Case Study - Voting in Elections

Identifying target group of learners

The program was directed at long term unemployed migrants with low English literacy levels ranging from mainly NRS Level 1 to those closer to NRS 2. They have moderate to high oral communication and listening skills – NRS Level 2-3.

Outline the purposes and social context of the program

The learners are studying job search skills but they were also curious about the impact of government decisions on their job opportunities and wanted to know more about the elections process in light of state election and in response to their questions about informal voting - the ‘donkey’ vote

Outline the learning outcomes

The learning outcomes from this particular sequence was:

to involve learners in a simulated election using all 4 macro skills
for learners to identify points that are important to their context.
roles and responsibilities of voting so that your vote counts

The NRS levels covered in the overall module range from

Reading

1.2

a

3.2

Oral Communication

1.8

a

4.11

Writing

1.3

a

2.4

Numeracy

1.11

a

3.9

The NRS levels convered in this snapshot range from

Reading 2.1
a
3.1

Oral Communication 2.5
a
4.7

Writing 1.5
a
2.3

Numeracy 2.12
a
4.11

Chaak

Chaak was one of the participants who attended our classes during the time we delivered this snapshot.

Chaak was a refugee from Cambodia. He had lived on a farm not far from Phnom Penh and has three children. His formal education was limited to four years in a school environment because, like so many others, he had to help farm the family’s little plot of land to keep them in food and a bit leftover to barter with.

This was Chaak’s second round of ten weeks receiving literacy and numeracy assistance. As he was also an English as a Second Language (ESL) learner his needs were high in specific areas such as pronunciation, tone, cultural nuances and writing.

Chaak had worked in Australia for several years so was quite familiar with workplace language and his oral communication was quite good if the pronunciation factor had not existed. He had worked in a factory as a process worker and as a market gardener about which he knew a great deal having grown all his own vegetables and some flowers in his home country.

Chaak was highly motivated and a quick learner. He regularly referred to his dictionary and his uptake of new vocabulary was constant. He felt he learnt best by doing things and making mistakes which contributed to his attitude of “I’ll have a go at anything”.

Chaak moved up one level for Reading and Writing, two levels for Oral Communication and remained the same for Numeracy as the tasks attempted were already at NRS levels achieved by Chaak

We hope you enjoy Chaak’s journey through this snapshot and that it equips you with some further knowledge of how the NRS can be successfully used as an assessment tool.