Fun with Computers and GNVQ: Performing to Criteria and the Confidence to Improvise

Rachel Ward Freelance Educational Multimedia Author

Abstract This article examines the development and assessment of communication skills at GNVQ. It does this by reflecting on a project using multi-media technology to deliver communication skills to ESOL students. The author argues that current models of communication skills in GNVQ can be narrow and limiting and suggests that stimulating imaginative uses of language is more constructive in raising student confidence and achievement.

Key words Vocational English, core skills, multimedia, GNVQ, bilingualism

Margie went into the schoolroom. It was right next to her bedroom, and the mechanical teacher was on and waiting for her ... The screen was lit up, and it said: ‘Today’s arithmetic lesson is on the addition of proper fractions. Please insert yesterday’s homework in the proper slot.’ Margie did so with a sigh. She was thinking about the old schools they had when her grandfather’s grandfather was a little boy. A1 the kids from the whole neighborhood came, laughing and shouting in the schoolyard, sitting together in the same schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. They learned the same things, so they could help one another on the homework and talk about it. And the teachers were people ... The mechanical teacher was flashing on the screen: When we add the fractions 112 and 114 -? Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days. She was thinking about the fun they had.

Asimov’s 1954 vision of the future of education depicts the computer user in a state of extreme isolation. The computer makes social contact during learning redundant. Margie’s ‘teacher’ is calibrated to churn out the appropriate syllabus to her and assess her progress; the story focuses wistfully on the fun she misses out on.

My experience of a pilot study with a group of GNVQ students using computers in a South London sixth form college casts an interesting light on Asimov’s suggestions. It may seem perverse to champion computer

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applications as a way of enabling students to develop their oral communication skills, but there are aspects of this type of learning need that make computers particularly useful.

‘Communication’ is designated as a GNVQ core skill alongside IT and numeracy. The idea is that whatever vocational area is studied, these core skills can be developed through the activities set. However, recent research suggests that the concepts of the communication skills syllabus are over-simplistic. Peter Medway (19941, for instance, challenges pre- conceptions about the nature of language use in the workplace. He shows that workers often need to use both written and spoken language for purposes that have nothing to do with communicating new information. For example, we sometimes talk to ourselves in the presence of others as part of representing ideas to ourselves and hence learning about them, and it would be wrong to assume that the purpose of written ‘instructions’ is always to instruct (it can be to protect oneself in case of future disputes). We must be careful when we define what students must learn in order to become effective users of language and communicators.

As Dearing makes his recommendations for ‘applied A-levels’, with the aim of merging A-level and GNVQ to promote parity of esteem, speculation is mounting about what will happen to the GNVQ core skills syllabus, with its mechanistic vision of communication. If we want to help students develop their ability to communicate it is not polished performances we need to focus on, although the dramatic metaphor is illuminating.

At each level, the GNVQ syllabus lists ‘performance criteria’ and ‘ranges’ for the core skills, divided into different areas. The four areas of communication skills are: 1. Take part in discussions 2. Prepare written material 3. Use images to illustrate points made in writing and in discussions 4. Read and respond to written material.

There are specific performance criteria for each of these areas. In discussion, for example, one criterion for intermediate students is ‘contributions from others are listened to attentively’, and the corresponding criterion for advanced students is ‘others are explicitly encouraged to contribute and their contributions listened to attentively’.

There is also an apparent progression in the ranges: foundation and intermediate students do all these things in relation to ‘routine matters’, and the range of audiences is people who are familiar with the subject matter. For foundation students, these are people with whom they are in frequent contact. Intermediate students’ audiences have to include people with whom they do not have frequent contact. Advanced students do the tasks in relation to ‘a range of matters’, and their range of audiences includes people who do not know the subject matter. Foundation and intermediate students are not expected to make the imaginative leap necessary to communicate with someone who has less contextual information than they do. Similarly, for the spoken element, the range requires advanced level students to deal with ‘non-routine matters (e.g. solving problems, dealing with sensitive issues)’ whereas those at lower levels do not have to do so.

