Relates the author's experiences teaching remedial reading in a Texas high school, where the state-mandated exit-level competency test heavily influences teaching. Discusses negative effects on students and on teachers. Describes how the author's teaching evolved from an emphasis on this basic skills test to a focus on engaging students in…

The National Literacy Summit 2000 was convened in Washington, DC, to develop a national vision and plan of action for adult literacy in the United States. Following that meeting of literacy professionals from across the country, a group of professionals working in adult ESL education and research came together at the Teachers of English to…

This document consists of the two issues published during 1998 of the newsletter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) national special interest group (N-SIG) on foreign language literacy. Major articles in these issues are: "Academic Protocol and Targeted Rhetoric" (Denise D. Brown); "Key Concepts in FL Literacy: Phonemic…

Conversations with an adult female student in a math anxiety course uncovered parallels between growing up Catholic and being taught math. The study highlighted the importance of considering total life experience in dealing with math anxiety. Crucial to change are group processes, questioning of self-concept, and questioning of social practices.…

The case of a group of women who financed and purchased a vacation house is used to explore numeracy practices, self-concept, and feelings about money management. Gendered practices in their family backgrounds were more influential than school math instruction in their financial management as adults. (SK)

Numeracy involves a set of social practices situated within a particular culture and ideology. The concept has implications for definition of math standards. A social practice approach to adult numeracy in South Africa is recommended. (SK)

Discussions of numeracy practices with unemployed people ages 14-26 indicated that their problems with literacy and numeracy, especially in job seeking and money management, were not recognized. The complex, socially constructed functions of numeracy in their lives should be taken into account in policy and practice. (SK)

A social semiotic approach to math is necessary because of the increasing significance of abstract tools in the workplace. A case study from the coal mining industry illustrates the need to recognize mathematics as a socially constructed system and to contextualize math instruction. (SK)

A study of numeracy practices in metal engineering companies found that, rather than increasingly being shared, decision making of workers and managers rarely overlapped. Basic numeracy has come to mean a way of knowing that differs from the competence needed to pass mathematics examinations. (SK)

A study identified the numeracy demands for English, social-science, and math-education majors. Results were used to develop a framework that described the numeracy demands of academic texts and tasks. A need to integrate literacy and numeracy in academic programs was evident. (SK)

Discusses outcomes of a research project analyzing the relationship between academic literacy specialists and a subject specialist from a nursing faculty engaged in a collaborative curriculum development project at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. Focuses on how participants in this partnership negotiated a working relationship…

Discusses the role of figurative language, particularly metaphor, in the literature on literacy. Examines a specific site of knowledge about literacy, the relationship between literacy and work as constructed in an Australian government report, "Words at Work: Literacy Needs in the Workplace." Concludes with implications of this kind of activity…

Draws on metaphors of literacy and literacy learning in a small case study of a learner and his teacher. Examines the personal transformation of the learner as he takes his place in his newly-literate world. (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education) (Author/VWL)

Examines advice on infant nutrition given to mothers by health professionals since the 1940s and looks at ways that mathematics has been used to position women and health professionals and influence their behavior. Argues that a particular kind of mathematics and an authoritarian, transmission mode of learning are used by health…

Responds to an earlier article that discusses six new "literacy crises." Raises the question of how the "dialectic," as described by Freebody, relates to Street's (1984, 1992) autonomous/ideological models of literacy. (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education) (Author/VWL)