We’d love it if you stopped by and had a read through the new content for Collection 3 of the new NZCALNE on PathwaysAwarua.
You’ll find a plain-English introduction to the Learning Progressions. This includes a demonstration of how to map the big picture literacy and numeracy demands of your programme, as well as specific samples of your teaching materials.
You’ll need to register as a new tertiary educator, or just log in if you already have an account. Look for the NZCALNE (Voc) pathway.
You need to check out the new content for Collection 2 of the new NZCALNE on PathwaysAwarua. We cover approaches and concepts use in adult teaching and learning.
All the great content from Te Ao Maori is still there – just updated. And we’ve widened it to include things like motivation and learner agency.
You’ll need to register as a new tertiary educator, or just log in if you already have an account. Look for the NZCALNE (Voc) pathway.
Please check out the new content for Collection 1 of the new NZCALNE on PathwaysAwarua. We cover definitions, frameworks, and factors associated with low literacy and numeracy levels.
You’ll need to register as a new tertiary educator, or just log in if you already have an account. Look for the NZCALNE (Voc) pathway.
Hey, well done! You’ve got your strategies and learning outcomes in place now. Make sure you remember to submit your completed assessment to us.
Just to recap:
All that’s left from here is the project work. The project work is the teaching practice part of the course. There are three assessments, and they are linked together. Think of them as one project.
The connection between the tasks is that you’ll need to track the same learners through the three stages. And you’ll report back on how you and they get on at each stage.
Before we move on, though, have a think about your answers to the questions below. The questions aren’t assessed, but talking about what you think with someone, particularly a colleague, will help you engage with the learning more deeply.
We are going to be working with the Read with Understanding strand. Now… let’s go through it slowly. If you are already an experienced mapper, please skip ahead to the assessment task.
1. Print out the Read with Understanding strand.
Make sure you have the Read with Understanding strand in front of you so you can refer to the details for each step.
It looks like this, but it will have descriptions of skills and knowledge in all of the steps. You can Download the Read with Understanding Strand Chart if you need to.
Read with Understanding
2. Choose a specific sample reading text or task from your teaching programme.
Choose some kind of teaching material that your learners have to work with, not NZQA unit standard descriptions.
Here are some examples of samples that you could choose:
3. Have clear reasons for choosing the sample
In the assessment template, you’ll need to say why you chose the sample. There are lots of reasons. Here are some:
4. Start your mapping with the Vocabulary progression
In a nutshell, what you’re going to do at every stage is refer to the Strand charts and then shade in your own chart down to the relevant step.
We’re going to practice with the vocabulary progression. This is the easiest place to start.
For most training that has a technical aspect, like trades or employment focused training, it’s safe to start at around step 4/5 for reading. Look at the description for vocabulary at step 4/5.
You’ll see the following:
“… a reading vocabulary that includes some general academic
words and some specialised words”.
| Vocabulary | Most adults will be able to |
| Koru / step 1 | have a reading vocabulary of everyday words, signs and symbols. |
| Koru / step 2 | have a reading vocabulary of everyday words that includes some compound words. |
| Koru / step 3 | have a reading vocabulary of everyday words and some less common words, acronyms and abbreviations. |
| Koru / step 4 – 5 | have a reading vocabulary that includes some general academic words and some specialised words. |
| Koru / step 6 | have a large reading vocabulary that includes general academic words and specialised words and terms. |
5. Use what you know about your own subject
At this point, you need to use your own knowledge of your training material or work to decide whether this applies. In other words:
If your answer was no, then you need to drop back to step 3 and see if that fits better. Step 3 for vocabulary means there are no academic words and no specialised or technical words.
If you answered yes, then you should push ahead to step 6 and see if the answer is still yes to the description there.
Step 6 applies to vocabulary where you expect your learners to be working with a large bank of academic and specialised or technical words.
If you work in trades, your material is probably at least at steps 4/5 or 6 for vocabulary.
If you have a lot of technical jargon to deal with then go with step 6. If there’s just a bit, but it’s not too much then go with steps 4/5, which is a combined step.
If you’re not sure about what step, this process works well if you do it together with a colleague who knows what you know about what you teach or train.
6. Map the demands on paper first
If you’re working on paper, get a highlighter and shade down from the top until you’ve included the highest step that you identified for vocabulary. You’ll end up with something like this:
This is mapping. Above, we’ve mapped the vocabulary demands for reading at steps 4 / 5.
