Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy

CLB 3L - Listening
Getting Things Done

Employment:
At the Workplace

Real-World Task

Listen to a coworker’s request to switch shifts so they can celebrate a cultural holiday with family like Eid, Nowruz, Lunar New Year and so on to find out the date and time of the shift.

Planning Context

Helpful Knowledge:

Basic workplace vocabulary: workplace, coworker, employee

Context:

Some holidays in Canada are statutory holidays. Schools, government workplaces, and many other workplaces are closed for statutory holidays. Other holidays are not statutory holidays, and it is common for employees to request time off for a cultural holiday. As well, some workplaces remain open for statutory holidays due to the needs of the public and so workers may ask others to cover their shifts so they can be off.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Sample Vocabulary:

days and dates
polite phrases: Do you mind? Is it all right? Thanks so much!
shift
switch
trade
celebrate/celebration
cultural holidays: Christmas, Eid, Thanksgiving, Diwali, Hanukkah, etc.

Sample Grammar:

Modal verbs: would

Format of dates

Knowledge and Strategies

Textual and Functional Knowledge:

When switching shifts, you need to know the day and time.

Sociolinguistic Knowledge:

Coworkers often help each other out by trading shifts.

Activities and Tasks

Sample Skill-Building Activities:

Discuss as a class: what is a shift at work? Do you have a job right now? Which shifts do you work? What do you do if you can’t work a shift?
Review the months of the year. Sing 12 Months of the Year Song.
Review the days of the week. Sing Days of the Week Song or Days of the Week Song (Addams Family Tune).
Work as a class to create a large class calendar of cultural holidays. Write down the months of the year and write down the cultural holidays that happen in each month. Include holidays from many different cultures, including the cultures of all the learners in the class, as well as common Canadian cultural holidays.
Discuss as a class: which holidays do you celebrate? Elicit from learners which holidays are celebrated in Canada as official statutory holidays (e.g. New Year, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, etc.) and which are celebrated in Canada but are not statutory holidays (e.g. Eid, Diwali, Hanukkah, etc.).
Fill in the blanks to write the dates of upcoming cultural holidays.
Discuss the vocabulary for the task. Write words and simple meanings to complete a mini-dictionary of task vocabulary. Practice this vocabulary using a variety of activities such as crosswords, matching, fill in the blanks, writing sentences, and games.
Incorporate phonics activities based on vocabulary words and other vocabulary related to the topic.
Practice the modal verb would for polite requests and complete worksheets with would.
Read a short story about an employee who needs two days off to celebrate a cultural holiday with family and asks a coworker to trade shifts. Listen to the instructor read, echo read, and then choral read. Read and practice the story multiple times over the course of lessons to practice pronunciation, intonation, and fluency.
Listen to a dialogue between two co-workers trading shifts. Practice the dialogue as a class and then with a partner. Perform your dialogue for the class.
As a class, look at a weekly schedule and discuss. Work with a partner to answer questions about the times and days of the shifts on the schedule.
Read a prompt card to ask your partner to switch shifts with you. Perform the dialogue for the class.

Sample Skill-Using Tasks:

Listen to a dialogue between two coworkers discussing their shifts. Demonstrate understanding through answering comprehension questions.

Sample Assessment Tasks:

Listen to a coworker’s request to switch shifts so they can celebrate a cultural holiday with family like Eid, Nowruz, Lunar New Year and so on to find out the date and time of the shift. Demonstrate understanding through answering comprehension questions.

Teaching Considerations

Cultural Considerations:

Different workplaces may have different policies about switching shifts. Discuss the possibility of whether you can trade directly with a coworker or if you need to ask a supervisor.

Digital Literacy Strategies:

Successful completion of some tasks may require some baseline digital knowledge and skills.

Learners may need to:

Have keyboarding and typing skills.
Locate, navigate and use websites.
Use familiar apps, social media platforms and web pages, such as employment payroll programs.
Read information from a screen.

Instructors can:

Dedicate time to improve digital literacy for learners.
Make and/or adapt digital materials.
Introduce websites and/or apps that are relevant to the task(s).
Support learners in finding, navigating and using websites.
Teach reading strategies such as skimming and scanning to find information on websites or apps.
Introduce tools and apps that can aid learners in coping with communication barriers, such as translation, pronunciation, text to speech, speech to text tools and so on.
Share knowledge and strategies to ensure online safety.
Refer learners to programs to improve their digital skills.

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization Strategies:

In your examples, include many different kinds of jobs and workplaces that may be familiar to literacy learners, such as cleaning, security, housekeeping, kitchen work, care homes, etc.
Use diverse representations of people in all your learning resources and images, including people who are 2SLGBTQ+, Indigenous, Francophone and of other cultures, and people who have disabilities or who are neurodivergent. Consider this diversity as you choose names for characters in stories you create as well.

Trauma-informed Strategies:

Possible Trauma triggers:

Learners who have experienced trauma may be triggered by figures of authority.
When teaching about Canada, you may teach about things that are triggering to learners who have experienced trauma. We can’t know what the triggers might be and what seems commonplace to us may have a triggering component for learners. Be aware of this and be prepared to support learners as needed.

Strategies:

Give learners advance warning of this topic and be aware that there may be learners who require support.
Learners who have experienced trauma often benefit from having routine. Create a safe and supportive classroom environment by establishing familiar routines, repeated activities, and model friendly and non-evaluative interactions.
Learners will benefit from positive relationships established in the classroom with the instructor and peers.
Learners who have experienced trauma benefit from having choices.
- Allow learners choice:
  - the choice to work on a different topic
  - the choice to share or not share their own experiences
  - the choice to work alone or to work with others
  - the choice to take care of themselves
  - the choice to step out of the learning environment
When learners have shared personal distressing or traumatic experiences, make space for learners to feel safe and recover from the experience of sharing their experiences. Follow the activities which may make learners feel vulnerable with routine, predictable and comforting activities.
Giving learners the knowledge, skills and language to access resources can be empowering.

Resources

Outings, Guest Speaker Suggestions, Extension Activities:

Give each learner a schedule with their shifts at a pretend workplace. Mark one shift that they cannot work because it conflicts with a cultural or family event (or an important medical appointment). Have them trade shifts with each other.
Using a very supported template, have learners research a type of job and share what they’ve learned with a partner.

Realia:

Schedules
Calendars
Online calendars or schedules

Units and Modules:

Lessons and Activities:

Tutela (OCDSB): Describing Future Employment Wants: CLB 3 (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela: Norquest: Setting Employment Goals: CLB 3 (Not literacy but can be adapted)
LINC 3 Classroom Activities: Employment (p. 343-390) (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela: Norquest LINC Phonics Curriculum: CLB 3L
A search of NLCG (nlcg.achev.ca) may provide additional tasks that can be adapted.

Multimedia: