The lack of basic skills within the UK was highlighted in 1999 when an international study found that 22% of British people were functionally illiterate. Furthermore the government commissioned the Moser report (1999), which suggested that “something like one in five adults in this country is not functionally literate and far more people have problems with numeracy” (Petty, 2009, p. 536). The report outlined that language, literacy and numeracy skills (LLN) needed to be embedded within all teaching practice.The resulting skills acquired would allow learners to be confident and competent in every day life. It has also been suggested that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays an important part in everyday life and is “changing society, and therefore education” (Abbott, 2001, p.
4). “People need skills and confidence to participate and contribute to their organisations. The most important generic skills are Literacy, Language and Numeracy” (Investors in people, 2010) Literacy and numeracy are concerned with the practical application of skills and knowledge for everyday tasks and effective participation in civic life and the workplace” (Avis, Fisher & Thompson. 2010, p. 116) I am a lecturer of hospitality and catering at Eastleigh College and I teach levels 1, 2 and 3 courses to mainly sixteen to nineteen year old students.
I work within a team of lecturers who deliver theory and practical lessons, sometimes with the support of learning support assistants (LSA) but with no specialist LLN lecturers.Within the functional skills programme, literacy not only covers reading and writing, but also covers elements of speaking and listening. This helps learners to develop communication skills, which allows them to contribute to ideas, discussions and express opinions. This skill will help them develop their communication within their own life as well as communication with their tutors and peers. In 2006 the National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy (NRDC) produced a research report regarding LNN in post-16 vocational programmes.The NRDC report found some of the following key points: There were higher retention and course success rates on embedded courses, those learners on embedded courses had much higher success rates in literacy/ESOL qualifications, learners on fully embedded courses achieved increased numeracy qualifications, learners benefited from team teaching rather than teachers having dual responsibility (Casey, Cara, Eldred, et al.
2006, pp. 5 – 6). Within the hospitality and catering department at Eastleigh College it is the responsibility of the team to embed LLN and ICT at all stages throughout the various courses.There can often be a negative approach to embedding LLN in vocational courses as the NRDC report suggests: “You wouldn’t expect a plasterer to go and teach English and maths, and you wouldn’t expect a maths teacher to teach plastering” (Casey, Cara, Eldred, et al.
2006, p. 39) However it can be very easy to embed LLN and ICT through every day conversations and activities; through the use of clever questioning we can use normal conversations during lessons to embed and to create learning.In using this sort of approach there doesn’t need to be ‘extra’ work for the teacher and should naturally fall into teaching. When planning I try not to create extra work embedding LLN and ICT, I try to ensure class activities can be linked and assessed against the functional skills criteria and the majority of courses have natural elements of LLN and ICT included. The NRDC report does however suggest that learners benefit from team teaching and it could be argued that the department would benefit from a specific LLN/ICT tutor.Would a specific LLN/ICT tutor deliver a higher level of LLN/ICT as than a hospitality tutor? The answer is that they probably would.
Lucas (2004, p. 116) suggests “a minimum requirement in core skills should be a requirement for all FE college teachers” and that teachers in vocational areas may find this “daunting”: A tutor may not be comfortable enough to teach LLN/ICT or even competent enough. Another aspect is that if they are required to teach LLN/ICT there are some questions that should be asked are; are the students being taught correctly?What are the implications if the students are taught incorrectly? Who is responsible if students do not meet the required standard? To qualify for the level 3 BTEC national diploma, students require a certain level of academic abilities to enrol on the course (4 A – C GCSE grades). However the level 1 students do not require any formal qualifications. Therefore at the beginning of the course all students are screened using the Basic Skills Knowledge Builder tool (BSKB). This gives me an indication of what level of learning they are at and allows me to find learning support for those students that need it.
It is important to note that learning support is used throughout all levels and courses within the department. Throughout the course I can create ILPs for students with achievable goals, some of these goals will be related to the BSKB results. The courses are all assessment based both practically and theoretically which gives opportunities to feedback on LLN and ICT after each assessment or assignment. The courses do not require a specific improvement on LLN or ICT levels during the student’s time at college, however within the course a certain amount LLN and ICT skills naturally occur e.
g. eighing of ingredients, reading recipes, using electronic till systems, menu planning and costing, communication with customers etc.“Vocational teachers do not ‘teach’ core skills. In advance of teaching any course or programme, the teaching team look at the curriculum and decide which elements provide opportunities for students to develop key/core skills” (Armatage, Donovan, Flanagan et el. 2011 p.
