Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy
CLB 1L - Listening
Comprehending Instructions
Canada
Real-World Task
Listen to 4-5 single-word instructions for how to grow tomatoes (such as plant, water, pick).
Planning Context
Helpful Knowledge:
- Very basic food words for fruits and vegetables: potato, carrot, lettuce, etc.
Context:
- Many people grow a garden or a container garden to grow some of their own food.
Vocabulary and Grammar
Sample Vocabulary:
- tomato
- seed
- soil
- water, as a noun and a verb
- plant, as a noun and verb
- pick
- put
- cover
Sample Grammar:
- Imperative voice for single-word instructions
Knowledge and Strategies
Textual and Functional Knowledge:
- No subject is necessary for the imperative voice: plant, water, pick.
Sociolinguistic Knowledge:
- Growing your own food, even in a small container garden on a deck or patio, can help offset the cost of food.
Activities and Tasks
Sample Skill-Building Activities:
- Look at a series of clear photographs of someone planting a garden. Ask learners what the person is doing: What are they doing? What is this (point to different objects)?. Elicit what learners know and can say in English about planting seeds.
- Teach vocabulary words orally using vocabulary cards with words and clear pictures on a white background.
- Work with learners to assign a gesture for each vocabulary word. Use TPR (Total Physical Response) to practice the vocabulary. Call out a vocabulary word and have learners respond with the gesture. After a few rounds, have learners take turns calling out the words.
- Listen to Plant a Little Seed and sing along.
- Read a short, instructor-made story about growing a plant from a seed. Read the story to learners and then choral read and echo read the story. In pairs, learners can take turns reading the story to each other.
- Work with a partner to sequence a series of clear photographs of planting a seed and growing a tomato plant. Say a word for each step of the process: seed, plant, soil, water, grow, pick.
- Listen to instructions for planting a seed, and plant a seed (such as a sunflower seed or other fast-growing plants) in a small paper cup. Keep the plants in the classroom if possible and watch them grow over the next few weeks. Elicit a simple, short LEA (Language Experience Approach) story from the learners about the experience and read this story together.
- Incorporate phonics activities based on vocabulary words and other vocabulary related to the topic.
- Copy vocabulary words underneath clear, familiar photographs.
- Listen to instructions for planting a tomato plant and circle the correct picture on the page for each instruction.
Sample Skill-Using Tasks:
- Listen to single-word instructions for growing tomatoes and sequence a series of very familiar, clear photographs to match the instructions.
Sample Assessment Tasks:
- Listen to 4-5 single-word instructions for how to grow
tomatoes (such as plant, water, pick). Demonstrate comprehension by pointing to or circling clear, familiar photographs.
Teaching Considerations
Cultural Considerations:
- Canada is a multicultural country, and Canadian culture includes the cultures of all the people who live in Canada. Discuss with learners, as best as you can in learner-friendly language and using visuals, what it means to live in a multicultural country.
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.
- Type information to appear on screen.
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.
- Show learners that the size of an image on the screen can be adjusted.
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.
- Teach learners that Canada is an inclusive, multicultural country.
- Teach learners that growing some vegetables can help offset the cost of groceries.
Trauma-informed Strategies:
Possible Trauma Triggers:
- Learners who have come to Canada as refugees may not have chosen Canada so much as they chose to flee a place where they were unsafe. Be sensitive when discussing Canada that not all learners will feel equally enthusiastic about being in a new country.
- 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
- 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:
- Depending on the season, visit a community garden.
- Depending on the season, visit a farmer’s market.
- Invite someone who specializes in gardening and has experience with small container gardening projects to visit the class.
Realia:
- Seeds, soil, watering can, paper cups
Units and Modules:
- The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Eating Fruit: CLB FL/1L
- The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Making Fruit Salad: CLB FL/1L
- Tutela (CCLB): Grocery Shopping: CLB 1L/2L
Lessons and Activities:
- LINC 1 Classroom Activities: Canada (p. 85-120) (Not literacy but can be adapted)
- Tutela: Norquest LINC Phonics Curriculum: CLB 1L
- The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Reading Skills Stories
- The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Adults Learn to Print
- Tutela: Foundation L-CLB 2L Phonics Curriculum
- A search of NLCG (nlcg.achev.ca) may provide additional tasks that can be adapted.
Multimedia:
- YouTube: Plant a Little Seed
- Unite for Literacy: Fresh from the Farm
- Unite for Literacy: Our Good Food
- Unite for Literacy: Fruits
- Unite for Literacy: Let’s Eat Fruits and Veggies
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.
