Real-World Task
Read highly familiar words about healthy food (for example: sugar, fat, fried, salt).
Planning Context
Helpful Knowledge:
- Letters made sounds
- Sounds can be blended into words
- Reading own name
Context:
- Food choices can impact your health.
- Food contains nutrients.
Vocabulary and Grammar
Sample Vocabulary:
- apple
- rice
- chicken
- meat
- fat
- salt
Sample Grammar:
- lowercase letters
- spaces between words
- Sounds made by f, a, s, l, t
Knowledge and Strategies
Textual and Functional Knowledge:
- There are small spaces between letters and larger spaces between words.
Sociolinguistic Knowledge:
- We can use facial expressions and gestures to help communicate with the instructor.
Activities and Tasks
Sample Skill-Building Activities:
- Use either real food / food containers or large, clear, colour pictures of food to elicit food names from learners. Ask learners: What do you eat? What do you like?
See if learners have any food with them
(eg. a snack, drink, or lunch). Have learners tell you the names of the food in their languages. Tell them the English words for this food. - Give learners a set of food vocabulary cards with clear, colour pictures. Include words like fat and salt. Use TPR (Total Physical Response) to practice these words.
- When learners feel comfortable with the words, have a learner call out the words for TPR.
- Look at grocery store flyers. Cut out pictures of foods to match the vocabulary cards. If learners see food they like to eat, have them cut out the pictures and learn the English names.
- Play a game. Place large photos of food words spread out on a table in the middle. Sit in a circle around it. The first person says, “I’m making dinner. I’m making _________” and chooses a food word. The next person repeats the first person and adds one item, saying, “I’m making dinner. I’m making _________ and _________.” The next person repeats the first two, and so on around the circle.
- Over a number of days, practice making target letters f, a, s, l, t. Build on what you have already been learning in class and add one new letter at a time. Practice air writing, writing in sand trays, tracing, and forming the letter with a pencil.
- Focus on the sounds made by letters.
Give learners cards with two very distinct sounds, like f and t. Make one of the sounds and have them respond by holding up the correct letter. - Write fat on the board. Tape pictures of butter, lard, and oil to the board next to the word. Elicit the sounds for each letter. Demonstrate blending the sounds to make the word fat. Repeat with salt.
- Put the pictures of fat and salt on the board. Elicit the words. Say fat and salt very slowly. Elicit as many sounds as the learners can hear. Write the words on the board.
- Copy fat and salt below words with pictures.
- Incorporate additional phonics activities based on vocabulary words and other vocabulary related to the topic.
Sample Skill-Using Tasks:
- Match fat and salt word cards to familiar pictures of fat and salt.
Sample Assessment Tasks:
- Read highly familiar words about
healthy food (for example: apple or rice).
Say the name of the food to the instructor.
Teaching Considerations
Cultural Considerations:
- Different cultures have different ideas of healthy food, and food choices are also highly influenced by cost. Avoid making sweeping statements like salt or fat is bad. Tell learners a little salt or a little fat is okay.
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.
- Use examples of food from different cultures, especially including the cultures of learners in the class.
- Include foods from Indigenous cultures.
Trauma-informed Strategies:
Possible Trauma Triggers:
- Learners who have experienced food scarcity or famine may find discussions of food triggering. Always treat food with respect and avoid judgements like “good food” and “bad food.” Learners are unlikely to agree on what is healthy, so try to focus on learning the food words and celebrating the foods from all cultures.
- 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:
- Bring in a fruit tray or bake some treats and share with the class.
- Visit a grocery store or a local market.
- Prepare a simple dish together, like a fruit salad.
Realia:
- Grocery store flyers
- Food packaging
- Actual food
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 (Not the right level but can be adapted)
- Tutela: Healthy Eating Module: CLB 1L (Not the right level but can be adapted)
Lessons and Activities:
- LINC 1 Classroom Activities: Sara’s Shopping List (p. 367),
The Grocery Receipt (p. 373), My Menu (p. 376)
(Not literacy 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: Grocery Store
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.
