Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy

CLB 4L - Listening
Comprehending Information

Global Citizenship

Real-World Task

Listen to the descriptions of New Year’s celebrations from several different cultures and compare to your own celebration.

Planning Context

Helpful Knowledge:

Simple present for statements of fact
There are many diverse groups of people in Canada.
Different people celebrate different holidays or celebrate in a different way.

Context:

Canada is a multicultural country, and classmates, friends, neighbours, or co-workers may celebrate different holidays or celebrate holidays in a different way.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Sample Vocabulary:

Sample Grammar:

Coordinating conjunctions: and, or, but, so
Introductory prepositional phrases: In my culture, we…

Knowledge and Strategies

Textual and Functional Knowledge:

A speaker will usually share the main idea of their talk in the first few sentences.
Speakers use examples to illustrate and explain their ideas.

Sociolinguistic Knowledge:

Learning about someone else’s culture is a good way to get to know them.

Activities and Tasks

Sample Skill-Building Activities:

Discuss as a class: What is New Year’s Day? When is New Year’s Day celebrated in Canada? Elicit both January 1 and the dates of other celebrations such as Chinese New Year’s. If you celebrate, how, and when, do you celebrate New Year’s in your culture?
Work in small groups. Look at different photographs of New Year’s celebrations from around the world. Write down things you see in the pictures and share this list with the class. Identify things you don’t know the English word for and make a list of these words with the help of the instructor.
Use cards with words, meanings, and pictures to practice vocabulary words. Do a variety of activities, such as matching, memory, and having learners explain their word to their group.
Incorporate phonics activities based on vocabulary words and other vocabulary related to the topic.
Practice a dialogue between two people discussing how they celebrate New Year’s, e.g. Hi, Yuan! It’s nice to see you. / Hi, Jack! What are you up to? / Just getting ready for New Year’s Eve. / Oh? How do you celebrate? / We’re having a party at our place. We’ll have food and things to drink, and then we count down from ten when it gets close to midnight. / That sounds really nice! / Yeah, and when it’s midnight, we usually sing a song. How do you celebrate New Year’s, Yuan? / We celebrate on a different day. We celebrate Chinese New Year’s. / Oh? What do you do? / First we clean the house, and we wear new clothes. We also decorate with red, because that’s a lucky colour. / Cool! Read the dialogue several times with a partner and then perform your dialogue for the class.
Review coordinating conjunctions (and, or, but, so) and practice forming compound sentences.
Listen to a short story about a celebration. Listen several times. Complete a cloze exercise and fill in the blanks with and, or, but, so.
Review writing sentences with introductory prepositional phrases such as In my culture, we… Complete exercises such as completing sentences following an introductory phrase or writing an introductory phrase that matches the rest of the sentence.
Read a short, instructor-made story about different New Year’s celebrations. Re-read the story several times over several days to improve pronunciation, intonation and fluency. Complete different comprehension activities, such as identifying vocabulary words in the story; completing matching exercises, such as matching the character in the story to the way they celebrate; and sequencing events in the story.
Interview a partner about how they celebrate New Year’s, if they celebrate. Respond to your partner’s questions. Share what you have learned about your partner with another group.
Write several sentences, supported by a word bank, to describe how you celebrate New Year’s. Share your writing with a partner. Complete a checklist together with your partner to check each other’s writing for capital letters, periods, introductory phrases, and coordinating conjunctions.

Sample Skill-Using Tasks:

Listen to a dialogue between two people planning a New Year’s celebration. Demonstrate understanding by answering comprehension questions.

Sample Assessment Tasks:

Listen to the descriptions of New Year’s celebrations from several different cultures and compare to your own celebration. Demonstrate understanding by answering comprehension questions.

Teaching Considerations

Cultural Considerations:

People from different cultures may celebrate different holidays and may celebrate in different ways. People across Canada also may celebrate New Year’s in different ways. Help learners to understand that there are many different cultures and traditions in Canada.

Digital Literacy Strategies:

Successful completion of some tasks may require some baseline digital knowledge and 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.
Teach reading strategies such as skimming and scanning to find information on 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:

Avoid giving learners the impression that there is one way to celebrate a holiday in Canada. Make sure learners are aware that Canada is a large and diverse multi-cultural country, and people across Canada may celebrate New Year’s in many different ways.
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.

Trauma-informed Strategies:

Possible Trauma triggers:

Learners who have experienced trauma or who have lost family or home may find discussions of celebration a triggering reminder of what they have lost. Watch for learners who are upset or who need extra support and be prepared to modify the task to a different listening task if necessary.
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:

Visit a multi-cultural event in your community.
Have learners work in groups with learners of the same or similar culture and create posters to show how they celebrate a holiday. Have them include words, sentences, and pictures and present their poster to the class.

Realia:

New Year’s decorations such as funny hats, noise-makers, or decorations with the next year on them.

Units and Modules:

Tutela (CCLB): Socializing with Others: CLB 3/4 (Not literacy but can be adapted)

Lessons and Activities:

Tutela (RODS): Writing New Year’s Resolutions: CLB 4 (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela (Norquest): Diversity and Inclusion Materials for the EAL Classroom: CLB 3-6 (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela: Norquest LINC Phonics Curriculum: CLB 4L
A search of NLCG (nlcg.achev.ca) may provide additional tasks that can be adapted.

Multimedia:

Global News: How Different Cultures Celebrate New Year’s