Detailed Sample Task: Stage I

CLB 3 -Speaking
Getting Things Done

Community and Recreation

Real-World Task

Planning Context

Helpful Knowledge:

Vocabulary related to recreation opportunities in your local area, such as swimming lessons, fitness options, registration and so on.
Knowledge of how to express schedules and plans appropriately including days of the week, formats for time and formats for money.

Context:

A community recreation program is an activity offered by the city or community centre, such as swimming, yoga, or learn to skate classes. Participants need to register or sign up before the class begins, and they can ask questions to find out about the day, time, cost, and location.
Participants may need to fill out a form and pay a fee with cash, debit, or credit card. In Canada, it is polite to greet staff, ask for information, and say thank you when you register.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Sample Vocabulary:

Sample Grammar:

Wh- questions
Prepositions for time and place, such as on, at, in.

Knowledge and Strategies

Textual and Functional Knowledge:

Convey the intended purpose of an utterance through intonation, language or body language.

Sociolinguistic Knowledge:

Culturally appropriate non-verbal communication strategies.

Activities and Tasks

Sample Skill-Building Activities:

Discuss as a class: What type of fitness activities do you like to do? Have you taken any fitness classes in Canada? How are Canadian community activities similar and different from those you have seen from other countries? Have you taken your kids to community recreation programs? What types of activities do they enjoy? Why are some benefits you can get from taking part in fitness activities? Use visuals of different activities to support your discussions.
Look at a catalogue / digital catalogue for community recreation programs offered in your community. In the catalogue, search for words from the vocabulary list. Search for one specific class and note down the date, time, and location of the activity.
Listen to a short audio describing an upcoming community fitness class (this may need to be instructor-created). With a partner, note down the date, time and one other fact about the class. Share your information with another pair to check for accuracy.
Review the grammar rules for questions for how to make wh- questions. Also, focus on the intonation for wh-questions and the intonation for answering a wh-question. Practice reading community recreation centre dialogues aloud with a partner while focussing on pronunciation.
Complete exercises to practice forming questions using what time, where, when and so on.
Listen to an instructor-made dialogue between two friends where one is asking the other about an upcoming yoga class at the recreation centre. Identify the date and time of the event. Now read the transcript and practice shadowing the correct intonation for the dialogue.
With a partner, practice the dialogue. Perform as a role play for the class.
Discuss as a class how to ask for information politely; include a discussion of language and body language such as using a friendly tone, making eye contact and so on. Learners practice asking each other for information while using these communication strategies.
Review the different prepositions used to describe when and where events will take place, such as on, at, in and so on. Complete a simple paragraph describing an adult learn to swim program in the community which has missing prepositions. Practice reading the paragraph aloud with a partner taking turns to read one sentence each.
Discuss as a class: How do you say you want to do something or not do something? What expressions can we use when deciding on accepting a service or deciding not to proceed? Introduce some common expressions such as: That sounds good. OK, no thank you. I am busy on Saturdays / in the evenings or The time isn’t good for me.
Take jumbled sentences for wh-questions and working with a partner, create questions and answers in the correct order. Now copy these sentences into a notebook or digital document. With a partner, practice reading the sentences aloud.
Create your own set of three question cards asking for information about upcoming community fitness classes. On each card write one useful question that you could use to find out information about an event such as “When does it start?” Using these cards, circulate around the class asking for information about events, real or imagined, with various classmates. Each time you speak with a new classmate, try to use the cards a little less, and try to speed up your questions.
Using cards for each learner with information about various activities at the local community centre, role play greeting a clerk at the recreation centre and asking for information about the activities available. Decide whether you want to register for the class or not.

Sample Skill-Using Tasks:

Role play asking for information about a community recreation program such as learn to skate to find out the date, time, place and cost of the program.

Sample Assessment Tasks:

Role play registering for a recreation program like an adult learn-to-swim, strength training or yoga class.

Teaching Considerations

Cultural Considerations:

Recreation centres are open to everyone, and programs are intended to include all ages, cultures, and abilities. Men and women often take classes together unless stated otherwise.
Even community-run recreation programs often have a small fee, but subsidies or discounts may be available.
Registration forms often ask for personal information like address or phone number; explain that this is for safety and contact, not immigration purposes.
Community recreation programs often require waivers or emergency contact info.

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.
Navigate camera and microphone
Adjust volume on device

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.
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 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.
Recognize that issues related to economic disadvantage are often stigmatized. Paying for recreation activities may be too expensive for learners experiencing financial hardship. Instructors can work to reduce the stigma and include information about how to access free / subsidized program options.
Some learners may experience changes to gender roles when they come to Canada. For some, this may be a welcome change, but for others it may be challenging. Instructors can encourage discussion about activity classes for men and women and options for men / women- only fitness class opportunities.

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.
Questioning can be triggering for learners who have experienced trauma; be careful with the tone of questions in any kind of role play situation.

Strategies:

Make sure learners understand the purpose of the role play activities.
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:

Take a field trip to the local community recreation centre.
Invite a guest speaker from the local library to share information about other community activities not focused on fitness and exercise, such as conversation circles and computer classes.
Complete a scavenger hunt where pairs of learners search for information about a local recreation centre and the various classes offered.

Realia:

Authentic calendars and schedules of local community activities
Authentic registration forms and information flyers
Images from the local community centre to show the diversity of offerings and the people who participate.

Units and Modules:

Tutela: OCDSB Collection: Family and Community CLB 3-4

Lessons and Activities:

Multimedia:

YouTube: YMCA Adult learn to swim: Safety Around Water 2018: Tanisha’s Story
Tutela: ESL Image Bank: Community