Learner-centredness, program staffing and training

Learner-centred teaching practice and community-oriented programming are not merely matters of educational ideal. To discuss them seriously is also to discuss funding and policy.

Literacy teaching is a challenging occupation. It is often noted, for example, that special skill or knowledge is necessary to work with students with learning disabilities. In literacy programs working with speakers of English or French as a second language (whether those are mother tongue literacy programs or not), teachers are challenged to deal with students' different levels of fluency and literacy in two languages. To use educational technology skillfully, making judgments about when it should be relied on and when it should not, and dealing with the pedlars of equipment and software, requires a considerable expertise.

But to emphasize such particular examples of the difficulties of literacy teaching may be misleading, for the challenges are pervasive. Responding to specific student needs with specific teaching methods and materials (rather than simply following structured teaching methods or mass-produced materials) requires sophistication and flexibility from a teacher. Learner-centred teaching requires blending a sensitivity to learners' interests and modes of learning, with a thorough command of the "technicalities" of reading, writing and numeracy. Using "found materials," for example, requires just this combination of an understanding of learners' interests with an insight into the form and difficulty of materials that might address those interests. Some teachers report that skillful use of a "whole language" approach takes years of experience to develop.¹⁵³

These observations of the difficulties of literacy teaching point to the importance of adequate staffing levels in literacy programs, of the preliminary training and ongoing development of literacy workers, and of policy and program arrangements that support adequate staffing and training.