Literacy in the Workplace - Essay Example

Literacy at work Name Institution Date Introduction Literacy is generally perceived to be the capability of making and communicating meaning by and from the utilization of symbols that are socially contextualized. In a variety of degrees of ability of development, a person who is literate can convey and derive meaning, and moreover apply their knowledge in the achievement of a desired goal or purpose that calls for the application of the language skills, be they written or spoken. According to Redman (2001), a person who is literate is able to mediate his world by flexibly and deliberately coming up with meaning from given knowledge of base linguistic and connect or apply it to another base of knowledge. For instance, literacy is not bits of knowledge that is isolated but it is the growing ability of the student to utilize language and literacy in broader and more activities. Literacy’s definition is evolving, dynamic, and demonstrates the ever present changes in the society. Literacy has expanded to involve communication and information technologies and also critical literacy. The concept of new literacy is mostly used to describe features of the communication systems that are complex of contemporary society. Street (1995) notes that the concept is utilized in both academic analysis and popular discussion. In the past years numerous nations that are developed have found themselves engaged in a process of significance change in order to make industry to be more competitive in a global perspective. The resultant globalised economy that emerges has put the skills of future and current workers in these particular countries under intense scrutiny. In the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Australia and Canada, a variety of reviews and official reports have been the focus of a sense of crisis and agency which is occasioned by a workforce that is poorly skilled. Another key aspect of the literature focuses on the functional literacy representation. Some studies following an autonomous learning model hold that the skills of writing and reading are to a large extent generic, and should only be taught as basic skills that are discrete. It has been established that literacy and language are social and cultural constructions comprising of inter-related and recurrent actions that are goal directed. It follows that if the skill systems are practice or activity-dependent, one easy manner of determining their course of acquisition and characteristic is to carefully study them during their function is these particular practices. Moreover, focusing on speaking, listening and reading as skill sets that are de-contextualized promotes a view of learning that is reductionist (Lankshear, 1998). Literacy in the workplace is a still emerging and recent site of educational activity. At the same time it has turned out to be a contested site, as many literacy educators and researchers challenge discourse that is more dominant on workplace literacy which gives very little recognition to the needs of the workers or to how work is performed in real terms. The views that are predominant of the correlation between work and literacy found in majority of the literature and in official reports and accounts, have been drawn from notions of common sense and certain knowledge that is generating from the existing discourses concerning functional literacy and work (Street, 1995). A certain perspective of ‘workplace literacy’ has come forth from this mix and eventually institutionalized and allowed within policy contexts and also among practitioners and administrators in education sectors on workplace, as a common sense or natural way of talking, understanding, knowing about the relationship between work and literacy. The significance of a majority of the workers to go through ‘basic skill training’ is often portrayed as an argument for programs in workplace literacy. The arguments rarely come with critical analysis of what makes up ‘basic skills’ in workplaces that are contemporary, or what is perceived as the ‘need’ by the workers. The United Kingdom strategy for the improvement of numeracy skills and adult literacy that have been recently released make such a demand, elaborately tying the need for basic skills training in the places of work to national economic imperatives. Social and traditional embraced ways of representing literacy and thinking about literacy at work have provided strong emphasis to conceptions of skill requirements as a way of representing data that is valid. Whereas the principles of filing and the decoding skill might be viewed to be generic skills, the degree at which this happens is very wide that it has minimal relevance to practices of actual work. The associated practices and content knowledge are absent. Workers are looked upon to operate complex and expensive machinery, to carry out their assignments in accordance with international standards, and further more take part in work teams that are self-directed on which they monitor and set their personal goals for maintenance of high quality and incasing productivity. The discourse of the new order points out a specific version of knowledge concerning the place of literacy in the context of the workplace. The discourse views workers in ways that are very particular, adding to the inability of the nation to effectively compete in the marketplace internationally. According to Lankshear (1998), what is conjured up in the picture of workers who are dealing not within the parameters of what is viewed as ‘good worker’, inclusive of possession of adequate degree of literacy skills that are functional. Workplace literacy in Australia established that workplace personnel accounts, comprising of training and training deliverers and human resource managers complied with the perspective. By purely putting emphasis on the competence or skill as an attribute of an individual, the perspective permit workers who do not have the mentioned or outlined skill level to be seen as inadequate for a given task. In this perspective those workers who have literacy skills that are poor are then held responsible for dwindling performance of the economy at a national and industry level. In other reports poor economic performance is further attributed to poor literacy skills among others. Presently there has been minimum discussion concerning the emerging forms of literate practices that have come forth from the range of technology in places of work (Fitzpatrick, 1996). Discourses that are new concerning work name those particular experiences viewed as important to contemporary society, laying down discursive practices that are differentially valued as they are depicted by some a few workers. In today’s segregated workplace that is increasing, such kind of formulation give the definition of workers as workers as winners while the others as losers, meaning that there is more available for the professional as compared to the traditional worker. These kinds of workers find themselves vulnerable particularly in workplaces that are changing as an effort to respond to the globalization by practices that include approach to work that is project based; offshore production and downsizing (Kalman & Losey, 1997). The privileging and naming of workers of certain kinds, nevertheless, denies validity and credibility to the others’ experiences thus ruling out the notion that the world might be changing in regard to how and what type of effort of human is valued. The discourse that is dominant on the literacy role at work can, on the other hand, established to have a good measure of silences and omissions, depending as it usually does on understanding of literacy that is limited. The