In 2016, CONALFA, the national adult literacy programme in Guatemala authorized a pilot adult literacy programme in a municipality in the western highlands. The pilot programme emerged from several years’ work introducing... [ view full abstract ]
In 2016, CONALFA, the national adult literacy programme in Guatemala authorized a pilot adult literacy programme in a municipality in the western highlands. The pilot programme emerged from several years’ work introducing participatory techniques into adult literacy classes and encouraging learners to write their own ideas rather than copying from the board or from a primer. Writings by participants were reproduced as reading texts for other learners. The pilot programme consists of pre-designed units relevant to the lives of participants and later units based on their own choices. Classes include personal expression and dialogue, supported writing which leads to production of printed reading texts and reading of these texts and other locally available texts, such as street signs, ID cards, school reports etc.
Teachers taking part in the pilot attended fortnightly development workshops. As adult literacy teachers work in scattered communities and do not have regular contact with their colleagues, the workshops were an essential point for the exchange of experiences in implementing the programme. Teachers struggled with the methodology which they found unfamiliar or even alien but were able to make changes during the period of the pilot.
Evaluation of the project was carried out through systematization of experiences, a Latin American methodology which focuses on the lived experience and collective learning of participants in a project rather than the attainment of predetermined goals.
The presentation will give details of the programme and the teachers’ experiences and analyse the aspects of the project that were most enabling for them. The question of sustainability and the potential for further work with this method will be discussed in the context of the structures of the national adult literacy programme and the position of adult literacy teachers within it.
