Teaching modern foreign languages is not all about communicative skills. It is also about testing functional abilities. While we still pay lip service to the creed of communicative language teaching, we have adopted test formats and teaching styles that follow a hidden agenda: the production of human capital. The main objective of teaching is…

The basic skills of reading, writing, and performing simple mathematical operations are not adequate for the non-college bound high school graduates to be fully prepared to enter the job market. Businesses today require employees who can communicate effectively, solve complex and unanticipated problems, and exercise tact and judgment. If the…

Reviews literature on U.S. Office of Education-sponsored Adult Performance Level project that cites among its accomplishments (1) a model for competency-based education, (2) creation of national awareness of illiteracy, and (3) individualized programs. Among its insufficiencies are absence of reliable measures of validity, value-laden curriculum,…

Reviewed are five programs (textbooks, audiovisual materials, workbooks, video-cassettes) designed to improve academic survival skills in secondary students. Content emphasis, reading level, rationale, objectives, organization, instructional method, student evaluation, physical features, and recommendations are listed for each. (KC)

Analyzes, within the historical context of functional literacy, a Connecticut Department of Education policy paper linking adult basic education and work force development. Calls for broader basic education that links instrumental knowledge with autobiographical insight and meaningful sociocultural knowledge using collaborative methodology. (SK)

Due to fragmentation of the field, framing and engaging in debates over adult literacy standards have been particularly difficult. The discourse of adult literacy standards reflects this fragmentation. The terms content standards and opportunity-to-learn (OTL) standards have typically not been used. The term performance standards has been used…

Describes a program designed to develop interactive, language-experience-based software to promote functional literacy among illiterate adults. The project uses the microcomputer with language-experience-based software to aid the teacher in providing highly individualized instruction to illiterate learners. (CT)

Discusses two reasons why the state of writing performance may worsen when, beginning in 1983, Tennessee high school students must pass a proficiency test as a condition for graduation; reasons are the objective nature of the test and the language performance objectives which the test proposes to measure. (NEC)

A framework for a competency rating scale combines types of literacy (reading, writing, numeracy, and document processing) and literacy levels (basic and required). Indicators of the competencies derived from individual behavior show whether the competency is fully established, just developing, or absent. (SK)

Assesses traditional ideas about remedial instruction, discussing common disjunctions between stated intent and practice in student assessment and program design. Sees skill development as a sequential process that needs to be conducted in an academic, subject-oriented context and to be related to students' academic goals. (AYC)

Discusses issues related to the movement toward minimum competency in secondary education. Addresses the problem of defining minimum competency and the dangers of imposed standardization. Identifies three conceptualizations of minimum competency as: (1) the narrowly educational standpoint, (2) the concern with functional literacy, and (3) a more…

The purposes of this paper are to explore and present various opinions concerning the nature of functional literacy and the questions involved in assessing the extent to which one is or is not functionally literate, and to describe one instrument designed to measure functional literacy. The major sections of the paper provide information on the…

An executive report summarizes the Alberta Vocational Centre's development of a portable individualized, competency-based learning system for use in an adult basic education program in a non-institutional community location. The report deals with the project's rationale, development (including management, curricular development, budget, and site…

The Adult Performance Level (APL) project, which developed and validated a series of objectives for adult functional competency free from school-based notions of literacy, is the most widely accepted approach to adult literacy and adult literacy education in the United States today. Yet a review of the project and its impact reveals that the APL…

Defines the concept of competency-based adult education (CBAE) and maintains that it is not a curriculum, but an adult education process emphasizing individualized instruction, learner goals, functional literacy, and other life skills. Discusses the importance of program evaluation, adult teaching/learning principles, and the teacher's role in…