Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy

CLB 3L-Reading
Getting Things Done

Getting Around and Transportation

Real-World Task

Read a bus schedule and route map and choose the best way to get from home to another location.

Planning Context

Helpful Knowledge:

Times
Names of locations in the community, e.g. supermarket, pharmacy, bank, library, clinic, and so on.

Context:

Public transportation works on a predictable schedule (though it may be late). There are usually brochures, websites, or apps to tell you the schedule for your bus so that you can plan your trip.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Sample Vocabulary:

Sample Grammar:

Questions in the present simple: How do you get from ________ to ________?

Knowledge and Strategies

Textual and Functional Knowledge:

Schedules are usually arranged in tables with rows and columns.

Sociolinguistic Knowledge:

Public transportation can often let you get around to the places you need to go, giving you independence and the chance to connect with other people.
There are usually more buses on weekdays, especially during the daytime, and fewer buses in the evenings and on the weekends.

Activities and Tasks

Sample Skill-Building Activities:

Discuss as a class: How do you get to class? Do you drive, walk, or take the bus or other public transportation? Ask learners how many take the bus on a regular basis. How do they plan their trips? Do they use the bus or public transportation to go to other places in their cities/towns/ communities?
Look at a simplified bus schedule and identify vocabulary words: schedule, trip, arrive, depart, weekday, weekend.
Practice the vocabulary using vocabulary cards with words and clear pictures. Have learners work in groups and take turns drawing a card and explaining it (without saying the word). The rest of the learners guess which word it is, and whoever guesses first gets a point.
Play Pictionary as a class: have a learner come up to the board and choose a vocabulary card in secret. The learner does their best to draw a picture while the rest of the class guesses which vocabulary word it is. Whichever learner guesses gets a point and the learner at the board gets a point.
Discuss times. Practice reading times. Listen to the instructor read out a time and write down the time, e.g. 4:30, 6:52.
Look at a large simple map of a community with the learners that has 1-2 bus routes marked on it in different colours. Elicit from learners how to get from one place (e.g. the school) to another place (e.g. the shopping mall). Trace your fingers or move a toy bus along the routes to show which way you travel. Discuss switching buses and write sentences on the board to describe the route, e.g. Leave the school and take Bus #1. Get off at the pharmacy and switch to Bus #2. Take Bus #2 to the shopping mall.
Have learners work with a partner and the simple community map to plan routes. Compare your plans with another group.
Give the learners different scenario cards for people who need to be at specific places in the community by a certain time. Use a simplified community map with 1 bus route marked on it and a simple bus schedule. Talk about what route they should take and what time.
As a class, look at the website or app for your local public transportation. Elicit from learners how the website/app works, if any are familiar with it. Plan a sample trip from a familiar location to your school or organization.
Listen to the instructor read about a simple one-step bus trip and fill in a cloze exercise with the missing information.
Divide the class into teams of 3-4 learners. Give each team a simplified bus schedule. Ask each team in turn a question about the schedule. Every team that answers a question correctly gets a point.

Sample Skill-Using Tasks:

Work with a partner using the local website or app to plan a trip from the school to another location.

Sample Assessment Tasks:

Read a bus schedule and route map and choose the best way to get from home to another location. Demonstrate understanding by answering simple comprehension questions.

Teaching Considerations

Cultural Considerations:

Depending on where you live, there may be a variety of public transportation, such as buses, trains, subway, or ferries. There may also be very little public transportation. Adapt the task to fit the community you live in. If you live in a rural area with little public transportation, choose a regional bus instead if there is one.

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 and/or apps that are relevant to the task(s).
Support learners in finding, navigating and using websites, for example, finding a specific route
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.
Recognize that some learners may not feel safe on public transportation, including women and learners who are 2SLGBTQIA+. Discuss strategies for safer use of public transportation, including riding with a friend and avoiding riding after dark, and for other options for transportation, such as ride shares.

Trauma-informed Strategies:

Possible Trauma Triggers:

Learners who have experienced trauma may not feel safe on public transportation. Acknowledge this concern and discuss strategies for safer use of public transportation or alternatives to public transportation.
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:

Take a field trip using public transportation and elicit an LEA (Language Experience Approach) story when you return to class. Have learners use your local website or app to plan the trip together.
Have learners do individual presentations on their bus routes from home to school using a poster map. They should present approximately where they begin and where they end, how many buses they need to take, the numbers of the buses and their departure and arrival time at school.

Realia:

Websites and apps for local public transportation
Bus schedules

Units and Modules:

Tutela (CCLB): Getting Around the City: CLB 3/4 (Not literacy but can be adapted)

Lessons and Activities:

LINC 3 Classroom Activities: Travel and Transportation (p. 471) (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela: Taking the Bus (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela: CLB 3 Module Plan: Transportation (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela (OCDSB): Assessment Task: Finding Information about the Train or Bus or Subway: 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: