RaPAL

Several members of the LLRC are looking forward to attending the annual conference of RaPAL (http://www.literacy.lancs.ac.uk/rapal/ )which will be held outside the UK for the first time this year. The conference will take place in Galway, Ireland from 19-21 June and is being organised by Kieran Harrington who works at City of Galway VEC. Kieran has written an article about RaPAL and literacies learning in Ireland, which was published on 20 May in the Irish Independent. Please follow this link to read the article:

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/time-for-serious-reflection-on-adult-literacy-1381561.html

Chain chain chain....

What is the eternal fascination of chain letters? I remember them from my childhood; wikipedia dates them from 1935 (I'd be quite surprised if there isn't any earlier evidence though) and confirms they're still popular on email. One on Facebook claims 4m although - or perhaps because as it claims - the only purpose is to see how big the chain can get. I'd heard of it and then found its origin reported here.

Creating Connections: Policy Research and Practice

This was the title of a conference organised in Glasgow by Learning Connections, which I attended on Tuesday 29 April. For me the highlight of the day was a session in which three adult literacies practitioners gave presentations on the action research projects they had carried out as part of an online professional development course. What impressed me most about their presentations was that they spoke in a very confident and matter-of-fact way about the theory they had been using. What's more, their references to theory were woven into their discussion about some very practical issues connected with their work. One of them summed up their approach when she said 'We know better by doing and do better by knowing.' Another presenter described how he used to think of himself as an 'intuitive' teacher, but carrying out his research had convinced him that intuitions need to be examined and questioned, and that theory is a good tool for doing this. These teachers seemed to have made a very real connection between research and practice in literacies, one which they all felt would become an enduring aspect of their work.