That does sound like a reasonable solution, we find that the SfL materials are often relevant to a small group of learners and tend to leave much to desire in the presentation of new language forms. The problem is that we feel a certain amount of ‘political’ pressure to use them, sometimes they are seen by inspectors and consultants as a positive factor.

 

Maybe not getting the printouts will enable us to use them less, it could be a positive in the long term!

 

 

We have the same problem in that we can't get class sets (and even the teacher sets are in short supply) and cannot possibly print colour copies for our learners. As I am very dissatisfied with the materials in any case, I have largely stopped using them and use recent commercial textbooks as the framework, with selected sections of Skills for Life, among other resources, as supplemental work. I used SfL for about two years, the first year at least without having class sets, and I was constantly exceeding my photocopying budget. I find I can adapt or supplement the commercial textbooks without too much difficulty and extra work, whereas I had to supplement SfL very heavily. (Not having the resources of the large college which seems a presumption of SfL has certainly been a factor, as has being sessionally paid and having to do most preparation at home.)

This is my solution, rather than that of the adult education service for which I work; I am not aware of an official solution beyond photocopying. I have been able to get a bare sufficiency of textbooks at different levels to be shared in class, which at least means they can be used again another year. I buy far too many of my own resources, because that's the only way to get them, and scrounge authentic resources as I can.

I have heard of centres who made colour prints or photocopies because of inspection but this strikes me as dishonest.

Cheryl Thornett
ESOL & Literacy tutor
Birmingham Adult Education

 

----- Original Message -----

From: [log in to unmask]"> Bird, Phil

To: [log in to unmask]"> [log in to unmask]

Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:25 AM

Subject: Skills for Life Teaching materials [Scanned]

 

Hi,

 

We usually use the Skills for Life teaching materials, provided by the DCSF (formerly DFES) with our ESOL students. We have recently been told that these materials will no longer be provided as they are available online… We have looked at printing these materials ourselves for the students, but it will have to be as black and white photocopies, because we don’t have the budget to do it in colour – this is a solution of sorts, but far from ideal. I just wondered how other providers are dealing with this issue,

 

Many thanks,

 

Phil Bird

 

ESOL Lecturer,

Barking College

 

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