&MY TUTOR


ME


Fiona Pickett runs the Lipreading Teacher Training Course at London’s City Lit and won the tutor award at the Festival of Learning in July. Here Fiona (left) and student Naomi Whitelaw discuss their learning relationship.


FIONA PICKETT Naomi and I were students in the same lipreading class. When I set up my own classes, she signed up to mine. Naomi is analytical and interested in the theory of lipreading. This has helped her build on her knowledge and she is a very good lipreader. Having trained to be a secondary school teacher, I then worked in advertising and marketing for 20 years. When I began to lose my hearing, I returned to teaching and taught English and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) in Spain and the UK. I attended a lipreading class at City Lit in London, where the tutor suggested I should become a lipreading tutor. After training I set up classes, and City Lit offered me the job co-ordinating the Lipreading Teacher Training Course. I’m very much in favour of presenting the theory and then students practising straight away. They then bounce ideas off each other. I’m a member of the lipreading tutors’ professional body, the Association of Teachers of Lipreading to Adults (ATLA), and my qualifications include a PGCE (English & Drama) and City & Guilds qualifications in PTTLS (Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector) and Lipreading. I’m very proud to be involved with City Lit’s lipreading campaign #HearMyLips. https://www.citylit.ac.uk/hearmylips


WHAT’SNEW WHAT’S NEW


The House of Commons Education Select Committee announced an inquiry into adult skills and lifelong learning in July. The inquiry will examine the benefits of adult skills and lifelong learning to society and investigate the level of support available to learners. It will also look at the role played by local authorities in providing adult education. Announcing the inquiry, committee chair Robert Halfon said:


“Given the changing demands of the future world of work, it’s more important than ever that education doesn’t just stop at 18 or 21.


“Our Committee will examine what more can be done to encourage adult skills and lifelong learning.”


NAOMI WHITELAW I caught measles very badly as a child, which probably affected my hearing but was not picked up at the time. I coped OK at school, got my grades, went to university and qualified as a doctor. The first time I realised I had a serious hearing problem was when I was working in an outpatient clinic. Fiona’s approach to teaching is all-encompassing and learner-focused. Our lip-reading lessons are fun-filled, packed with information and always interesting. She thinks about how the whole class might benefit from a question or query raised by one of its members. Lipreading is more than learning a foreign language, because


you need to take so many things into account. Fiona is very good at pointing out that we need to use all the clues, such as context, body language, fingerspelling, homophenes, jaw drop etc. Because Fiona has a severe hearing loss herself, she understands the issues we have. Fiona gives us invaluable tips which help us to deal with the daily challenges of life. Having resigned from the NHS, I’m now in a super part-time


job where I do not have to do nights on call. Without Fiona’s teaching I would have been completely burnt out! Fiona has helped me to get the right work-life balance.


IN EDUCATION AND TRAINING? AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?


WHY SHOULD I CARE? As Halfon said: “Brexit, persistent skills gaps and the onward march of automation mean that adult skills and lifelong learning should be at the heart of education and industrial policy.” Yet, said Halfon, the UK spends just two-thirds of the EU


average on adult training, while adults with few qualifications are the least likely to learn new skills. In its latest Annual Report on Education Spending in England


the Institute for Fiscal Studies (see page 5) reports a drop in adult learner numbers from 4.4 million in 2004-05 to 1.5 million in 2017- 18. Following the allocation of an extra £400 million for further education and training (see page 6), a report from the committee may make a strong case for more adult funding in future years.


inTUITION ISSUE 37 • AUTUMN 2019 9


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