seeing the forest for the trees? Measuring achievement and attainment in
adult literacy, numeracy and language UK style by Jay Derrick
Beside the Whiteboard with Jan Corben interviewed by Robin Kenrick
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6. ARIS Summer
School
In January 2005 ARIS will be offering CGEA and Victorian
Certificates in Applied Learning workshops for teachers in ACE, TAFE and other educational
settings. The topics and dates have been set. More information will be available
in November/December.
- Monday 17/1/04 - Catering for ESL learners in CGEA programs(all day)
- Tuesday 18/01/04 - VCAL Literacy Planning and Resources (TAFE and ACE)(all day)
- Wednesday 19/1/04 - Planning and resourcing CGEA Reading and writing & Oral
communication(all day)
- Thursday 20/01/05 - CGEA Numeracy (morning session)
- Friday 21/01/05 - Assessment options for VCAL and CGEA (all day)
Information and registration email: robynh@cae.edu.au
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7. Adults Learning Mathematics – A Research
Forum
12th
Annual Conference (ALM12)
Sun
3rd July - Thurs 7th July, 2005 Melbourne
ALM12
brings together researchers and practitioners in adult mathematics/numeracy teaching
and learning in order promote and disseminate knowledge, awareness and understanding
of adults learning mathematics at all levels.
Information: http://www.alm-online.org
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8. Free Four Seasons in One Day Conference
CD
Papers provided prior to the Four Seasons In One
Day Conference were produced on a CD and handed out to those who attended. We have
a few spare and these are available free from VALBEC. Send name, postal address and
number required to info@valbec.org.au.
Members receive priority.
These, and papers provided after the conference, are available at http://www.valbec,org.au/acalconf/
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9. Contacts update
VALBEC is updating our ‘Contacts’ database.
It lists courses and programs conducted by neighbourhood houses and learning centres,
TAFE colleges and like organisations and is available to the public electronically,
in print form and via the web http://www.valbec.org.au/contacts/.
The project is supported by ACFE.
You can check and update your listing
1. By going to http://www.valbec.org.au/contacts/addnew.html and
completing the form on-line.
2. Get a form at http://www.valbec.org.au/contacts/, complete
it and post or fax it to VALBEC
3. Prefer us to send you a form? Just click this link <mailto:info@valbec.org.au?subject=Contacts_update_form> (no
typing required!) and hit Send or send an e-mail with the words ‘Contacts_update_form’ in
the subject.
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10. ACAL goes for a double
For those eVALBEC readers who were unable to attend
the ACAL AGM we are delighted to let you know that ACAL has taken up the fine tradition
of VALBEC to share the load and the experience and appointed co-presidents this year,
Jan Hagston and Pauline O'Maley (both Victorians). The new secretary is Robyn Jay,
a former co-opted member and the treasurer is Lorraine Sushames (for the moment Lorraine
also fills the state representative from NT role, so she is doubly busy). Jim
Thompson takes the more (but not much more) leisurely role of immediate past president. Sheryl
Sinclair remains Victorian state representative, Christine O'Callaghan ACT representative
and Stephen Ward Queensland state representative. We have several new state representatives; from
NSW Christel Doemling, from South Australia Jane Gunn, Wendy Stothers from Tasmania
and Margaret Mc Hugh from Western Australia. Finally we have two ongoing co-opted
members Rosie Wickert (from NSW) and Karen Dymke (from Victoria). The new committee
is looking forward to their work this year, in particular of taking forward the work
the strategy subcommittee have done in promoting literacy as a whole of government/whole
of life concern.
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11. Next VALBEC Committee Meeting
Thursday November 25 at 6.30 pm @ Carlton Neighbourhood
Learning Centre, 20 Princes Street, Carlton North. Key agenda item: Strategy
for 2005. All VALBEC meetings are open to members.
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12. Unsubscribe?
Just click this link <mailto:info@valbec.org.au?subject=eVALBEC_Unsubscribe> (no
typing required!) and hit Send or send an e-mail with the word Unsubscribe in the
subject.
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eVALBEC is the monthly electronic newsletter of (VALBEC) the Victorian Adult Literacy
and Basic Education Council.
E-mail: info@valbec.org.au
Web: http://www.valbec.org.au
Postal: Box 861 Springvale South VIC 3172
Ph: 03 9546 6892
Fax: 03 9546 0421