ESOL Research Group at Leeds

A meeting of the ESOL Research Group will take place on Thursday 19 April 2012, when Martin Nickson will be discussing his research into community- and volunteer-supported classes of ESOL who are adult migrants to the UK.

Time: 4pm-6pm
Place: Room 10.70, EC Stoner Building, School of Education, University of Leeds
 
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Informal ESOL : Liberating pedagogy or teaching without a theory?
Martin Nickson, University of Hull
 
Community and volunteer-supported ESOL classes have been persistent features of the ESOL landscape since the early twentieth century, and a non-mainstream tradition of ESOL provision that continues to the present day. Even after the introduction of the Adult ESOL Core Curriculum in 2001 and the increasing emphasis on accreditation as a legal requirement of citizenship, Government policy has sought to incorporate this non-mainstream provision, which is frequently non-accredited, within national strategies for teaching English to adult migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. Community and voluntary provision has been supported through funding by local, national and European initiatives, yet despite its persistence, little research into non-mainstream ESOL provision has been carried out. 

 Against this background, a research project investigating the intersections between policy, pedagogy and learner needs in community and voluntary (non-mainstream) ESOL was started in Hull in 2011. As part of that research, five voluntary teachers from a community ESOL project were interviewed about their teaching practice, strategy and theory in a case study of an educational setting that was informal and non-accredited. The teachers were free to establish their own curriculum without many of the restraints on practice imposed by formal and mainstream settings, and free to draw on a range of theoretical perspectives to inform an emerging pedagogy. The case study sought to investigate how the teachers developed their practice under these conditions. The questions raised by the results of this case study are presented for debate in this research seminar.
 
Martin Nickson is a post-graduate researcher at the University of Hull and an ESOL practitioner in Hull.

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All are welcome: no need to book.

The ESOL Research Group is open to anyone with an interest in research into ESOL in the UK, and who is within striking distance of the University of Leeds. This includes - but is not limited to - current students, ESOL researchers, practitioners currently carrying out research, practitioners who are planning to carry out research, and those who have been involved in previous ESOL research. The group is coordinated by James Simpson, School of Education, University of Leeds. Contact: James Simpson j.e.b.simpson@education.leeds.ac.uk, 0113 343 4687
 
How to get to the university | How to get to EC Stoner Building: EC Stoner is close to the Parkinson Building (with the white clock tower). As you face the Parkinson steps, it is down the hill to your left, straight ahead of you. EC Stoner is the very long modern building with six floors. Room 10.70 is on Level 10.

Have a look at the map here