L-force in practiceAdvancing functional literacy in vocational education

participating institutions

“L-Force in practice” (2012-2014) is a Belgian (Flemish) research project, funded by ‘School of Education’, the expertise network for teacher training institutions of the association of the University of Louvain. The Centre for Language and education (University of Louvain) holds thepromotorship over this project. Co-promotors are the teacher training institutions of KHLeuven, GroepT Leuven, KHLim, HIK and Limlo.

background and objectives

This research focuses on ‘functional literacy’, ‘the ability to use reading, writing and numeracyskills for effective functioning and development of the individual and thecommunity’ (Unesco). In Flanders, pupils with low literacy skills participate mainly in vocational education. Recent research findings (F1) demonstrate that hardly 38% of the pupils in the 6th year of vocational education meet the standards for functional reading, hardly 39% for functional listening, hardly 39% for functional maths and 62% for information acquisition and processing skills.

In Flanders’ current system, attention for literacy skills is nearly exclusively situated in the general courses of vocational education. The transition process this project aims at, is the relocation of attention for literacy skills towards the practical courses in vocational education: focusing on reading, writing, numerating and ict-skills in and through functional tasks related to the pupils’ professional choices. The main objective thus concerns: advancing the stimulation of literacy skills in the practical courses of vocational education by training their future teachersin the principles of functional literacy.

Methodology

A.A Professional Learning Community (PLC), constituted by a mix of literacy experts and teacher trainers of the practical courses.


B.“Teach As You Preach” + “Collegial Coaching”
•Phase 1: The principles of literacy education were embedded in the teaching practice of the teacher educators from the PLC.
•Phase 2: The principles were embedded in the didactic courses offered to students i.e. future teachers of the practical courses.
•Phase 3: The teacher educators of the PLC coached colleagues in the implementation of the principles of literacy education.

C.An empirical study on the impact of the innovation, on the level of beliefs as well as on the level of practice.

  • A digital questionnaire (pre and post innovation) amongst the teacher trainers of the PLC + the coachees involved in the collegial coaching + all students (future teachers of practical courses) of the experiment group + control group of students
  • In-depth interviews (pre and post innovation) with a selection of students of the experiment group
  • Research on students’ lesson plans (pre and post innovation). A checklist developed by the PLC is used to analyze these data.

output

The exchange of expertise in this PLC has led to the development of a vast amount of learning materials, both on the level of teacher trainers and on the level of students in teacher training institutions. All our materials can be downloaded from our website: Most of the materials are, however, in Dutch.

We particularly mention the following output:

  • A digital ‘L-Force manual’, developed as a learning path for students to acquire the principles and methodologies of functional literacy education in and through practice based examples and practically oriented exercises and assignments. The manual contains a large amount of good practices, both on paper and on video, developed by the teacher trainers of the PLC and their students.
  • A checklist on functional literacy in practice that allows teacher trainers to evaluate functional literacy in students’ lesson plans and to give feedback.

findings of the empirical study

Baseline measurement

At the level of beliefs, the empirical study on the impact of the innovation, showed a significant growth. Before the intervention, future teachers of the practical courses had a very poor understanding of functional literacy. They associated literacy solely with language and defined it mainly in terms of formal correctness. Although the relevancy of being functionally literate was recognized by most participants, the responsibility for literacy education was situated exclusively in the hands of the teachers of the general courses.


Endpoint measurement

After the innovation, students did not only show a more thorough understanding of the concept of functional literacy, but recognized the responsibility of the teachers of the practical courses as well. Not only is the growth significant, the study also reveals significant differences between the experiment group and the control group in 6 aspects.

Preliminary findings do not, however, show a significant growth on the level of practice. Probably the final measurement of the students' teacher practice came too soon after the input on functional literacy they received. This transfer takes time.

theoretical frameworks

This project focuses on the practical courses as the ideal place for advancing pupils’ literacy skills. Therefore, we based ourselves on theoretical frameworks that stress the embedment of the learning of skills within functional contexts, the enhancement of transfer potential and the integration of content objectives and language objectives. In this respect, an important framework is the Project Zero Group of Harvard Graduate School of Education, particularly David Perkins’ Making Learning Whole (Perkins 2010). Other important frameworks concern Content and Language Integrated Learning, particularly for mother tongue education in Dutch. Important works of reference here are Hajer&Meestringa 2009 and Bolle 2014.

For the research methodology, we relied on Earl&Katz 2009, Kotter&Cohen 2002 and Senge 2000, particularly with respect to Professional Learning Communities and collegial coaching as part of innovation processes.