ACAL Life Members

Bio

After finishing an education degree in my early thirties, I began working, first part-time and then full-time, as an adult literacy teacher and manager at the South Brisbane College of TAFE (now Southbank Institute of TAFE). It was a time when we not only conducted classes on site but also engaged in outreach provision, including at an indigenous centre and St Vincent de Paul Society hostel. There were three of us in that role in Queensland at that time, with more appointed statewide during the 1980s.  I stayed at Southbank TAFE, although I was seconded and chose to take up other positions for fixed terms, until the end of 2007 when I began employment as a lecturer at Griffith University.
The 1980s were a flowering period for two other adult literacy initiatives. In the early years of this decade, I was a member of a group of people who worked together to establish the Queensland Council for Adult Literacy. I continued to be involved in various executive positions in this organisation until it was disbanded in 2023. In the 1980s, I also attended an ACAL conference in Melbourne and at various times over the following years I was the Queensland representative on the council. Between 1996 and 1998 I became the ACAL President. At this time, we were asked to join with four other literacy and English professional associations to liaise with Government. I became the chair of this new body, the Australian Literacy Federation, and gained a deeper understanding of the various ways these voluntary organisations worked to provide professional services to their members.
I am very pleased to be still involved with ACAL as a co-opted member of the executive. Currently, I am working with Debra Urquhart on a survey to learn how teachers are now designing and implementing programs to meet adult students’ pedagogical literacy and numeracy needs in the context of many shared EAL and adult literacy contexts.