It is assumed that, in learning, the capacity to perform less imaginative, more mundane tasks develops first, and skills requiring more imagination

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spond - t o Written bfaterial

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can only be developed from this basis. However, as Medway’s research (1994) indicates, conversations about work with peers can be the most stretching; new meanings are made when both parties are engaged. Talking to an unfamiliar audience can be the easiest of all, as everything can be simplified. I t appears that the performance criteria and ranges have been ordered from the perspective of the employer, without reference to how students learn.

The syllabus implies that talking to colleagues and form-filling are less creative and therefore more straightforward skills to learn. To fulfil the performance criteria for writing, students must write according to the rules of the various written genres. These are divided into pre-set formats (‘record and report cards, memos’), outline formats (‘letters, reports, log book entries’) and, at advanced level only, freely structured documents, ‘where the structure is determined by the individual’. It is expected that students working at intermediate level can use these formats with reference to routine matters (‘day-to-day organization and administra- tion; responding to customers’ letters’) and using full stops, commas, apostrophes, capitals, sentences and paragraphs. More able students’ writing can then progress to encompass freely structured documents making use of colons, semi-colons, highlighting and indentation, with reference to complex and non-routine matters (‘a report on a piece of research; a letter on a sensitive issue; summarizing a complex document’).

GNVQ rationale contrasts, however, with what educationalists from primary level upwards recognise: students’ writing benefits from personal experience and involvement. Maintaining concentration on context-free exercises modelling the day-to-day use of the invoice format is in fact far harder than getting involved in a piece of writing on a sensitive issue that is meaningful to the writer. Malcolm Kirtley (1994) gives examples of students’ writing about their work placements which is full of insight on complex workplace issues. The students were encouraged - or challenged - to engage personally:

... instead of the teacher mediating the text to the student, the student mediated the placement world to the teacher and school. (p. 228)

He notes that this experience led students, unprompted, to produce confident and intelligent writing in a variety of genres, including a sensitive thankyou letter.

Kirtley (1994) and Sallyanne Greenwood (1994) conclude that engage- ment with the reality of the workplace enables students to become effective writers. Across the broad range of projects Greenwood observed where writing was directly linked to experience in the workplace, ‘a significant number of students who normally opt out of conventional classroom discourse used appropriate registers and genres when the discourse altered’. Working out how to write according to the rules of a particular genre is the least of our problems when we are trying to communicate in the workplace. Addressing the genre directly by practising it in the classroom might not actually make it any easier to do in situ.

Determining the structure of a document is a feature of higher paid, higher status jobs, and doubtless it would be useful to employers if it were possible to determine at an early stage who was imaginative management material and who was form-filling fodder. We should consider whether the purpose of GNVQ is to foster confidence and learning or to facilitate

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the sifting out of the unconfident. It was with these issues in mind that I set about authoring multimedia

learning materials for GNVQ students. I was asked by the college’s learning support tutors to create computer resources for an independent study project for students with language difficulties. The intention was to enable Leisure and Tourism GNVQ foundation students to work on the computers for an hour a week of their own study time to back up the work done in class. The syllabus area chosen for this was Unit 3, Element 3.2: ‘Investigate jobs in leisure and tourism’. The syllabus requires the student to: 1. identify two jobs in leisure and tourism which are likely to suit herhim 2. describe the main purposes of each identified job 3. explain why each identified job is likely to suit herhim 4. identify the main skills required for each identified job 5 . identify qualifications required for each identified job 6. identify how to obtain skills and qualifications required for each

identified job 7. seek advice and information from appropriate sources when necessary.

The ‘evidence indicator’ (assessed assignment) is ‘An investigation of two jobs in leisure and tourism identified as likely to suit the student. One job should be suitable as initial employment in the sector, the other suitable for further progression.’

The course director explained that he had chosen this for me to work on because it was a part of the syllabus where he felt ESOL and other students with language difficulties did badly. They would choose two jobs, but would not write about the details of their possible future working lives with any real conviction. There is a careers database available, and all too often tutors would be presented with a couple of print-outs from it, or at best handwritten versions of them that didn’t seem to have troubled the student’s consciousness as they passed through it.

