Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy

CLB 3L - Speaking
Sharing Information

Employment:
At the Workplace

Real-World Task

Explain job duties to a coworker in 4 to 5 short sentences.

Planning Context

Helpful Knowledge:

Basic workplace vocabulary: workplace, coworker, employee
Basic jobs vocabulary: cleaner, kitchen helper, security guard, teacher, nurse, bus driver

Context:

Part of working a job is understanding the job duties. Employees are often asked to help train a new coworker.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Sample Vocabulary:

Sample Grammar:

Infinitive constructions with have to/need to: You have to…You need to…
Adverbs of sequence: first, second, third, next, then

Knowledge and Strategies

Textual and Functional Knowledge:

When you give instructions, you usually tell them in sequence or order.

Sociolinguistic Knowledge:

Coworkers often help each other by explaining the job duties.

Activities and Tasks

Sample Skill-Building Activities:

Discuss as a class: Do you have a job? If so, what is it? Have you ever had a job, either in Canada or in a different country? What did you do?
Discuss as a class: what is unpaid work? Elicit from learners work such as being a parent, caring for relatives, or being a student.
Work in a small group to brainstorm a list of job duties for one of the unpaid jobs. Share your list with the class.
As a class, brainstorm a list of jobs, such as cleaner, kitchen helper, security guard, teacher, nurse, and bus driver. Write this list horizontally across the board. Brainstorm basic duties for each job underneath. Keep a running list of words to add to the vocabulary list for the task.
Discuss the vocabulary for the task. Write words and simple meanings to complete a mini-dictionary of task vocabulary. Practice this vocabulary using a variety of activities such as crosswords, matching, fill in the blanks, writing sentences, and games.
Incorporate phonics activities based on vocabulary words and other vocabulary related to the topic.
Read a short instructor-made story about a new employee learning about job duties. Use one of the familiar jobs. Listen to the instructor read, echo read, and then choral read. Read and practice the story multiple times over the course of lessons to practice pronunciation, intonation, and fluency.
Listen to a dialogue between two co-workers discussing their job duties. Practice the dialogue with a classmate and perform your dialogue for the class.
Review infinitive constructions with have to and need to. Give learners examples and practice orally and then with worksheets.
Review adverbs of sequence and practice completing sentences with these adverbs. Take a common familiar activity, such as making tea or coffee or ordering a sandwich, and explain it to a partner using adverbs of sequence.
Work with a partner to create job duties for 2 familiar jobs. Explain the duties to the class.
As a class, look at ALIS: Easy Reading Job Profiles. Find a profile and read together. Work with a partner to look at another profile together.

Sample Skill-Using Tasks:

Explain job duties to a coworker in 4 to 5 short sentences. Follow a prompt card with a familiar job title and several words/phrases to say what the duties are.

Sample Assessment Tasks:

Explain job duties to a coworker in 4 to 5 short sentences. Follow a prompt card with a familiar job title and several words/phrases to say what the duties are. The assessment task uses a different familiar job than the skill-using task.

Teaching Considerations

Cultural Considerations:

Depending on their culture, learners may have different expectations for how to treat a supervisor/boss and may be unfamiliar with Canadian workplace expectations. In particular, it can be confusing to understand that some Canadian workplaces use a mixture of casual expectations (e.g. calling your boss by their first name or phrasing direct orders as an indirect request, such as “It would be great if you could…”) but still have firm expectations around doing what your boss says. Help learners to understand this mixture of casual and formal.

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, such as employment payroll programs.
Read information from a screen.

Instructors can:

Dedicate time to improve digital literacy for learners.
Make and/or adapt digital materials.
Introduce websites and/or apps 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 or apps.
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:

In your examples include many different kinds of jobs and workplaces that may be familiar to literacy learners, such as cleaning, security, housekeeping, kitchen work, care homes,and so on.
Include unpaid work as work, such as parenting, caring for elderly relatives, or being a student.
Avoid judgemental language around “good jobs” and “bad jobs.”
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 may be triggered by discussions of authority.
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:

Arrange a tour of a workplace, such as the cafeteria of your school or organization if you have one.
Using a very supported template, have learners research a type of job and share what they’ve learned with a partner.

Realia:

Job descriptions

Units and Modules:

Tutela (Archway): Warehouse Worker Module: CLB 1L/2L (Not the right level but can be adapted)
Tutela (Archway): Food Services Worker Module: CLB 2L (Not the right level but can be adapted)
Tutela (Archway): Introduction to Volunteering: CLB 1L/2L (Not the right level but can be adapted)

Lessons and Activities:

Tutela (OCDSB): Describing Future Employment Wants: CLB 3 (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela: Norquest: Setting Employment Goals: CLB 3 (Not literacy but can be adapted)
LINC 3 Classroom Activities: Employment (p. 343-390) (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela: Norquest LINC Phonics Curriculum: CLB 3L
A search of NLCG (nlcg.achev.ca) may provide additional tasks that can be adapted.

Multimedia: