Adult Literacy Case Study Essay

Supporting literacy for vocational learners

This case study focuses on Emma, a student in the level two Beauty Therapy class. She left school with 6 GCSE’s (neither of them English or maths) and went into work until the age of 23 when she decided to go back to college to study beauty therapy. During the initial assessment stages it became apparent that Emma struggled with some of her literacy skills. ‘Literacy covers the ability to: speak, listen and respond, read and comprehend, write to communicate.’ (The Adult literacy core curriculum, 2001). Writing to communicate appeared to be the area she was particually struggling with.
After previously carrying out her level one at another college, she enrolled on the Level 2 full time Beauty
From this discussion it was decided that we would do some further assessment with Emma in the form of practice consultations to assess if her skills directly related to the beauty therapy industry needed improving. Her communication during the consultations was very comprehensive but the written record was not reflecting the knowledge gained from the
In their report “You wouldn 't expect a maths teacher to teach plastering…” Embedding literacy, language and numeracy in post-16 vocational programmes – the impact on learning and achievement.’ (2006) Cara et al suggests that ‘Research shows that learners benefit from being taught by teams of staff, each with their own areas of expertise, working closely together. We decided that a partly embedded approach to learning would be best with Emma. With both the literacy specialist sessions and some work in class to support