In developing materials for a series of computer-based lessons I had two aims: I tried to make it impossible for the student to complete the tasks without engaging on a personal level, and I tried to approach the final written evidence indicators via creative and enjoyable routes.

Some description and explanation of the materials I produced may be helpful here. The computer software, created using Digital Workshop’s Illuminatus, is a self-contained series of colourful screens which the students get into by clicking on an icon. Two cartoon guides, Leisure Les (a penguin) and Tourism Tracy (an ape), introduce themselves on the first screen. Each student controIs how quickly s h e works through the screens, and can go back through them. Les and Tracy present tasks to the students which enable them to imagine themselves in the leisure or tourism jobs they choose, and to write about these jobs. The students liked Les and Tracy; Jo commented at the end that they had been helpful ‘because they love us’. She was joking, but her comment does show that computer learning packages can generate very different personal responses from Asimov’s ‘teacher’.

An example of the creative personal approach, is the session where Les and Tracy help the students to write about the skills necessary for the jobs

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they choose by chatting about their own skills and asking the students about theirs. Les, for instance, claims to be a good organiser who never runs out of milk, but says he is hopeless at winding tapes back in when they jam. They introduce a quiz where students imagine themselves on a desert island and answer questions about types of activities they’d be good at. For example, one question is:

There is a stream for fresh water, but no-one likes walking there, so you keep running out of water. You could make a list so that everyone knows when it is their turn. Can you do this?

When they have responded, the students are presented with constructive comments on their answers, which break the activities down using four categories of skills. Students who have said they would be good at producing a water rota read:

You need to hauegood administrative skills to work out a rota. You are confident you could do this. Organising skills are needed in lots ofjobs.

Those who did not rate themselves highly at this task read an amended version of this which allows that the student’s strengths might lie elsewhere and ends:

What kinds of practice and support would help you feel more confident about organising things?

The students are given descriptions of themselves as individuals with particular aptitudes; it is also suggested that the quiz might have got it wrong, and each student should decide for himself or herself how accurate it is. Only then are the students given the task of identifying the types of skill needed for their chosen jobs.

The language used in the program is clear and direct. It confronts the student with images of herselfiimself at work and using skills. The instructions for the quiz do not say ‘imagine yourself on a desert island’ but ‘you are on a desert island’. In the first session, students find or create visual images and are told that these are freeze-frames from a video of themselves at work. Using a ‘scaffold’ outline, they describe the picture and write about what happens next.

The creative elements in the work made it impossible for the students to avoid the reality of what it would mean to do their chosen jobs. The performance criteria push students towards picking a job with a managerial component for the second one they write about; Lee had picked the job of leisure centre manager, and handed in an investigation on this job when the work had been done in class. However, when he was faced with having to draw himself doing the job, he was unable to draw anything. It emerged that he did not understand the term ‘manager’. Paul, at the other computer, explained it to him and Lee was able to continue, drawing himself using a calculator. As the course director suspected, Lee had been able to fulfil the performance criteria for the investigation without having any comprehension of what he would be doing as a manager. Having to represent his understanding in a medium other than the verbal challenged the extent of that understanding.

I included screens that helped the students order their notes and restructure them into essay form. The GNVQ syllabus uses the term ‘investigation’ but does not specify whether notes are acceptable evidence of investigation. The essay-structuring screens worked, but were, in my opinion, the least vital contributory factor to the resources’ success. If the

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quiz had been left out, the students would not have engaged with the task; if the essay structuring had been omitted, the students would still have learnt about their skills and potential. It takes more than instructions on essay structuring - even delivered with the benefits of multimedia - to enable students to express their beliefs and experiences in the form of a well-structured essay.

The multimedia resource was originally intended to be available to students during the weeks when they covered this section of the syllabus in class. In the end this was not possible; the students had finished the classwork by the time the computer pilot started. However, this provided us with an opportunity to compare how the students had managed the task each time.

