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You do not need a background in education or teaching to become a voluntary tutor with a VEC. Full training and support are provided by the VEC. Depending on the centre, courses run for between 6 – 12 weeks, whereby you are matched to a student/class depending on your availability.
For the past two years NALA has run a distance learning service and has recruited tutors to work on this service. Full training is provided for this role. However, experience of tutoring is a specific selection criteria for this position. Updates on distance learning service for 2010 will be posted on the Web as soon as they are confirmed.
A forum is a tree like structure starting with topics (commonly called threads) and inside them 'posts'. Forums are organised into a set of generic topics (usually with one main topic) driven and updated by a group known as members, and governed by a group known as moderators.
Most common topics on forums include questions, comparisons, polls of opinion as well as debates.
A private message is a message sent in private from a member to one or more other members. Private messages are generally used for personal conversations.
A thread is a collection of posts, usually displayed from oldest to latest. A thread is defined by a title, an additional description that may summarise the discussion, and an opening or original post (OP - which can also mean original poster) which opens whatever dialogue or makes whatever announcement the poster wished. A thread can contain any number of posts, including multiple posts from the same members, even if they are one after the other.
A post is a user submitted message enclosed into a block containing the user's details and the date and time it was submitted. Members are usually allowed to edit or delete their own posts. Posts are contained in threads, where they appear as boxes one after another. The first post starts the thread; this may be called the original post, or OP. Posts that follow in the thread are meant to continue discussion about that post, or respond to other replies; it is not unknown for discussions to be derailed.
A post is a message submitted by a member. This is enclosed into a block containing the member's details and the date and time it was submitted. Members are allowed to edit or delete their own posts. Posts are contained in threads, where they appear as boxes one after another. The first post starts the thread; this may be called the original post, or OP. Posts that follow in the thread are meant to continue discussion about that post, or respond to other replies.
In 1997 the OECD developed an international survey which examined how well adultscould cope withdifferent types of reading and numeracy tasks which crop up regularly in work and in daily life. The survey looked at how adults of working age manage common literacy activites– such as reading timetables, understanding the labels on medicine bottles, or calculating and estimating quantities. This International Adult Literacy Survey concluded that one in four – that is, about half a million - Irish adults aged between 16-64 have problems with even the simplest literacy tasks, such as reading instructions on a bottle of aspirin.
The 2006 census records 419, 733 people as non-Irish (CSO,2007). When this figure is adjusted –discounting people 14 years of age and under and discounting people from traditional English speaking countries (UK, USA etc) - the numbers of adults from non-English speaking countries usually resident in Ireland is a almost a quarter of a million (249,836). There is no specific research which can provide an estimate of how many of these need language or literacy support. However, the EU average for participation in adult education is 10.8%, which suggests that a service enabling at least 25,000 should be planned for, at a cost of €20 Million. This figure is based on the fact that at present, ESOL is funded from the adult literacy budget, and 30% or 12,500 learners in adult literacy services are ESOL learners. This costs an estimated €10 Million, so to reach double that figure €20 Million is needed.
NALA hold that a separate funding stream needs to be created for ESOL, over and above the literacy budget. In other words, taking 30% of the literacy budget to start up an ESOL service is unacceptable to NALA, as the literacy budget was never intended to cover adult literacy and ESOL, as has happened in practice.
ESOL stands for English for Speakers of Other Languages. In the Adult Basic Education Context (ABE) context it is about providing support for non-English speakers. Literacy and language are intertwined not only within first language acquisition but also within the teaching and learning of English as a second language.
If you need to find out more just call our free support line on 1800 20 20 65 and you will be put in contact with the literacy service closest to you. It’s that simple. All you have to do is make the first call.
If you have access to the internet you can also see more information on www.literacy.ie.
