Adult literacy development experiences in a community of non-formal learners

M.Ed.This study focuses on research conducted at a non-formal adult basic education centre in South Hills, Johannesburg. The research population consists of five women who are migrant, domestic helpers. Levels of literacy within the group range from English Literacy Level Three to non-literacy. In their vernacular languages the participants show varying degrees of literacy or the absence thereof. The research seeks to establish how a specific group of adults learn. This is done by documenting the learning experiences of the group of learners over a period of time. Crucial to the process was providing answers to the following research questions: 1) How do adults learn in non-formal education? and 2) How do collaboration and mediation impact on adult learning in non-formal education? The above research is contextualised within theories of learning which prioritise collaboration and mediation as central to the process. Data collection took place with the research questions foregrounded within the theoretical perspectives indicated above. Sets of binary themes emerged from the research data which are inextricably linked to collaboration and mediation. It is consequently concluded that collaboration and mediation are crucial to processes of learning among the group of adult learners researched and it may therefore be inferred, inductively, that collaboration and mediation could work successfully in similar educational settings. It is consequently recommended that adult education centres incorporate and replicate, in their didactical approaches, the successful methodology utilised in this study