388) The idea of Stand-alone Key Skills, Basic Skills or Functional Skills lessons or units can prove very effective in certain circumstances, however is not always suitable for all learners.Within further education embedding Literacy and Numeracy is generally encouraged and although in our department we have lecturers who teach more theory than practical (and vice-versa) there are no specific LLN/ICT teachers. When teaching I aim to embed a lot of numeracy during practical sessions with the students in different ways. One of the benefits of this is that they don’t often realise they are doing it: the idea of doing maths to some students is quite scary and hiding it within a recipe or task is a good way of developing skills.Dishes often have very specific recipes that need to be followed exactly; students need to be able not only to read and follow the recipes, but weigh and measure accurately too. Another simple way for me to embed LLN is to give a recipe and ask the student to double of half the quantities in order to make enough portions.
Another key area for the department to embed numeracy and ICT is when using the cash register in the restaurant and when selling produce to staff during lunch and dinner services.Students are required to engage with customers and their peers, handle money ensuring the correct amount of money is given and the correct amount of change is given. Language and communication is a vital element of the hospitality industry and fits into our curriculum reasonably easily. The fact that the hospitality industry is a customer-facing industry naturally embeds good communication with both customers and colleagues alike. Literacy and ICT elements include the writing of checks and bills for others to read as well as the writing and production of menus.I have recently been delivering a theory unit based on menu planning and costing.
Due to my qualifications and experience one of my strong areas is in the financial side of the industry and this has led to me being able to embed a huge amount of LLN/ICT, particularly numeracy. One lesson involved finding out the cost of commodities – something that the students will not only need for the industry but also for later life. Other lessons involved working out percentages, calculating profit margins and working out how many grams were in a kilo; they all enabled me to deliver important life lessons that they will use after college.The unit also required an assignment as means of assessment as do many of their other theory units.
These assignments include creating posters, leaflets and written work, therefore very much testing their literacy and ICT skills. In addition to this they are also required to give presentations to the rest of the group; they generally use Microsoft PowerPoint as the chosen medium. The sixteen to nineteen age group seem very capable of producing the required standard of work using ICT and to search the internet for the information required.This can also be a bit of a problem as the ‘copy and paste’ tool is sometimes used to the extreme resulting in students copying large chunks of text from the internet.
I encourage students to word process their work so they can take advantage of the spelling and grammar tools and encourage them to read through their work to find mistakes. Robert Strachan is my subject mentor, for the purpose of this qualification and during his observation of my teaching he noted his findings of my embedded LLN/ICT in my session plan and throughout my lesson. The LLN/ICT session plan (see Appendix A) and Robert’s LLN observation notes (see Appendix B).I am reasonably confident in delivering LLN in this session and throughout all practical sessions. With practice I have got better at doing this and will continue in the future.
ICT is more difficult to embed effectively during a practical session and I generally focus on that during theory lessons. If I was to teach the subject on its own I may struggle to deliver LLN and ICT confidently LLN especially language and literacy. My major concern would be in delivering the wrong techniques or skills; in my opinion I would rather be used as an LSA supporting specialist teachers.Robert offered feedback after my observation on embedding LLN. Robert suggested that numeracy skills were embedded well but there could be room for improvement when using questioning techniques to further develop student’s language and literacy skills.
It was also discussed that ICT skills were difficult to embed in the practical kitchen environment and was more suited to theory lessons. “Poor answers are often the result of poor questions” (Gravells, 2008, p. 79)The lesson observation went reasonably well and I felt the benefit of being observed by a peer on questioning techniques and embedding. I try to use a ariety of different questioning techniques during my teaching this however depends on the student; some students will often offer information freely, whilst others need careful and persuasive questions to coax information. I try to avoid closed questions where possible and probing questions are used regularly to see if the student can evaluate or elaborate on problems.
I try to ask specific questions to specific people thus trying to gauge if all have understood. When delivering theory lessons I will often ask students to show me how to do something on the computer thus checking their ICT skills.I also try to use reflective questions thus allowing the student the opportunity to discuss their previous learning. I also think it is important not to belittle or demean students with questioning; students negative experiences of education can often stem from being put on the spot and made to feel obtuse in front of their peers.
Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) identifies a need for a minimum core of LLN required by teachers (2007, p. 2), in the case of this course level 2 literacy and numeracy must be achieved as a minimum requirement.I think it is important that all teachers regardless of subject or expertise should be at level 2 in order to provide support to students and in order to embed LLN throughout their teaching. Having studied at degree level in the past I was reasonably confident of my LLN skills when I started teaching, but not having been a student for over 10 years I was relieved that according to BSKB, I was working at level 2.
As part of my CPD I will now look at working towards level 3. This will hopefully give me more opportunity to embed LLN to students in the future.
