ESOL Literacy learners
It is important to try to identify learners with literacy issues soon after they arrive for the assessment. If this is not done, the learners may be faced with an assessment they cannot understand and as a result become stressed and anxious.
It is easier to do this in a one-to-one situation as you can spend more time with the learner and notice more easily if they have difficulties with the tasks. Once a literacy need has been identified, you should proceed with the assessment of literacy.
It can be more difficult to identify a literacy learner in a group situation, but it is more important to identify immediately. It could be very stressful for a learner who is sitting in a room with other learners and is unable to complete any of the tasks if the assessor does not notice this barrier. After handing out the reading or writing task to the learners, you (and the other interviewers/assessors) should spend a few minutes checking that each learner is comfortable with doing the task. Once a literacy issue has been identified, you should proceed with the assessment of literacy.
Unlike the reading and writing component of the assessment, the literacy component requires someone to sit with the learner and work through the task together. If there are literacy learners in a group situation, you should consider extra support for assessing the literacy learners. If this is not possible, you should quickly set up the other learners with the reading and writing tasks and work quietly with the literacy learner before starting the listening and speaking assessments with the other learners.
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