Clare DEAL

Development Education in Adult Literacy Classes

Basic reading and writing activities using topics on world issues can help learners to reflect on what they have already gathered from the news on radio and television shows. Text from newspapers can be simplified for learners and then used for comprehension, vocabulary and spelling exercises. Discussions such as Irish living standards as compared with other European countries and developing countries, water and health issues or immigration are popular topics for adult learners.

Development Education in Family Learning 

Family learning can draw a huge amount of resources from development education to facilitate its core learning subject - Parents and carers.  Learning about local and global issues that have an impact on the lives of parents/carers and their children, now and in the future, is very effective for illustrating the inequalities and social injustice in our world. Maternal, child health, HIV/AIDS, poverty, impact of illiteracy, child labour and role of women in society are all development issues which can be brought into FL classes.   

ICT and Development Education

ICT is widely used in adult education programmes to up-skill learners in digital media such as the internet. Development education can be integrated by using the internet as a research tool for many issues. Applications such as You Tube, Facebook and Twitter can be used to communicate and share this research with other people. Development issues can be used to develop a critical understanding of different websites by studying bias, use of language and presentation of ideas by different groups.    

Arts and Crafts and Development Education

Arts and crafts have a universal appeal for all learners and can be used to combine global subjects with local creativity. Creative works of art and crafts can be used to stimulate learners develop problem solving skills as well as a means of expression to share learning. Adults who paint or make a piece of craft on a subject such as poverty, trade or climate change can be motivated to take part in local actions for social change and attract other adult learners to participate in development education.