A guide for literacy, numeracy and ESOL teacher educators
Introduction
In response to recent reports from the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted
2003 and 2006a) and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES 2004), and
building on recent research, this guide draws on the experience of literacy,
numeracy and English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) teacher education
programmes to share practical strategies used in building firm links between
theory and practice. It is intended as a resource for teacher educators to use in
designing and organising their programmes.
Recent and forthcoming NRDC publications (Lucas et al. 2004; Lucas et al. 2007)
have explored and evaluated literacy, numeracy and ESOL teacher education, and
reviewed the wider research in this area (Morton et al. 2006). NRDC has identified
some interesting and innovative examples of how individual teacher education
partnerships and providers meet some of the challenges of ensuring that the
practical and theoretical elements of their courses are fully integrated.
In writing this guide we revisited the data from the NRDC research and also
interviewed a number of teacher educators who had developed programmes with
strong integration of theory and practice as well as of subject specific and
pedagogical knowledge. There are quotes from them throughout this text to
illustrate how they managed individual arrangements on their courses. We hope
that others will find these experiences useful in reflecting on and addressing the
organisation and structure of their own programmes.
Building on recent research and development work, this document draws on the
experience of:
• literacy, numeracy and ESOL teacher education programmes that integrate generic
teacher training with subject specific training
• programmes in which trainees experience different models of teaching practice
support at different stages of their training
• programmes in which well-supported teaching practice is placed at the heart of
teacher education programmes
• partnerships in which organisations with different expertise encourage each other’s
development.