Contrary to Margie’s experience in the Asimov story, using the computer resource enabled the students to communicate with their peers about their work. Two computers were set up for the students to use, and the students often discussed the tasks with each other. They commented in feedback sessions that they liked the bright colours on screen, and found it easier to understand the tasks when the instructions were there on screen for them and could be referred to at will. The ESOL support tutor was able t o compare their behaviour with their usual classroom behaviour. He said it was striking how much easier they all found it to focus their attention on the computer than on ‘chalk and ta lk or printed media. The fact they could concentrate more easily on the tasks opened up to these students the possibility of on-topic discussion; one of the benefits of groupwork could be brought to individual work.

Louis engaged closely with the work because of its imaginative content. He had originally chosen bar manager for his second job, and bar attendant for his first one. However, when he looked at his picture and considered that, as an attendant, he would have to follow the kind of orders he would be giving as bar manager, he decided he only wanted to be in that picture as manager and chose another initial job: air steward. During his work on the picture he drew of himself as an air steward, Louis read out the question ‘what are you looking at?’ and commented, ‘the woman sitting in the next seat’. Jo (at the other computer) and I laughed. He asked if he could put that. I said, ‘yeah, go on’. He wrote, ‘the fine young lady across the aisle’ (getting the spelling of aisle from me). He asked if it was really OK to put that. I said, ‘yeah, sure,’ adding, ‘though if this is going to go into your GNVQ coursework folder you might want to think about redrafting it ...’ J o was very vocal on this; she said, ‘But it’s meant to be describing him in that job, and that’s what he’d be doing, so it’s more truthful like that.’ I couldn’t disagree, and told him to keep it like it was. J o added, ‘It’s more realistic to read like that.’ This level of engagement, creating and holding a picture of oneself in the work situation and building up one’s self-image, is vital if the task is to be meaningful.

In conjunction with the sheer brightness and ‘in-your-face’ quality of the on-screen instructions, the informal scaffold method of some of the tasks helped the students to engage creatively. Les and Tracy tell the students that their picture is a freeze-frame in a video, and give them several options for how to describe what happens when the video starts again. J o looked through all the options, and was relieved when she realised she could use only the ‘then she says:’ option. As she was deleting

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the others, I said, ‘you could go on to have her pick something up after she’s said whatever she’s going to say first.’Jo said, ‘no, I’ll work it out like this’ - in other words, she didn’t yet know exactly what the travel agent assistant in her picture was saying or doing. She worked this out in the process of writing it. What she wrote demonstrates excellent comprehension of the job: ‘she says “this resort will suit you far better because there are more facilities for your children.”’ This activity, focusing on the picture, allowed J o to experience how useful writing can be in formulating one’s ideas.

Students thought up ways of using the materials that I hadn’t anticipated. Lee found a set of definitions and asked if it was all right to copy my wording. He edited it for appropriateness as he did so. That he was able to do this indicates how well he had engaged with the task. This represents a major advance on copying text verbatim from the database.

The unexpected finding that interests me the most is that the students became adept at concentrating not only on the task, but on the task and the rest of what was going on around them. As they used the resource successfully, their newfound proficiency at working on-task enabled them to explore communicative genres that will be vital to their working lives: desultory, on-and-off-topic chat during work. Some students have extreme difficulty in concentrating on abstract tasks set in conventional verbal and/or written form. This prevents their development of the social skill of keeping up an intermittent conversation without breaking their own and other people’s concentration.

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In the course of the project, Louis developed a bantering relationship with the ESOL support tutor (Andrew), drawing him out on carefully judged topics. Louis homed in on Andrew’s love for popular culture: he commented that he liked The Italian Job and let Andrew talk at length about his own passion for the film. Michelle and I exchanged eyeball- rolling glances as Andrew went into raptures. The main focus of Louis’s attention stayed on his work throughout, and of all the students he achieved the greatest improvement in his concentration levels and the quality of his written output. This is the stuff of workplace life - engaging other people, including those in a role of authority, in enjoyable chat (or non-verbal communication) that runs alongside work.

The students in the pilot project were displaying communicative skills that will be useful in the workplace - even necessary for their survival there. Interactive multimedia computer resources, developed and used in the right way, provide one way of enabling students to stay on-task and achieve consistently.

