Language, literacy and numeracy needs

Instructional strategies

Scenario 1

Reading

Jake is 33 years old and of Australian Caucasian descent. He has worked as a cook in a family-owned restaurant for 15 years and has been head cook for the past 3 years. He is well known in the community and is a popular ‘face’ of the restaurant. He is famous for his fried chicken and for his lively banter with waiters as they exchange information about customer orders. Waiters know him as ‘the guy who remembers everything’—Jake can prepare and keep track of all orders without needing to reference the notes waiters take about each order.

The owners have recently hired you as their new kitchen manager. You are also a qualified trainer. You introduce a new, efficient, computer-based ordering system. Waiters upload all orders to the system. Orders appear on a large monitor mounted high on a wall in the kitchen. A typical screen for each order looks like this:

The kitchen staff use a touch-screen tablet device to manage orders. Using the tablet, they press ‘next’ to view each successive order. As orders are filled, kitchen staff use the tablet to highlight items that have been served (). For example, once starters are served at table 1, the screen for table 1 will look like this when it next appears:

Table 1

Customer

Starter

Main

Dessert

Notes

1

–

Family fried chicken

Chocolate cake with ice cream

2

Chicken wings

Family fried chicken

Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce

3

Soup of day

–

–

No nuts

The day the new system goes live, Jake’s on-the-job performance plummets. He gets orders mixed up and misses two orders altogether.

Table 1

Customer

Starter

Main

Dessert

Notes

1

–

Family fried chicken

Chocolate cake with ice cream

2

Chicken wings

Family fried chicken

Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce

3

Soup of day

–

–

No nuts

You organise a private coaching session with Jake to help him learn to use the system. You soon discover that Jake cannot read the orders. He recognises his own name and highly familiar, simple words and phrases. On the screen above, he recognises numbers in digit form and understands ‘fried chicken.’ He deduces that three people are sitting at table 1. He sees ‘fried chicken’ listed twice, which leads him to guess that two people ordered fried chicken. He does not understand other information given.

Questions

1. Describe Jake’s needs (gaps) in reading:

The gap is that he can recognize the complex words. Jake is not able to read and understand the complex words apart from his name and the words and phrases that he is familiar with.

b. Describe one example of a strategy you could use when coaching Jake to:

· upskill Jake in the reading skills he needs to use the new ordering system

Upgrading his reading skills so that he effectively and efficiently uses the new system to serve the customers.

· support Jake’s efforts

Although he is not able to read, he is making the effort of recognizing the famous words so that he can continue to serve the clients.

Scenario 2

Oral Communication (speaking and listening)

A large electronics retail store has just promoted two IT technicians—Rajesh (Indian) and Alain (French)—to the position of Product Expert. As Product Experts, they will answer customer questions and help customers choose the right product/s for them. You have been hired to coach Rajesh and Alain in ‘communication skills.’ Training will be face-to-face.

Both learners hold masters’ degrees in IT and have extensive technical knowledge of all products. English is their second language, but both understand written and verbal English and can engage in simple conversations. They use technical jargon easily, but lack the English language vocabulary to answer questions and provide product information in plain English. They also struggle to pronounce some English words clearly.

Questions

1. Describe Rajesh and Alain’s needs (gaps) in oral communication:

Their gaps in the oral communication is to struggles they are having in the pronunciation of some words together with the lack of the vocabulary to answer the questions asked by customers.

b. Describe one example of a strategy you could use when coaching Rajesh and Alain:

· to upskill Rajesh and Alain in the oral communication skills they need to converse with customers and respond to their questions in a way the customers understand:

They both should be coached on how to communicate with the customer to ensure that they understand them in all the situation. They should also be coached on enhancing their English vocabulary and speaking capabilities

· support Rajesh and Alain’s efforts

Despite these, they have the efforts of understanding both written and spoken English.