You can download a chart and worksheet here for mapping your own reading sample. It’s exactly the same as section 3.3 of your assessment task. Print this out and you can use it as a rough draft and for notes.
7. Map your reading sample against the rest of the progressions in the strand.
Once you’ve mapped vocabulary, you can move on to Decoding and then other progressions. The system is the same. For each relevant progression:
If a progression is not relevant you can skip it. But make sure you have a reason for this as your tutor or assessor may ask you.
There is also some subjective judgement involved. But also, you are the expert here. You know your own content. In the case of vocabulary, it’s easy… If you see technical jargon, you can’t map it at step 3. It has to be above this.
Also, many of the skills and knowledge required at steps 1 and 2 is very developmental. For trades and most courses, you’re going to be mapping at step 3 and above.
In fact, if you are a trades tutor, you may find that much of your course is at step 5 and 6.
When you’ve mapped all of the relevant reading progressions for your sample, you might end up with something like this:
This is mapping in visual terms. From here you need to be able to talk about your results and what they mean.
When you complete the assessment task, you’ll need to answer a series of questions to show that you know what you’ve just done.
These questions are in the assessment template and in the worksheet if you download it. They’re also here below:
In the template, there are prompts to help you answer the questions. Feel free to ignore them if you like. But they are there to help you get started writing your answers and guide you in the right direction.
If you can map a sample reading text and answer the questions above, you can move onto the next module. Keep your sample handy, though. You’ll need to scan it and upload it when you submit your finished assessment task.
We’re in the middle of a transition from the existing NCALNE (Voc) to the newer version of this qualification – the NZCALNE (Voc). Most qualifications are now in the process of shifting from the old “National” qualifications to the current “New Zealand” quals.
It’s a bit of a messy transition as we’re all caught in the middle. We really like the new unit standards so we want to switch everyone to the newest version as fast as possible. This means that we’re writing the new content as we go.
If you have the old assessment 1 and you want to see the new one, please email us on assess@alec.ac.nz and ask for the new assessment 1 template.
If this is confusing, please email as well or ring Graeme on 0800-ALEC-1-2. There will be some teething problems to make the shift, but we’d rather roll out the new qualification now rather than later. It’s much better.
The new course structure is similar to the old with a few changes to make it more streamlined. There’s a short explanation below and a longer one here.
You are welcome to stick with the old assessment 1 if you’ve already made a start. But if you haven’t, here is what you need to know below.
New content for assessment 1 is complete but it hasn’t made its way onto Pathways Awarua just yet. But it is on Graeme’s blog now.
The new assessment 1 no longer requires you to write a report and there are only three parts. There’s still work to do, but it’s a lot easy to focus on just the three content areas of definitions, frameworks, and factors.
Down below are the links you need for all of the new content for Assessment 1 including:
If you’re stuck, please get in touch with us assess@alec.ac.nz
The Starting Points framework allows tutors to focus on learning that happens at or before koru/step 1 on the Learning Progressions for Adult Literacy. This is often in an ESOL context.
The ESOL Starting Points were created by The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). This was in response for a guide for working with learners who are pre-literate or very low level literacy learners.
If we work with ESOL learners, the Starting Points allows us to focus on seven important areas that:
provide support for working out how to read and write words (decoding written words, forming letters, and writing or encoding words) to enable learners to access and work within the first steps of the learning progressions.
They represent critical skills and knowledge that are essential for supporting adult literacy development.
Without these skills and knowledge, it is unlikely a learner could advance significantly through the progressions for reading and writing (Starting Points, p. 3).
It’s not represented by grid with strands and steps like the Learning Progressions. This is because the skills and knowledge are closely related and cross over.
Here are the seven knowledge areas:
The ESOL Starting Points will not be relevant for everyone. For example, if you are teaching a trades or vocational training programme it’s unlikely that you will need to use the Starting Points.
However, if you are teaching a workplace literacy programme that involves new migrants, refugees, or other pre-literate learners then the Starting Points could be very relevant and useful.
If you do have low-level ESOL learners, you will probably need to use the Starting Points reading assessment. This is part of the LNAAT.
If you’re unsure about this it could be a good idea to talk to the person in your organisation that administers the Literacy and Numeracy for Adults Assessment Tool (LNAAT).
This assessment generates a report similar to the one’s we looked at earlier for the Literacy Progressions. For some courses, such as workplace literacy, doing this assessment will be a condition of your funding.
