A collaborative, holistic, and integrated approach to workplace education is needed to deal with a complex workplace and world. Critical elements include financial and organizational commitment to education and training, comprehensive program evaluation, balanced emphasis on worker skills, a challenge to the deficit model, and alternatives to the…

Offers step-by-step guidelines for creating effective team work in a workplace basic skills program, including preplanning, determining worker skills, developing curriculum, evaluating, and reporting the results. (JOW)

Good workplace education partnerships begin with honest assessment of the problems to be addressed, building of a vision or common mission, commitment to shared responsibility, identification of resources, and the decision to act in concert toward achieving common goals. Models include basic two-partner collaborations and multiple-industry or…

When labor, management, and literacy educators collaborate to develop a learner-centered literacy program, literacy educators must be willing to learn about the work and lives of industrial workers. The Academy at Eastern Michigan University is an alternative to traditional adult basic education that engages adults in collaborative learning.…

Steps in developing a workplace literacy partnership include (1) creating community awareness; (2) developing organizational readiness; (3) analyzing organizational needs, climate, and resources; (4) negotiating program content, structure, participation, and schedule; (5) setting goals and objectives and planning instruction; and (6) implementing…

Core principles of successful workplace literacy programs are relevance, integration of literacy and job skills, flexibility, continuity, and shared ownership and accountability. Success often involves complex negotiations to balance needs of employers, employees, and educators. (SK)

Reports on research probing job-related literacy demands and on programs promoting job literacy. (JT)

Findings of a three-year co-worker literacy tutoring program in Canada include the following: (1) management and unions must be informed of program intent and purpose; (2) nonreaders' fear of exposure is a major barrier to participation; and (3) workplace literacy coordinators for each industry are essential. (SK)

Discusses three forms of literacy--functional literacy, the ability to read and write, and workplace literacy. Includes "The Magnavox Experience" (Ford); "Aloha Means Goodbye to Workforce Illiteracy" (Beil); and "A Hospital's Prescription for Illiteracy" (Solovy-Pratt, Vicary). (JOW)

Research on adult literacy suggests that some formidable problems lie ahead as efforts continue toward ensuring that every adult in the United States is literate and possesses skills necessary for economic competitiveness and citizenship. Among the difficulties facing existing approaches are three interrelated issues. First, current programs serve…

Provides an overview of the social context of workplace programs, the variety of program types and goals, the nature of the population served, and issues of program design and evaluation related to language instruction in the workplace. Contains annotated bibliography. (57 references) (LET)