Outcomes and Impact

Teaching, Learning and Assessment

Evaluation discussions with volunteers who participated in the sessions focused on two areas of the activity:

Supported volunteering – Several volunteers raised the need for additional support to carry out participatory sessions with their group. Suggestions included watching a session in full being ‘modelled’ by a staff member, having access to pre-prepared materials, for example, picture packs of visual prompts, pre-prepared flip charts for problem analysis and a simple session plan. These comments gave useful suggestions for the next stages of this project.

Topic relevance – All volunteers described the importance of ‘knowing what is familiar to everyone’ and finding a topic that is ‘relevant to all’ that ‘gives everyone an equal voice’ and acknowledges ‘everyone is starting in the same place’. These are valuable comments that give weight to the importance of careful planning to ensure familiar and universally relevant visual prompts for participants in a specific group are used. It highlights the important role of volunteers in building rapport with participants in their group. Being familiar with the lives and experiences of everyone is vital to achieve a genuinely participatory session.

Observations of the group sessions identified other important aspects of the research focus.

Language levels – Conversation groups use speaking and listening skills primarily in all their activities. Participatory approaches can be wholly speaking and listening based, but giving learners the opportunity to make their contributions and see these reflected visually on a flip chart or diagram requires them to be able to write comments or be comfortable with other participants scribing for them in a way that evidences their input accurately.

Observations of two different groups with differing levels of language (see group profiles, Appendix 4) evidenced that speaking and listening skills from Entry Level 3 and above provided a strong basis for topics to be explored in depth in English. Observations also highlighted the importance of this minimum level being common throughout the group, especially if there is no shared language within the group that can be used to support the understanding of participants with lower levels of speaking and listening skill.

Role of volunteers – Observing volunteers with their group highlighted the invaluable range of experience and expertise they bring to the sessions. In both sessions, the volunteers contributed their own experiences and knowledge to the discussions. This was a major contributing factor to the ‘success’ of each session – i.e. enabling the participants to reach a conclusion where they identified their next steps and agreed a plan of action to take the subject forward. As such, volunteers that bring a shared lived experience to the group can be viewed equally as participants in a group alongside the ESOL learners (Appendix 6). For example, volunteers who live in the same local area as learners will have a similar lived experience of local transport, facilities and services, schools and in some cases housing.

The impact of everyone participating in the session being an equal ‘expert by lived experience’ was observed as a key success factor to effectiveness of the session. In terms of the depth of discussion, the genuine relevance and importance of the content influenced the action planning that resulted.

In addition to learners supporting each other with suggestions to resolve particular issues, locally based volunteers were able to share locally relevant information about the changes to housing being proposed, how to contact local councillors, what a Tenants and Residents Association (TARA) is for, how it can be contacted and how local tenants can get involved in influencing improvements. In group 1, there were learners who became aware that their homes were planned to be demolished and who then planned how they would input to the consultation on this. In group 2, all learners were previously unaware of their TARA and as a result of the session planned to invite the TARA representative to their group.

Organisational Development

This OTLA 8 action research project has highlighted the important role that Language Volunteers, with a degree of lived experience shared with the ESOL learners they support, play.

As an organisation, this emphasises the importance of reaching and engaging potential volunteers within the same communities as the ESOL learners who participate in SAVTE activities. These communities may be a local area or neighbourhood, or similarly a shared lived experience of migration, asylum or resettlement in the UK (see Appendix 5, Locally based steps into language volunteering).

This finding gives direction to SAVTE’s organisational aim of widening participation in volunteering and overcoming any barriers to volunteering that individuals may face, particularly those from under-represented communities in terms of locality or experiences of migration.

There were several features relating to the groups and participants involved in this project that were critical to its success.

Firstly, the identification of groups where there was a ‘hot topic’ immediately relevant to participants’ lives, both learners and volunteers, and that was equally important to them. This provided motivation in both groups to engage with different activities and approaches as the subject was significant for everyone involved.

Secondly, the willingness and enthusiasm of volunteers to be involved and try something new. This engagement was, again, aided by the fact that they themselves were connected to and interested in the subject of the sessions.

More time is needed to trial this approach with a wider number of groups, in different localities and looking at a wider range of issues. Future research activities should also aim to evaluate the impact of the experience for learners in conversation groups.

Identifying methods to achieve equitable involvement in sessions amongst participants with differing levels of literacy would also be a useful contribution.

To date, published participatory learning guides and articles focus on use of participatory approaches by experienced, often qualified teachers in ESOL classes where reading and writing skills are also being developed. This research activity offers a new insight into the use of these approaches by trained volunteers in informal, community based, conversation group ESOL settings and, as such, provides a new contribution to the field of ESOL volunteer recruitment, training and support, which can be built on to introduce improvements to the sector and new experiences for all participants.