Conclusions There is apparently a persistent belief that the learning of language use and communication can be organised around GNVQ-style performance criteria. It is easy to see why the idea appeals to industrialists. According to this belief, once a person has been observed to perform a skill in a classroom, they have learnt that skill. No question is raised as to whether they would have the confidence and imagination necessary to produce a variation on the performance in a work context. There seems to be a concentration on young workers as incompetent performers. Gillian Shephard gave a graphic illustration of this perception when she said at the 1995 Conservative Party Conference: ‘Communication by grunt is not enough . . . Employers tell us again and again that poor communication is one of the main reasons young people fail to get jobs. And, once in a job, strong communication skills are vital to getting on in your career.’ Everyone who has taught students with low self-esteem and watched them baffled by a task and seeing this as evidence of their own failure, will recognise this picture of inarticulacy with sadness and compassion.

Deborah Cameron (1995) considers the lack of established criteria for assessing spoken language and for building strategies to teach it. She warns that ‘bad norms - simplistic, mechanical, trivial, superficial - can all too easily drive out better ones, and where no-one is articulating better ones, bad norms will always fill the vacuum’. I t is dangerously simple to design tick-box assessment sheets for the GNVQ core skills. When a student has performed attentive listening or used an image to provide clear illustration of the point(s) to which they refer, the appropriate box can be ticked. When all the ticks are amassed, the student’s performance can be said to have fulfilled the GNVQ criteria. We can imagine the portfolio as a videotape of snippets of the student’s best performances, given to different audiences at different times. I t is tempting to imagine that, once these performances have been achieved in the classroom, the student will be able to transfer them to the appropriate contexts at work; hey presto, no more grunting.

But how much does the existence of such an edited highlights tape tell us about the performer’s ability to cope with everyday working life? The capacity most needed in that context is more akin to improvisation than

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resting on the laurels of past glorious performances. If we want young workers to be fluent, ungrunting and on-the-ball when speaking to a customer, writing a letter or responding to a document, the nature of what we want them to do is not re-running a formula, it is always taking on a new situation. To take on new situations and work out appropriate responses requires confidence of a kind that can remain untouched by a growing command of generic formats.

Concepts of communication skills for GNVQ need to take account of the learning process. I t is difficult t o design tick-box sheets to assess the development of self-esteem, or confidence and pride in one’s ability to cope with difficult situations. However, the basis of this learning is confidence rather than competence, and this is the nettle we must grasp. Developing confidence in one’s ability to use language when improvising responses to new situations is the key to learning communication skills. In the computer project described, I used the students’ experience and built the tasks in the resources on images of them as successful individuals who were achievers. The tasks enabled them to imagine themselves in the workplace and to develop their self-esteem. Only if they are engaged and doing something relatively meaningful can students begin to experience something like successful, confident language deployment in the workplace.

Asimov was right to highlight concerns about mechanistic models of learning; imaginative engagement on a personal level, and, indeed, firn, are valuable confidence builders. Given Margie’s experience, it is ironic that computers offer the potential to counter isolation and help develop communicative skills. We must make sure that the concept of learning that informs the vocational syllabus lives up to this potential.

References Asimov, I. (1954) ‘The fun they had‘, in The Best oflsaac Asimou 1954-

1972. London: Sphere Cameron, D. (1995) ‘Talking standards (and standards for talking):

some thoughts about oral communication in and out of the classroom’,;n The English and Media Magazine, 33, Autumn, pp. 4-7

Freedman, A. and Medway, P. feds.) (1994) Learning and Teaching

Greenwood, S . (1994) ‘Purposes, not text types: learning genres

Kirtley, M. (1994) ‘Genres for out-of-school involvement’, in Freedman

Medway, P. (1994) “‘Language, learning and communication” in an

Genre. Portsmouth, NH: BoyntodCook

through experience of work’, in Freedman and Medway (eds.)

and Medway (eds.)

architects’ office’, in English in Education, 28, 2

48 English in Education, Vol. 30, No. 2, 1996

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