1. English for Action Dermot Bryers

2. English for Action ESOL charity in London Founded in 2009
Learning language, making change
Committed to participatory learning
17 classes at 15 sites in 6 boroughs
Taking action with students
Teaching, training, and research

3. Participatory ESOL

4. What is participatory ESOL?
Bottom-up, grassroots
dialogical
Critical and transformative
Emerging language
Co-construction
Unlearning
Taking action
Paulo Freire et al
“Stereotype comes from outside, prejudice comes from inside. You use stereotype to example your prejudice.”
Education should be preparing people to enter a society that badly needs to be reimagined.

5. EFA’s Learning Process
Making meaning
Going deeper
Broadening out

6. Citizens Curriculum What did we do? 2 classes 2 teachers 32 students
2 x 6 sessions
7 capabilities
1 blog

7. High View School
Clapham Junction, SW11
Theme: Health

8. Making meaning sharing health experiences Healthcare around the world
Healthcare in the UK
Pros and cons of NHS
What emerged? Waiting lists and NHS direct

9. Going Deeper
Exploration of the themes that emerged in the previous classes
Language development: discussion skills, language of causes and consequences, writing
Tools:
Problem-posing from a code
Problem tree

10. “Long waiting time at the GP”
Dermot, can we add talk in the going deeper phase –Dialogue, co-clarification of meaning, co- construction of language

12. Broadening Out Bringing the outside in Taking the inside out!
Telephone role-plays
Spreading the word!

13. Results All students Increased confidence to speak and write English:
‘I want to say I am big example for learning English. When I came this class, no speaking, no saying, no listening, no understand the teacher. [Now] I can speak a little more. I can write, listening, understand the teacher.’
All students went on to gain a qualification
All students improved capacity to describe symptons
Some learners no longer rely on translation services:
‘Now, I improve myself. Sometimes they ask me you want a translator, I say no I do - I speak myself... I'm confident actually speaking.’
Some learners better able to write the correct information on medical forms
Some learners spoke about increased wellbeing resulting from belonging to the class

14. More! Training (book us!)
Further research coming up on multilingualism
Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook
Read our research reports: Whose Integration (2013), The Power of Discussion (2014), Emerging Worlds (2016)
Participatory ESOL group on Facebook
Come to our conference (date to be confirmed) DB