Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy

CLB 2L - Writing
Interacting with Others

Employment - At the Workplace

Real-World Task

Copy a greeting on a card to a coworker celebrating a cultural holiday. Address the envelope.

Planning Context

Helpful Knowledge:

Capital letters for proper nouns
Printing numerals 0-9
Address format
Months of the year

Context:

Coworkers sometimes exchange cards for cultural holidays.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Sample Vocabulary:

coworker
holiday
address
celebrate
happy
specific cultural holidays from a variety of cultures, e.g.: Thanksgiving, Eid, Easter, Diwali, Lunar New Year, and so on.

Sample Grammar:

Spacing between words and lines
Planning writing to the space available

Knowledge and Strategies

Textual and Functional Knowledge:

Format of an address
Placement of an address on an envelope

Sociolinguistic Knowledge:

Exchanging cards at holidays can be a way to connect with coworkers.
Canadians regularly exchange greeting cards for different occasions such as birthdays, Congratulations, new babies, and so on.

Activities and Tasks

Sample Skill-Building Activities:

Discuss as a class: what holidays are coming up? Make a list on the board with the month of the holiday.
Use vocabulary cards with words and clear pictures to practice the names of cultural holidays from a variety of cultures.
Interview a classmate: What is a holiday you celebrate? How do you celebrate it?
Do a Find Someone Who with the class, using cultural holidays, e.g. Find someone who celebrates Christmas. Find someone who celebrates Eid. Find someone who celebrates New Years. Learners walk around and mingle, asking each other questions, and write the name of a learner who celebrates that holiday on their sheet.
Create a class calendar and put celebrations that are important to the class on it.
Copy your own address.
Using an address given to you for the recipient and your own address for sender, address an envelope with the sender in the top left corner and the recipient in the middle of the envelope.
With a partner, read simple greeting cards for a variety of holidays. Match the greeting card to the holiday.
Discuss as a class: What do you say to people when you celebrate certain holidays and special occasions? What did the greeting cards (in the previous activity) say?
Practice various greetings orally.
Match different greetings to the appropriate occasion.
Copy some sample greetings onto various greeting cards using a word box.
Listen to the instructor read out an address and write it down. The instructor will spell unfamiliar words.
Listen to an instructor-made dialogue between two coworkers talking about a cultural holiday. Rewrite the dialogue with a partner to discuss a different cultural holiday. Perform your dialogue for the class.
Copy 4-5 cultural holidays onto the appropriate place on a chart with the months of the year.

Sample Skill-Using Tasks:

Fill in the blanks to write a greeting card for an upcoming cultural holiday.

Sample Assessment Tasks:

Copy a greeting on a card to a coworker celebrating a cultural holiday. Address the envelope.

Teaching Considerations

Cultural Considerations:

Some cultural holidays, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, are statutory holidays in Canada, with the expectation that everyone either gets a day off work or is paid more to work for that day. Canada is a multicultural country and there are many holidays celebrated here, even if they are not given a day off work.

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.
Type information to appear on 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.
Show learners that the size of an image on the screen can be adjusted.

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 cultural holidays from many different cultures. Acknowledge that many people in Canada celebrate holidays specific to their culture.

Trauma-informed Strategies:

Possible Trauma Triggers:

Learners who have experienced discrimination or persecution based on their culture may feel triggered by this topic. Always give learners choice, and any learner who does not want to do the task with a certain holiday can choose a secular Canadian holiday, such as Thanksgiving, which might be perceived as being more neutral.
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:

Have learners work on their own or together with a partner to give a very short presentation on a cultural holiday they celebrate.
Bring in a treat from a cultural holiday you celebrate to share with the learners.
Read very simple stories about cultural holidays around the world.
Visit a local store and take a look at the greeting card section. Identify the different occasions that Canadians celebrate with greeting cards.
As a class, prepare some simple greeting cards for a learner / classmate who may be absent due to illness, a new baby and so on. Cards could also be made to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, or graduating to the next level.

Realia:

Greeting cards for a variety of cultural holidays, either sourced from shops or printed from the internet

Units and Modules:

Tutela (CCLB): Greetings and Introductions: CLB 1L/2L

Lessons and Activities:

Tutela (Archway): Personal Information: Numeric Focus: CLB 1L/2L
Tutela (Archway): Personal Information: Alphabetic Focus: CLB 1L/2L
LINC 2 Classroom Activities: Fall Festivals (p. 117-156) (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela: Norquest LINC Phonics Curriculum: CLB 2L
Tutela: Foundation L-CLB 2L Phonics Curriculum
The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Reading Skills Stories
A search of NLCG (nlcg.achev.ca) may provide additional tasks that can be adapted.

Multimedia:

Unite for Literacy: St. Patrick’s Day