Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy

CLB 3L - Writing
Interacting with Others

Employment:
At the Workplace

Real-World Task

Invite coworkers to a cultural gathering at your home.

Planning Context

Helpful Knowledge:

Days and dates
Times

Context:

Some people socialize with their coworkers.
In Canada, it is common to socialize with someone from another culture.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Sample Vocabulary:

coworker
workplace
gathering
invitation
celebrate/celebration
cultural holidays: Christmas, Eid, Thanksgiving, Diwali, Hanukkah, and so on

Sample Grammar:

Modal verbs: would

Format of addresses

Knowledge and Strategies

Textual and Functional Knowledge:

Invitations contain details of time, date, and location

Sociolinguistic Knowledge:

Some people socialize with their coworkers.
Invitations are a good way to share and connect with other people.

Activities and Tasks

Sample Skill-Building Activities:

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.
Have learners search for images that represent each of these holidays. Print the images and have learners cut them out and tape/glue them next to the name of the holiday on the class calendar.
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.).
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.
Interview a classmate: What is your favourite holiday? How do you celebrate it? What food do you eat? What do you do on these days?
Discuss as a class: how do workplaces celebrate holidays in your country of origin? In Canada? Are there decorations, food, music, or parties?
Practice the modal verb would for polite invitations and offerings and complete worksheets with would.
Read several messages with invitations to cultural holidays and answer questions about details, including the time, date, location, and cultural holiday.
Practice completing sample invitations with words/information from a word bank.
Read simple stories or instructor-made stories about cultural holidays and answer comprehension questions.
Incorporate phonics activities based on vocabulary words and other vocabulary related to the topic.
Listen to invitations and complete cloze exercises.

Sample Skill-Using Tasks:

Write a message to a friend inviting them to a cultural gathering at your home.

Sample Assessment Tasks:

Invite coworkers to a cultural gathering at your home.

Teaching Considerations

Cultural Considerations:

Teach learners that Canada is a multicultural country and that many different cultural holidays are celebrated in Canada.

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:

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.
Include holidays from many different cultures and faiths, including secular holidays.

Trauma-informed Strategies:

Possible Trauma triggers:

Learners who have experienced discrimination or persecution for their culture or faith may find this topic triggering. They may also find it empowering to know that everyone in Canada has the right to practice their culture and faith. If learners do not want to discuss their own culture, have them work on a secular Canadian holiday, such as Thanksgiving, which is a harvest-based holiday.
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:

Have learners work with a partner to create a very short presentation on a holiday from their culture. Give them a template to create their presentation.
Print out images and symbols of different cultural holidays and create collages for different cultural holidays, cutting out and gluing the images to a poster for each holiday.
Have learners teach the class a holiday greeting from their culture in their language, such as Eid Mubarak.
Create invitations for a class event and give them to another class.

Realia:

Images and symbols from cultural holidays
Decorations
Music
Sample invitations

Units and Modules:

The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Using Email: CLB 2L/3L

Lessons and Activities:

LINC 3 Classroom Activities: Employment (p. 343-390) (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela (Mosaic): Inviting a Friend to an Event: CLB 3 (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: