English as an additional language (EAL) adult literacy learners have special needs and unique characteristics. The various challenges they face include decoding, comprehending, and developing basic skills for reading and writing. At the same time, it is extremely important to understand EAL adult literacy programming, as the right approaches for…

The adult literacy education field draws on research from several disciplines to support the work of educating the 40-44 million U.S. adults who lack the skills to obtain and maintain family sustaining work opportunities (Kirsch et al., 1993). Adult literacy research that documents the prevalence of low literacy in the adult population is useful…

The continuous professional development of educators is not only essential to highly maintain their expertise levels and ensure that their knowledge is up to scratch, but also to catch up and adopt new pedagogical tools, skills and techniques. The advent of the Web 2.0 brought about a plethora of digital tools that teachers have not only struggled…

The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) has just published its fifth policy brief, entitled "Making Large-Scale Literacy Campaigns and Programmes Work." The brief provides policymakers with a set of recommendations based on an analysis of adult literacy campaigns and programmes that took place around the world between 2000 and…

The promise of "21st century learning" is that digital technologies will transform traditional learning and mobilize skills deemed necessary in an emerging digital culture. In two case studies of video making, one in a Grade 4 classroom, and one in an adult literacy setting, the authors develop the concept of "production…

In fields such as sociolinguistics and composition and rhetoric, communication is increasingly understood as translingual, that is, as negotiated socially across languages. Those of us engaged in community literacy can and should recognize the deeply multilingual nature of the communities in which we work, and we should understand, embrace, and…

This study addresses the age-old problem of integrating personal and disciplinary purposes for learning. Two groups of educators participated in online professional development in which each participant assessed an adult literacy learner. The assignment required participants to synthesize assessment data representing social-humanist and cognitive…

Many adults need help with literacy learning. This is extremely challenging for the tertiary education sector and workplace-situated learning organisations. E-learning may be an effective and efficient way to improve the delivery of teaching of basic skills to learners. Our research study included five embedded case studies within one tertiary…

Current reports of literacy rates in Australia indicate an ongoing gap in literacy skills between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian adults, at a time when the literacy demands of work and life are increasing. There are many perspectives on what are the literacy needs of Indigenous adults, from the perspectives of community members…