Nardene talks about strategies that supported the development of her literacy skills (2:36)

How did your literacy and learning develop, given that you were exposed to experiences like that?

When I went to boarding school, I felt that teachers were, like more supportive and wanted to help you like pass.  Say if you got so many questions wrong in a test, the teacher would come and say, ‘Oh, this is where you went wrong’ and help you to assist to fix it. So they used to like step by step help you through and I felt, yeah, that my literacy improved, yeah, because I had teachers that did it to all the class. So yeah they got like you in like one-on-one and they say, ‘This is how you did it but this is how it’s meant to be done.  Oh, this is where you went wrong’, so they would go around to like individual tables, yeah, and just help you with like each of the questions, like individually.  Yeah so I thought that was really good but, yeah, I got that yeah, when I went to high school, when I went to boarding school. 

And I guess you got that kind of support in VET as well, in that you could go to the lecturer, the tutor.

Yeah.

Did you get that in the classroom at all, in VET?

Not so much in the classroom because the lecturer, like they would have like a PowerPoint they prepare that they have to get over, fit in a certain time limit so they can – the students can be taught everything but they can be taught it by the end of the day, yeah, and he like had breaks, yeah. But after when the class like they were like friendly in saying that yeah, if you need any extra assistance or you know just come to my office, it’s located... this is my contact number.  Yeah, feel free to contact me, yeah, if you can’t pop into the office and I’ll get back to you.  Just leave a message.  And then, yeah, they set me up with the Indigenous Academic Support Unit and, yeah, that improved my literacy too because I had a tutor after hours and then I could ask my lecturer for feedback also. So combining the two together, yeah, it helped me get where I am now.