TRIPLE E TRAINING HOLDINGS

Although it is imperative to provide a means of educating illiterate people in South Africa, it is also important to improve reading skills. A higher level of reading and understanding literacy materials is necessary for individuals to access further development and higher learning facilities. Further education and training facilities will not accept learners or students who only have basic reading and writing skills as they will not able to follow the course material. Learning at a higher level requires a student to be able to absorb knowledge on their own as well as interpret the subject matter with only the assistance of a lecturer.

South Africa has one of the best human rights constitutions in the world. One of the statutes is that each and every South African has the right to receive an education. There are however many rural communities and sections of the population group who do not have access to a school or other education facility. This makes it necessary for children who want to learn to read to travel great distances to reach a school. Boarding schools are expensive and way out of the financial reach of most families. It is important that every South African becomes involved in ensuring the future of our country and help with the education of our children.

Taking a Basic English course can open a whole new world to you. The ability to read and write in English will enable you to further you education in other ways. Most education institutions teach in English and have work books and study materials that are written in English. The more education you have and the more skills that you are able to learn, the better the lifestyle that you will be able to access. You will also be able to communicate better with other people. Although English is just one of the eleven official languages in South Africa, most people use it as a common language to break down any communication barriers.

The ABET literacy training for adults have four levels. Starting at NQF1 and ending at NQF4 the ABET literacy training has as aim the provision of education to empower people to gain knowledge, understanding and valuable literacy skills in the specific language. There is a difference in ABET literacy training for adults and school education. The ABET literacy training is structured to teach adults how to read, write, understand and communicate in a specific language in a shorter timeframe than that offered in the school system. As such it is focussed on skills that can be applied immediately in the workplace and the learner’s day to day living. It runs over a shorter period, is presented in a highly interactive way and is not group focussed, but individual focussed allowing the person to progress at his or her own pace without having to compete with others in the group.

Adults don’t learn to read in the same way as children. There are specific phases when adults learn to read. We have identified the phases and ensure that the learners start and progress in their course at the appropriate phase. The main phases that adults go through when they learn to read are that of initial decoding and then confirming the knowledge, where after fluency in the language follows. The learner will then use prior knowledge of reading to acquire facts. A reading strategy is developed and the skills applied. It is important to structure learn to read classes accordingly to ensure maximum success.

Because students readily learn to read and write when they have opportunities to use their new language skills in their work, basic adult English classes focus first on conversational workplace conversations. Working with corporate associates, professional educators and trainers who specialize in Basic English adult classes, develop curriculum according to everyday situations in the job site. Conversations develop interactions between supervisors and employees, or they build from common social situations, and vocabulary emphasizes professional jargon and common expressions used at the jobsite.

Basic English adult classes, although they focus on spoken language, nevertheless build simple command of phonics and they develop word recognition, the fundamentals of reading. Because rising English users are familiar with approximately ten times more spoken words than they can read, basic English adult classes capitalize on that familiarity to boost students’ vocabularies and lay the foundation for reading.

Even as South Africa has become more sensitive to the value of cultural diversity, the importance of English language literacy has increased. More than ever, experts emphasize in order to participate in South African culture and commerce, people must learn to read.

As in all post modern industrialized nations, television has become the primary tool for South African acculturation. As producers make television more closely resemble our computer screens, more text accompanies the sound and images. Viewers must learn to read in order to enjoy all of television’s benefits. Trends in cell phone use also indicate how South Africans must learn to read: people now more frequently use text messages than voicemail.

Educational advancement always has been the nation’s primary tool for upward social mobility. As jobs become more sophisticated, an applicant’s command of English frequently determines whether or not he or she gets a job.