Detailed Sample Task: Stage I
CLB 2 - Reading
Comprehending Information
Education & Learning
Real-World Task
Read a few short, simple sentences about a BIPOC community leader to find out their name and their contribution.
Planning Context
Helpful Knowledge:
- Basic simple sentence structure
- Basic question words such as who, what and where
- Basic community vocabulary such as community, city, province and Canada
Context:
- BIPOC community leaders have made important contributions to Canada’s history and culture.
- Talking about contributions is a way of showing appreciation and respect as well as learning about inclusion and diversity in Canada.
- These stories connect to the Canadian values of equality, respect, and community service.
- This task reflects the intention to include all people in Canada in the themes. The language skills in this task could be applied to other contexts.
Vocabulary and Grammar
Sample Vocabulary:
- leader and other related vocabulary such as teacher, writer, activist, helper
- verbs related to leaders such as help, teach, start, work, build ,support
- Canada, community, city, province
- equality
- fairness
- rights
- before/ in the past
- now
Sample Grammar:
- Simple past for contributions- helped, supported, and so on
- Capitalization for names and places
- “WH” questions such as who and what
Knowledge and Strategies
Textual and Functional Knowledge:
- Beginning recognition of main ideas and text types
Sociolinguistic Knowledge:
- Cultural references
Activities and Tasks
Sample Skill-Building Activities:
- Discuss as a class: Where are you from? Do you have famous people in your countries’ history? Do you know any famous people in Canada? Support the discussion with images of some famous people the learners might know. Elicit the reasons they are famous or well known. It may be a politician like Justin Trudeau, a famous actor like Michael J. Fox or another famous person easily recognizable like Taylor Swift or a local well known person. What did they do to become famous?
- Discuss BIPOC with the learners. What does the term mean? What individuals can they name, famous or otherwise, who are BIPOC?
- Using images, introduce the vocabulary words. Practice the pronunciation and continue to reinforce through various activities such as matching words to meaning or images, Bingo, copying exercises and so on.
- Incorporate phonics activities based on vocabulary words and other vocabulary related to the topic.
- Practice asking and answering various questions about each other in the classroom. What’s your name? Where are you from? Who is your husband/ wife/ mother/ son/ daughter/ friend and so on.
- Practice various WH questions in other contexts. What other common situations do these questions occur in?
- Listen to a short simple audio text ( or reading by the instructor) talking about a famous person/ someone well known to the learners.On a handout or digital document with different options, put a ✔ ️ next to the pictures or words they hear referring to their name, where they live and what they do/ did. For example: Viola Desmond was a businesswoman in Nova Scotia. She was Black and supported equal rights. She helped change laws about fairness in Canada.
- Using a transcript of the audio, discuss “What is her name? Where is she from? What did she do?
- Read the audio silently, then together. Practice in pairs. Read the audio multiple times over the course of several lessons to practice pronunciation, intonation and fluency.
- In small groups look at images of different people: their names, where they are from and their contributions. Ensure the images are representative of the BIPOC community as well as others that may be well known. Take turns asking WH questions about the people in the images.
- Review 3-4 images and their descriptions and identify the verbs in the past tense. Discuss when and how we use the past tense in English using the vocabulary word “now” and “before/ in the past”.
- Practice the past tense with various activities and worksheets.
- Read a simple description of a famous Indigenous person from the local Indigenous nation. Identify their name, their nation and what they are well known for through comprehension questions.
- In pairs,fill out a guided text about a famous/ well known person that they know have or have researched. Present the information to the class.
Sample Skill-Using Tasks:
- Read four simple introductions of well known persons, each with one word missing, either the name, where they are from or why they are well known. For each introduction, write the correct words in the missing spaces, using a word box, so that the sentences make sense.
Sample Assessment Tasks:
- Read a few short, simple sentences about a
BIPOC community leader to find out their name and their contribution. Show comprehension through short, simple comprehension questions.
Teaching Considerations
Cultural Considerations:
- Learners may not be familiar with Black and Indigenous peoples in Canada. Provide an introduction that is respectful and explain why learning about Black and Indigenous peoples in Canada is important.
Digital Literacy Strategies:
Successful completion of some tasks may require some baseline knowledge and digital skills.
Learners may need to:
- Have keyboarding and typing skills.
- Locate, navigate and use websites.
- Use familiar apps, social media platforms and web pages.
- Read information from a screen.
- Scan online resources to find information.
- Read formatted texts online, such as forms
- Navigate and use online learning management systems (LMS) such as Avenue.
Instructors can:
- Dedicate time to improve digital literacy for learners.
- Make and/ or adapt digital materials.
- Introduce websites that are relevant to the task(s).
- Support learners in finding, navigating and using websites.
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization Strategies:
- Recognize and teach learners that Canada is a diverse place and has people from many different cultures. Canadian culture includes the cultures of all people in Canada, including Black and Indigenous peoples who have called Canada home for time immemorial.
- Ensure that the images and cultural representations of Black and Indigenous peoples are free from stereotypes and biases.
- Raise learner awareness of the need for using appropriate language when discussing and addressing Black and Indigenous peoples.
- Use diverse representations of people in all your learning resources and images, including people who are 2SLGBTQ+, Black, 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:
- 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.
- Newcomers who come from Indigenous or other marginalized groups in their home countries may be triggered by considerations of the experiences of Black and Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Strategies:
- Give learners advance warning of this topic and be aware that there may be learners who require support.
- Make sure that learners are always aware of the purpose of any activities that include forms and be ready to provide support if needed.
- 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
- Allow learners choice:
- 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:
- Take a field trip to a local Black, Indigenous or other Cultural Learning Centre.
- Read a variety of short stories about PIPOC leaders who have made important contribution to the local area.
- Create a poster of leaders from other countries representing learners in the class. Label the leaders with their names, their home countries and what they did to be famous or well known.
- Make presentations to other classes about leaders that inspire them.
Realia:
- Images of famous/ well known leaders
- Images of famous/ well known BIPOC leaders
Units and Modules:
Lessons and Activities:
- Tutela: Canada: Indigenous Peoples CLB 3 ( Not CLB 2 but can be adapted)
- Tutela: Indigenous Peoples: Explorers Meet Indigenous Peoples CLB 2-4
- Tutela: Indigenous Studies: The Inuit CLB 2-4
- Tutela: Describing People CLB 1
- A search of NLCG ( nlcg.achev.ca) may provide additional tasks that can be adapted.
Multimedia:
Detailed Sample Task
This exemplar is aligned with the Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) and is designed to guide and inform your lesson and module planning. Consult the Canadian Language Benchmarks English as a Second Language for Adults for detailed performance descriptors at this benchmark and skill.
The information in this document is not exhaustive and can be expanded on. As well, you can use more learner-friendly language in your materials and assessments.
This is NOT a lesson or module plan.
