Training will be offered, but first all the employees must be tested to see who needs to improve reading skills.

The employees hear something quite different: threats, job loss, and changes that they are not prepared to deal with.

Assessment results are skewed because the employees—following their regular practice on reading and writing tasks — openly help one another on test items. When asked to take the reading and writing course they are angry at being singled out, and resist the proposed learning plan.

The course has been offered four times; each time participants have questioned why they should be there, or openly resented having to be in a class. The employees do not see the benefit of learning to read the menu items; they don't connect learning with their lives, or believe that education can make positive changes.

Although the course was conceived as straightforward training to read computerized menus, three factors undermine this single focus: the employees don't accept being learners; the administration begins to recognize more needs for improvement; and the instructors—to keep people motivated and attending class — begin to adapt course material to the personal needs of participants.

In one class the instructor asks the women to write stories about their lives — in Portuguese, their own language. They respond well, despite being somewhat puzzled about how this will ultimately help them read computerized menus. The instructor knows it's important to make those personal connections to writing and reading before working on such discrete and isolated items as menu vocabulary.

This will be a long process for some of the employees, who have already taken the course three or four times. The administration, on the other hand, often asks for additions to the course (such as reading newsletters, minutes, and announcements, or speaking up in meetings and making short oral presentations). Some requests that could be handled by the employees have been included, but the coordinator has called a halt to further additions to the curriculum in the interest of meeting primary goals.

The coordinator and instructors have had trouble getting the administration to understand the distinct features of adult learning and how to deal with adult learners who are reluctant to learn and hesitant to participate in a threatening exercise.