Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy

CLB 2L - Listening
Getting Things Done

Employment - At the Workplace

Real-World Task

Listen to a supervisor tell you the day, time, and what to bring to a team meeting.

Planning Context

Helpful Knowledge:

Present simple: to be
Numbers 1-60
Basic jobs vocabulary: teacher, cleaner, kitchen helper, security guard, nurse, and so on

Context:

Listening for details such as time and date is an important skill.
There are often meetings in a workplace.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Sample Vocabulary:

days of the week: Monday, Tuesday,
and so on
time
o’clock
work
supervisor
meeting

Sample Grammar:

Preposition at with times
Preposition on with days and dates

Knowledge and Strategies

Textual and Functional Knowledge:

Times are introduced with at and often followed by o’clock.

Sociolinguistic Knowledge:

Workplace meetings are usually mandatory.

Activities and Tasks

Sample Skill-Building Activities:

Discuss as a class: Who has a job? What do you do? Who has had a job in the past? What did you do? Brainstorm a list of common, familiar jobs on the board.
Discuss as a class: What is a meeting? Who has been to a meeting? Discuss with learners different kinds of meetings, such as meetings at work, meetings at a child’s school, meetings with a caseworker, and so on. Discuss what time you should show up for a meeting in Canada and review expectations in Canada that everyone is on time for meetings.
Review the days of the week and sing Days of the Week Song or Days of the Week Song (Addams Family Tune).
Listen to the instructor call out a day of the week. Circle the day you hear on your sheet.
Review numbers and sing and work out to Work Out and Count to 100.
Discuss times. Practice reading times on a digital clock. Use a website such as Practice Clock to practice setting clocks to a time.
Practice number sense by counting objects and circling the correct number.
Practice forming numbers by tracing and copying.
Listen to the instructor read out a time and circle the picture of a digital clock with the correct time.
Use TPR (Total Physical Response) to practice task vocabulary. Give each word an action, call out the word, and have learners respond with the correct action.
Incorporate phonics activities based on the vocabulary words and other vocabulary related to the topic.
Discuss on and at. Listen to the instructor read a day or a time and circle whether you hear on or at.

Sample Skill-Using Tasks:

Listen to a voicemail message about a meeting with a time and date. Demonstrate understanding by circling the correct information.

Sample Assessment Tasks:

Listen to a supervisor tell you the day, time, and what to bring to a team meeting. Demonstrate understanding by circling the correct information.

Teaching Considerations

Cultural Considerations:

Learners may come from cultures with a different relationship to time than the strict punctuality of Canada. Help learners to understand the expectations in Canada.

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.
Type information to appear on screen.

Instructors can:

Dedicate time to improve digital literacy for learners.
Make and/ or adapt digital materials.
Introduce websites or apps that are relevant to the task(s).
Support learners in finding, navigating and using websites or apps.
Show learners how to change the speed on an online video.

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization Strategies:

Make sure you use a variety of jobs in your examples, including many entry-level or so-called “unskilled” jobs that are more accessible to learners at this level.
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.

Trauma-informed Strategies:

Possible Trauma Triggers:

Learners who have experienced trauma may be triggered by overly authoritative approaches. Watch out for learners who are stressed or upset by this topic.
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:

Keep a large digital clock in the class. Throughout the class, at the start and end of activities, break times, lunch hour, and so on, ask different learners to come up, read the clock, and copy the time.
Have learners interview each other about the time that they do certain things, such as wake up, go to class, eat dinner, and so on.

Realia:

Clocks

Units and Modules:

Lessons and Activities:

The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Reading Skills Stories
The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Adults Learn to Print
Tutela: Norquest LINC Phonics Curriculum: CLB 2L
Tutela: Foundation L-CLB 2L Phonics Curriculum
A search of NLCG (nlcg.achev.ca) may provide additional tasks that can be adapted.

Multimedia: