Using Learner Storeis

Using Learner Stories for Language and Literacy Outcomes

Our Life Stories Everyone loves a good story. There is no doubt that stories can be entertaining and uplifting. They also can become powerful tools for teaching English to immigrants, refugees, and newcomers attending family literacy programs. Many English language learner families who arrive at the doors of literacy programs have overcome incredible odds. What if their experiences could be turned into powerful stories that supported their learning English? While the language might be new, the experiences could form a familiar backdrop against which learning is supported and can take place. Some educators are doing this—developing curriculum resources that use learner stories to support families learning English as a second language.

Educators are finding that working together to create project-based learning experiences based on learners' stories supports classroom work. They empower and strengthen the learning experience. Individual learner-centered projects are developed and then woven together in a curriculum framework. Each learning experience engages learners with personal project work that piques their interest. Projects may investigate a question, solve a problem, plan an event, or develop a product that is important to learners. They also provide a body of work products that build to create an authentic curriculum.

Principles of learner-centered practice, developed by Dr. Gail Weinstein, professor at San Francisco State University, provide the foundation for developing this exciting approach that combines project-based learning, learner stories and language teaching.

Learner-centered practices can be applied to teaching, curriculum development, assessment and program design. Learner-centered practices:

Require ongoing inquiry (listening to/learning about learners).
Build on what learners know.
Balance the practice of skills and structures with making meaning and creating knowledge.
Strive for authenticity.
Foster shared responsibility for learning among students and teachers.
Build communities.

Dr. Gail Weinstein During her career, Dr. Weinstein moved from personal classroom teaching to training workshops for colleagues, sharing her knowledge and lessons learned. All of those experiences turned into a model that became Learners’ Lives as Curriculum.

What followed next was a pilot project in which Dr. Weinstein partnered with the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) to develop training and a set of curriculum development tools for family literacy practitioners. With support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the staff from the Cambodian Association of America in Long Beach, California, colleagues wrote and collected stories and created language lessons for learners based on materials drawn from the students' own lives. One particular tool—the storyboard—helped to make the story writing more manageable. The storyboard allowed teachers to organize the story telling while making important connections between instructional components.

If you are interested in learning more about Using Stories for Language and Literacy Outcomes, workshop and training support are available from the National Center for Family Literacy. Contact NCFL to find out more about the two-day NCFL professional development workshop, created in partnership with Dr. Gail Weinstein. It was developed to assist family literacy practitioners as they bring learner-centered approaches into the fabric of their teaching, curriculum and program design. The training provides a framework for using learner narratives to teach language while addressing themes in family life through project-based work. For information on how to bring this professional development training to your site, please visit NCFL's website at www.famlit.org.

References

National Center for Family Literacy. (2004). Using Learner Stories for Language and Literacy Outcomes. Louisville, KY: Author.

This information was produced by the National Center for Family Literacy for use on www.thinkfinity.org, a powerful educational platform supported by the Verizon Foundation. This information is in the public domain and may be reproduced for noncommercial purposes without permission.