high degree of focus accorded to the functional literacy discourse in the description of the literacy of the workers competence depends largely on oppositional structures that are binary to attain its descriptions. The workers are grouped as unskilled (traditional) or skilled (professional), with a variety of rewards to be offered in the workplace that is enchanted. The dominant discourse of workplace literacy offers understandings that are limited concerning the existing interrelationships between work and literacy, but also works to strengthen and constitute particular power relations in the settings of work and beyond (Kalman & Losey, 1997). Relations of power in the workplaces is asymmetrical, and the workers are accountable for economic and social outcomes that fall very far from their areas of specialization, influence and experience. The common habit of looking forward on functional discourse to give explanation concerning workplace literacy effectively naturalizes and disguises the ideological function of literacy within the contemporary society. Literacy is a representation of many of most serious problems in the contemporary society. This act permits for certain conceptualizations of the identity of the worker to bear with them a certain moral implication. Workplace literacy training field has come forth from the pairing of new discourse concerning works and the skills of workers with the discourse of functional literacy (Moser, 1999). The explanations that are predominant succeed in masking the contemporary social, political and economic life complexities that could include consequences on families, communities and individuals of labor markets that are declining for people with levels of skills that are low. Consequently, they lead into deflection of attention away from solutions in institutions to such kind of problems. In the short while literacy takes on the significance that by far outweighs social life what features can appropriately and adequately explain in terms of its actual function in the lives of people. Moser (1999) argues out that teachers in the workplace typically assume roles of traditional roles in front of workers, by use of assessment and material techniques reminiscent of schooling convectional notion, whereas workers take up conforming, passive roles of students who are school based. The mere application of the term teacher becomes problematic in an environment in case where the teacher is not professing to possess detailed understanding of the skills, knowledge and practices of work of individual worksites. According Darvin (2006), such kind of programs may actually help in sustaining inappropriate relationships and roles for workplace students and teachers formed as they are on discourses that are school-based. The practices are not only inappropriate for adult learners but besides may succeed in the maintenance of power structures existing in society that work to sustain the status quo of socioeconomic denying opportunities that are equal to participants. The programs can consequently reinforce negative notions that are school-based of learning and teaching, inherited from the school days for the majority of the participants (students) to the extent that they remain passive recipients of knowledge passed onto them and determined by the teachers at the workplace (Kalman & Losey, 1997). Hull (2000) points out that the functional literacy discourse pervasive influence that is applied to work also means that workers are held back by approaches that are inappropriate to learning and teaching that reinforce the views that are autonomous concerning literacy and specific social identities, beliefs and values. There is no doubt that the practices of workplace literacy formed on the prevailing model of school literacy will not prepare the workers fully for workplaces that are newly organized. Whereas the importance and value of including texts drawn from the actual occupational setting. Consequently any effort to help workers in accessing workplace text must be viewed as a discourse and speculate concerning the ways readers and writers both construct meaning and are constructed as being meaningful by the discourse of operation. The point is explicitly displayed when considering the purpose and nature such as mission and vision statements and the values that are core and derived from the discourse of quality management and typically found in staff areas and company offices (Hull, 2000). These debates relevance is that they come up with a framework of discourse that consequently constrains, and is also intended to constrain, the role definitions that educators can adopt and the consequent interactions that they engage in with students. The students and educators interactions form an interpersonal space whereby identities and minds meet and where possibilities for engagement socially are explored collaboratively. According to Cummins (1994), the literacy of public discourses sketched has the consequent of reinforcing the societal power structure by limiting the power of students of critical thinking, confining their options for cultural identity formation, and doing away with their capacity for social engagement that is transformative. The interactions reflect the relations of power and culture in the society but they also make up these relations and, involve potential that is transformative (Cummins, 1994). This paper seeks to explore the various perspectives of literacy at work and the significant of literacy at work. Conclusion The conditions of changed workplace have yielded a lot of significance in the global world. There has been an increase in the demand for literacy. Many things have changed following the emphasis of literacy at work. There has significant amount of reading on the job. There is more demand for higher literacy skills required in the many jobs in developed nations. Literacy at the workplace has taken professionalism to a new level and every industry has an obligation of seeing to it that the workers acquire the required skills and competence to tackle difficult challenges. References Cummins, J. (1994), From coercive to collaborative relations of power in the teaching of literacy. Pp. 295-311. Redman, P. (2001). Good Essay Writing: A Social Sciences Guide. 2nd ed Milton Keynes, U.K. Open University with Sage. Ch. 11. “Examples of Student Essays”, pp 94-104. Moser, C. (1999). Afresh start: Improving literacy and numeracy. Sudbury, England: Department for Education and Skills. Street, B. (1995). Social literacies: Critical approaches to literacy in development, ethnography and education. London: Longman. Darvin, J (2006). ''On reading recipes and racing forms’: The literacy practices and perceptions of vocational educators', Journal of adolescent & adult literacy, vol. 50 no. 1, pp. 10-18. Irvin, J, Buehl, D & Klemp, R 2007, 'The demands of text', in Reading and the high school student : strategies to enhance literacy, 2nd ed, Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, Boston, pp. 77-100. Lankshear, C. (1998). Meanings of literacy in contemporary educational reform proposals. Educational Theory, 48, 351-372. Hull, G. (2000). Critical literacy at work. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 43, 648-652. Kalman, J., & Losey, K. (1997). Pedagogical innovation in a workplace literacy program: Theory and practice. In G. Hull (Ed.), Changing work, changing workers: Critical perspectives on language, literacy and skills (pp. 84-116). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Fitzpatrick, M. A. (1996). Literacy at work: a case study of the perceptions and expectations of adult workplace literacy students. NY: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Read More