Nowadays, coursebooks focus too much on grammar and vocabulary, but they neglect the teaching of spelling. Yet, it is exactly the spelling skill which separates good writers from the poorly literate.

In this workshop we are going to set the new starting points in literacy and will develop an innovative model for adult literacy, having spelling as its main focus. In achieving this we are going to start by finding the possible reasons for poor literacy and studying the theoretical background, which is going to be presented by the Slovenian university professors who specialise in teaching methodology. It was exactly Slovenian researchers who were among the first to point out the importance of including the teaching of spelling into the literacy process and thus created a specialised coursebook, which is also going to be presented in the workshop.

The main elements of the new model are going to originate from the above mentioned research, as well as from our own study of the differences in literacy acquisition between children and adults. In this process, we are also going to include the factor of discrepancy between sounds and letters. The newly created model is going to take into account the features of the mother tongue, and the second language perspective. In addition to the general guidelines for a successful literacy programme, we are going to prepare a set of specific methods for individual languages. Namely, each language has its own specialities, therefore, the methodology used in teaching it should reflect that.

Furthermore, we are also going to prepare guidelines for the materials writing and adaptation, as one of the main obstacles in the process of literacy may be found in the inappropriateness of the available literature and coursebooks, which are not based on modern approaches.

The workshop is, therefore, intended for the experts in the field of literacy, be it the researchers or the teachers involved in adult education.