Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy
CLB 3L - Listening
Comprehending Information
Employment:
At the Workplace
Real-World Task
Listen to an announcement about an upcoming meeting to find out the topics that will be covered in meeting.
Planning Context
Helpful Knowledge:
- Days and dates
- Times
Context:
- Meetings usually have a topic or an agenda.
Vocabulary and Grammar
Sample Vocabulary:
- workplace
- meeting
- employees
- topics such as…
- agenda
- announcement
Sample Grammar:
- Future plans with will
- Prepositional phrase with at: at the meeting…
Knowledge and Strategies
Textual and Functional Knowledge:
- Announcements usually include the date, time, and details.
Sociolinguistic Knowledge:
- Knowing what will happen at a meeting helps you to be prepared.
Activities and Tasks
Sample Skill-Building Activities:
- Discuss as a class: what is a meeting? What sorts of jobs have meetings? What usually happens at a meeting?
- Begin each class by writing the agenda for the class on the board and calling out what will happen during the class. After a few days of this, write the agenda, titled “Agenda,” on the board and have a learner take a turn calling out what will happen.
- Listen to a short announcement about an upcoming meeting. Discuss the main idea of the announcement.
- Review days and dates and times.
- Listen to the instructor call out times and circle the correct picture of a digital clock on your worksheet.
- Use vocabulary cards with words and clear pictures or very simple definitions to practice the vocabulary.
- 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 simple instructor-made story about a meeting in a workplace. Match vocabulary to the story and answer comprehension questions with a partner. Read and practice the story multiple times over the course of the lessons to practice pronunciation, intonation, and fluency.
- Divide the class into groups of 4-5 and give each group an agenda. Have learners hold a meeting by following the agenda and doing everything on the list.
- Listen to an instructor-made meeting announcement that includes the topics that will be discussed. Answer yes/no and multiple choice questions.
- Using a transcript of the announcement, take turns reading it with a partner.
Sample Skill-Using Tasks:
- Listen to a series of short announcements and circle the correct time and date for each one.
Sample Assessment Tasks:
- Listen to an announcement about an upcoming meeting to find out the topics that will be covered in meeting. Demonstrate understanding through answering simple comprehension questions.
Teaching Considerations
Cultural Considerations:
- Learners may be unfamiliar with Canadian workplace culture, which can appear less formal than workplaces in other cultures but still has expectations that you do everything asked of you. Discuss the differences in Canadian workplace culture, including possibly calling your supervisor by their first name and listening to indirect requests (e.g. “Would you mind…”).
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, etc.
- 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 figures 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
- 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:
- Have learners routinely handle some aspect of classroom work as a meeting, such as completing routine vocabulary practice together by following an agenda of what they need to do.
- Using a highly supported template, have learners research a place they would like to work and present 3-4 sentences about this workplace to the class.
Realia:
- Agendas
Units and Modules:
- The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Using Email: CLB 2L/3L
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:
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.
