For art educators, teaching textual literacy can be a challenge. In a review of literature, Hall (2005) found that content area teachers (as opposed to teachers of Reading and English) did not feel qualified to teach reading and believed that students did not need reading instruction to be successful with texts from their specific disciplines.…

Describes practical materials that relate to places within the English-as-a-Second-Language learner's own community, such as the supermarket, local fast food restaurants, pharmacy, and library. Each literacy booklet contains approximately 35 pages of activities that can be used as classroom handouts. (LB)

Recommends adapting the language of class materials and texts used in apprenticeship training programs to make them appropriate to the functional language demands made on tradespeople in real-life working situations. (AEA)

Offers suggestions for teachers to integrate the functional uses of numbers and mathematics into the English-as-a-Second-Language classroom curriculum, as well as several sources of information for additional exercises and ideas for activities. (15 references) (Author/LB)

Adult basic education and English as a second language teachers, as well as volunteer tutors, can help new refugees acquire functional English through the use of a survival kit. The Literacy Volunteers of America's guide to teaching conversational English recommends these items for a survival kit: a written copy of student's name, address, and…

English as a second language (ESL) teachers find the newspaper a terrific source for easy-to-prepare reusable materials. Travel ads with coupons from the travel section can be cut out for beginning level students to complete and mail in envelopes they address. Students can find places on maps. In addition, intermediate and advanced students can…

A variety of games are described and illustrated for two categories of instructional objectives: (1) to promote relatively complex communicative exchanges among students, and (2) to require students to retain information given by others in the class and use it to solve problems. (MSE)

Problems of dealing with ESL students who are functionally, completely, or semi-literate, or who are not familiar with the Roman alphabet, are outlined, and some solutions to material development and class activities are proposed. Examples and a list of resources are included. (MSE)

Describes three instructional approaches in adult basic education: a class in which retired coal miners recorded their experiences in early coal mining camps; a telephone-based instructional system using "Teleteacher" specially designed and built machines; and an approach to ABE in New York emphasizing adult functional literacy, Project…

Discusses the evaluation of "survival texts" for immigrants in terms of the accuracy of the texts' portrayal of immigrants' reality and the extent to which they shape reality. Examples show that frequently the materials' content and communicative structure do not reflect authentic interaction and that they emphasize subservient social roles. (SED)