Real-World Task
Complete familiar words in a highly simplified personal information form at a new dentist’s office.
Planning Context
Helpful Knowledge:
- Basic health words: doctor, nurse
- Lowercase and capital letters
- Basic personal information words such
as name and address.
Context:
- You need to fill in a personal information form at a dentist office.
Vocabulary and Grammar
Sample Vocabulary:
- name
- address
- dentist
- patient
- office
- write
Sample Grammar:
- Spacing between letters and words
- Letter formation
Knowledge and Strategies
Textual and Functional Knowledge:
- You need to write to fit the space on a form.
Sociolinguistic Knowledge:
- You can ask someone for help in filling out a form.
Activities and Tasks
Sample Skill-Building Activities:
- Put a photograph of a dentist on the board or screen. Discuss as a class: Where is this? What is a dentist? What is happening? Teach the words dentist and patient. Ask learners who has been to a dentist before. Discuss: have you been to a dentist in Canada? In another country?
- Practice tracking using a variety of activities such as lining up stones or bingo chips along a curved line, stringing beads, or braiding yarn.
- Practice forming straight and curved lines using air writing, sand trays, and then pencils and paper.
- Practice letter formation of capital letters with straight lines, such as A, E, F, H, I, K, L, M, N, T, V, W, X, Y, Z. Practice a few letters each day. Form the letters with air writing or a sand try, and then trace and copy the letters.
- Read a very simple instructor-made story about visiting a dentist. Read the story aloud and then choral read and echo read. Point to the characters in the story and have learners identify dentist, patient, and office.
- Work with plastic letters to match capital and lowercase letters. Work with 3 sets at a time.
- Provide each learner with a personal information card that includes their full name, address, and date of birth.
- Orally practice asking for and answering What’s your name? What’s your address? What’s your date of birth?
- Copy own name.
- Trace and copy own address. Say own address out loud.
- Using highly simplified sample forms with only two or three fields, practice entering name and address into the fields. Have learners circle name and underline address on form.
- Practice a very simple dialogue at a dentist office between the receptionist and the patient. Practice the dialogue as a class, and then practice with a partner and perform for the class.
Sample Skill-Using Tasks:
- Write own name and copy own street name on a highly simplified registration form.
Sample Assessment Tasks:
- Complete familiar words in a highly simplified personal information form at a new dentist’s office.
Teaching Considerations
Cultural Considerations:
- Not everyone knows their date of birth; people who don’t know their date of birth are usually assigned a date of birth (often January 1) during immigration. They can find their birthday, or assigned birthday, on their personal identification cards such as health cards or license.
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.
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:
- Use diverse representations of people in all your learning resources and images, including people who are 2SLGBTQIA+, 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 depending on the province or territory, there are options for subsidized dental care, including the Canadian Dental Care Plan.
Trauma-informed Strategies:
Possible Trauma Triggers:
- Learners who have had bad experiences with medical care or with lack of medical care, or learners who have been through serious illness or the serious illness of a loved one, may find this topic triggering.
- Some people have anxiety or fear around dental care, or may never have been to a dentist, and may find this topic triggering.
- 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:
- Invite a dental hygienist who understands the level of the class to give a presentation on dental care.
- Talk about brushing your teeth and discuss recommendations:
use a very small amount of toothpaste and brush all teeth and gums for two minutes twice a day. - Role-play other scenarios for appointments and practice filling out registration forms by copying personal information. Expand fields as learners learn and practice more personal information.
Realia:
- Plastic letters
- Toothbrushes
- Dental floss
- Practice forms
Units and Modules:
- The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Visiting the Doctor: CLB FL/1L
Lessons and Activities:
- LINC 1 Classroom Activities: Health and Safety (p. 366-404)
(Not literacy but can be adapted) - Tutela: Following Medication Instructions: CLB FL/1L
- Tutela (Archway): Personal Information: Numeric Focus: CLB 1L/2L (Not the right level but can be adapted)
- Tutela (Archway): Personal Information: Alphabetic Focus: CLB 1L/2L (Not the right level but can be adapted)
- Tutela (OCDSB): Listening to the Dentist’s Instructions: CLB 1
(Not the right level but can be adapted) - Tutela: Norquest LINC Phonics Curriculum: CLB FL
- Tutela: Foundation L-CLB 2L Phonics Curriculum
- The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Reading Skills Stories
- The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Adults Learn to Print
- A search of NLCG (nlcg.achev.ca) may provide additional tasks that can be adapted.
Multimedia:
- Tutela: ESL Image Bank: Health
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.
