Real-World Task Guidelines:
EAL Literacy
CLB 1L
Banking and Numeracy

Possible Topics
This theme may include these topic areas:
Planning Context
Learners may require the following:
- Visual clues
- Topics are related to immediate personal needs
- Face-to-face or one-one-one digital interactions
- Text that is clear, sparse and very easy to read
- Slower rates of speech
- Non-demanding contexts
Instructors may need to:
- Limit vocabulary to familiar words and phrases
- Speak slowly
- Create simplified versions of online forms
- Modify instructions to limit to 2 to 5 words
Comprehending Instructions
Understand very short, simple instructions, commands and requests related to immediate personal needs.
- Identifies words or phrases that indicate positive or negative commands.
- Indicates comprehension with appropriate verbal or non-verbal requests.
Comprehending Information
Understand very simple information about highly familiar, concrete topics.
- Identifies a few obvious factual details, such as numbers, times and dates.
- Identifies a few simple key words and short expressions.
Getting Things Done
Make and respond to simple requests related to immediate personal needs.
- Uses appropriate single words, phrases, memorized expressions and courtesy formulas.
- Uses expressions for money and amounts.
Give brief, simple, common, routine instructions to a familiar person.
- Use imperative forms and memorized stock expressions.
- Use appropriate courtesy formulas.
Getting Things Done
Get information from very short, simple, common, formatted texts.
- Identifies numbers (amounts, dates).
- Identifies familiar information (addresses, city, names).
Interacting with Others
Understand short greetings and simple goodwill messages.
- Identifies specific goodwill expressions and their meanings.
- Locates dates, times, address, and phone numbers
Reproducing Information
Copy numbers, letters, words, short phrases and sentences from simple lists or very short passages for personal use.
- Copies or records letters, numbers and words, including capitalization and punctuation.
- Copies text legibly; reader may still have difficulties decoding some numbers or letters.
Getting Things Done
Complete very short, simple or simplified forms that require only basic personal identification information.
- Writes basic personal information in appropriate sections.
- Follows some conventions for addresses, telephone numbers, etc.
Literacy Learner Considerations
Listening and Speaking
1L learners are meeting the requirements of CLB 1 in listening and speaking. It is important for 1L learners to develop all new language orally first so that it is familiar to them when they learn to recognize it in print. Listening and speaking should be taught and assessed orally and not through the skills of reading and writing. There is a focus on learning basic and immediately relevant vocabulary and beginning to learn the sounds of the language, including the ability to break words into sounds and to blend sounds into words.
Reading
To be successful in 1L reading tasks, 1L learners can work towards the development of reading skills in the context of real-world tasks, such as:
- developing oral vocabulary related to the task
- recognizing that letters have distinct sounds
- connecting letters to sounds
- reading own name and recognizing own address and personal information
- developing first sight words
Writing
To be successful in 1L writing tasks, 1L learners can work towards the development of writing skills in the context of real-world tasks, such as:
- developing oral vocabulary related to the task
- forming lowercase and uppercase letters
- identifying the first sound and some others sounds in a familiar word
- copying words
- writing own name and personal information
Additional Sample Real-World Tasks and Competency Areas
Listen and Respond to a greeting from a bank teller. (Interacting with Others)
Answer a question about the bank you go to. (Sharing Information)
Find the phone number on a highly simplified utility bill. (Getting Things Done)
Copy the personal identification information (name and address) on a form to open a bank account. (Getting Things Done)
Additional Resources
- Avenue
- CCLB
- Tutela
- ABC Life Literacy Canada. (2021). ABC internet matters.
- NorQuest College. (2021). Digital literacy.
- Settlement Calgary.com. (2020). How to identify and avoid scams and fraud [Video]
Digital Literacy Strategies
Successful completion of some tasks may require some baseline digital knowledge and skills.
Learners may need to:
- Look at a website.
- Read information from a screen.
- Send and receive text messages.
Instructors can:
- 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
- Teach reading strategies such as skimming and scanning to find information on websites
- Share knowledge and strategies to ensure online safety


Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategies
Instructors Can:
- 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.
- Use gender neutral titles when addressing people.
Recognize that people who identify as women may not have had independent access to financial professionals and banking services. Make sure these learners are aware of their rights in Canada and the resources that are available to them.
Trauma-Informed Strategies
Triggers:
- Learners who have experienced trauma can be triggered by people in positions of authority.
- Filling in forms can be a trigger for learners who have experienced trauma.
- Discussions of scams, fraud, and theft may be triggering for learners who have experienced trauma, especially those who have lost their homes, possessions, and/ or money.
Strategies:
- Give learners advanced warning of discussions of this topic.
- Allow learners the choice:
- to work on a different topic
- to share or not share their own experiences
- to work alone or to work with others
- to take care of themselves
- to step out of the learning environment
- Learners have the right to choose if, when and what they share about themselves.
- Make space for learners to feel safe and recover from the experience of sharing their experiences.
- Giving learners the knowledge, skills and language to access resources can be empowering.

Sample Real World Tasks
This information is aligned with the Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) and is designed to help guide you in the planning process. You can use these sample real-world tasks to guide and inform your selection or creation of skill-building activities, skill-using tasks and assessment tasks.
These sample real-world tasks include the following: skill, real-world task, competency area, one competency statement and two sample indicators of ability. This is not an exhaustive list: there are more indicators of ability and information about this CLB level in Canadian Language Benchmarks English as a Second Language for Adults. Consult this resource for more information and to select your own competencies or indicators of ability. Remember, you can use more learner-friendly language in your materials and assessments.
This is NOT a lesson plan, module plan or curriculum.