Summary and Interpretation of the Classroom Setting

Literacy and learning in the classroom setting focused on the accumulation of literacy skills. Although these skills were intended to support the two other settings in the employment preparation program—the coffee shop and the job placements—the classroom, for the most part, supported literacy skill development for the sake of its use within the classroom. In other words, students learned to spell in order to do well on a spelling test, not to write words for a meaningful activity rooted in their daily lives. Most often, the content of the classroom was predetermined by guidelines, workbooks, schedules, and progress levels that approach literacy development as a set of hierarchical skills that can be accumulated then transferred to situations in the lives of the students. In other words, the grammar exercise or spelling dictation done in the classroom is viewed as a precursor to doing a letter writing activity at home.

The physical context of the classroom also reflected a skills–based approach that is grounded in traditional schooling models of education. The classroom resembled an elementary class for children, and the students valued the schooling activities that are associated with literacy development. They may have been exposed to similar activities during their own formal education experiences, or they may have become familiar with literacy skill–building activities through the work of their own children in elementary schools. The classroom setting mimicked the culture of traditional elementary classes and activities, and the students came to expect these norms from their adult literacy classroom. The values and norms of an elementary school setting are also most familiar to the classroom instructors, Fran and Suzanne, who worked in elementary schools. In addition, an elementary school curriculum is the basis from which the provincial funder has developed a set of guidelines to describe progress in adult literacy programs (Literacy and Basic Skills Section, Workplace Preparation Branch, MTCU, 1998).

In the classroom setting, there was an emphasis on teaching rather than learning, which is a key element in a community of practice. In addition, the learning purpose was unclear. There was a discrepancy between the instructors and the students regarding the purpose for learning and the role of the classroom in the program. The instructors viewed the classroom activities as a basis for learning in the coffee shop, whereas the students did not see this connection. Compounding the competing notions of the classroom's learning purpose was a content and context that emphasized skills as opposed to practices. An emphasis on skills did not permit the students—or the instructors for that matter—to see and understand the whole. Instead, they focused only on building discrete pieces of knowledge.