Tips for Instruction are given at the end of most Literacy Benchmarks. Some tips break the knowledge and skills sets into subsets. Others provide definitions of terms used in the knowledge and skills sets, or give hints on teaching the skills.

Facilitating Contextualized Learning

Adults seek personal relevance in their learning. They want to learn things that draw on their own experiences to solve real-life problems (Imel, 1998). Adults are not bound by institutional or societal expectations, and their lives provide the context for any learning they undertake. Instruction that acknowledges and actively uses these individuals’ contexts in curriculum, course, and lesson design respects their diverse needs. This learner-centred approach is advocated when using the Levels 1 and 2 Literacy Benchmarks.

In keeping with the transactional and transformative philosophy of the Benchmarks, moreover, instructors act as facilitators, focusing on learners’ needs and helping them to expand on the knowledge base they already have (see chart below). Facilitative instructors build on learners’ strengths, slowly helping learners to become more responsible for their own learning. The emphasis is on the learning process and on developing self-direction, while recognizing that learners will demonstrate higher or lower levels of independence in accordance with their levels of familiarity and comfort with individual learning tasks. As Merriam (2001) explains, individuals occupy different positions on a continuum of self-direction under different life and learning circumstances.

Transactional Perspective Transformative Perspective
Instructors act as facilitators.
  • Learners and facilitators are collaborators on the learning journey.
  • Learners form their own questions to answer.
  • Learners articulate prior knowledge before forming or answering these questions.
  • Learners and facilitators find information from various sources to answer questions
  • Learners connect prior knowledge to new information to reflect on their own learning and thought processes.
  • Independent learning is encouraged.
 Instructors act as facilitators.
  • Learners and facilitators are collaborators on the learning journey.
  • Learners and facilitators reflect on their own thoughts and opinions.
  • Learners and facilitators explore events and issues from a wide variety of perspectives.
  • Learners and facilitators use new information to re-evaluate their own thoughts and opinions.
  • Learners and facilitators use new information and opinions to create personal and social change beyond the classroom.
  • Creating positive change is encouraged.

Literacy skills are embedded in a variety of learner-centred contexts, only one of which is the program setting and the learning situations that occur within it. As individuals with unique life and learning contexts, adult learners have their own cultural affiliations, learning styles and experiences, special educational needs, family relationships, community associations, and work histories. The Contextualized Learning chart (see p. 17) outlines these concepts, and advocates theme-based learning and authentic assessment (using portfolios to record the evidence) as best practices in facilitating contextualized learning.