Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy
CLB 4L - Reading
Comprehending Information
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Real-World Task
Read a message from a friend with a description of a cultural holiday (Diwali, Eid, Hanukkah, Christmas, and so on).
Planning Context
Helpful Knowledge:
- Past simple
- Prepositions of time and place
Context:
- Canada is a multi-cultural country with people of many different faiths and cultures who celebrate different holidays.
- It is common to tell your friends, classmates, or co-workers about your experiences with a holiday.
Vocabulary and Grammar
Sample Vocabulary:
- celebration
- culture, cultural
- holiday
- examples of cultural holidays, e.g. Diwali, Eid, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year, Thanksgiving, and so on
- meal, feast
- decorations
- words related to specific cultural holidays such as specific food words or the names of different rituals or celebrations
Sample Grammar:
- Past simple: questions
- Past simple: irregular verbs
Knowledge and Strategies
Textual and Functional Knowledge:
- In a message describing an event, the writer will usually make general statements followed by specific examples.
Sociolinguistic Knowledge:
- Friends often share with each other about their celebrations or important moments in their lives.
- There are different kinds of greetings for formal or informal messages.
Activities and Tasks
Sample Skill-Building Activities:
- Discuss as a class: What are the important holidays in your culture? Make a list of holidays on the board.
- Discuss as a class: What important holidays do you know about in Canada? How are these holidays celebrated? Elicit information about certain foods, decorations, clothing, activities and so on. Write these headings on the board.
- Work with a partner, if possible from a different culture. Interview your partner about the important holidays in their culture. Make a list of these holidays and their dates this year, looking up the dates on a calendar if needed. As a class, create a calendar for the year with a piece of chart paper for each month. Have each learner write down the names and dates of their partner’s cultural holidays on the correct month.
- Copy words to complete a mini-dictionary of task vocabulary. Cut out picture cards with clear photographs or clear symbols and tape or glue them in a space next to the word and definition in your mini-dictionary.
- Practice vocabulary words by playing games such as Charades, Guess Which Word (where a learner chooses a word and describes it without saying the word itself while the others guess), and so on.
- Incorporate phonics activities based on vocabulary words and other vocabulary related to the topic.
- Review the past simple. Review irregular past tense forms and practice by filling in the blanks, matching, and playing games such as Bingo.
- Teach how to ask questions in the past simple and practice using grammar worksheets.
- Work with a partner to complete a jigsaw activity about an event that happened in the past. Ask your partner questions about the event to complete your information and respond to your partner’s questions.
- Discuss messages and appropriate greetings and closings. Brainstorm as a class formal and informal greetings and closings. Discuss how and whether to use a greeting and closing for different kinds of messages, such as text messages, letters, email, and so on.
- Listen to an instructor-made dialogue between two friends discussing their favourite holidays and how they celebrate them. Practice the dialogue with a partner and perform for the class.
- Read short, instructor-made descriptions of cultural holidays. Complete comprehension activities such as matching vocabulary cards to words in the story, retelling what you have learned about a new holiday, and answering comprehension questions.
- Write a description of a cultural holiday you celebrate. Complete a checklist for punctuation and grammar. Share your description with a classmate. Read your classmate’s description and ask them three questions about their holiday.
Sample Skill-Using Tasks:
- Read a description of a common Canadian secular cultural holiday, such as Thanksgiving. Demonstrate understanding by answering comprehension questions.
Sample Assessment Tasks:
- Read a message from a friend with a description of a cultural holiday (Diwali, Eid, Hanukkah, Christmas, and so on). Demonstrate understanding by answering comprehension questions.
Teaching Considerations
Cultural Considerations:
- Canada is a multicultural country and many different holidays are celebrated in Canada; however, certain holidays are also officially-recognized statutory holidays, such as Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and so on. Help learners to understand multiculturalism 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.
- Read information from a screen.
- Navigate camera and microphone
- Adjust volume on device
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.
- Teach reading strategies such as skimming and scanning to find information on 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.
- Share knowledge and strategies to ensure online safety.
- Refer learners to programs to improve their digital skills.
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization Strategies:
- Include examples of holidays from many different traditions and cultures, and when giving examples, also include many different ways of celebrating, e.g. include diverse traditions for Christmas that are celebrated in Canada, such as Ukrainian traditions, French Canadian traditions, and so on.
- 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 discrimination or persecution because of their culture may find discussions of cultural holidays triggering; they may also find it empowering to learn about multiculturalism in Canada.
- There may be situations in which learners from both sides of a conflict are in the same class, and learners may find it triggering to hear about each other’s cultural holidays, especially if they have been persecuted or attacked because of their culture. Watch out for learners who may need support and look for ways to gently diffuse tension.
- 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:
- Invite a guest speaker from a cultural centre to speak about their culture.
- Create a book about cultural inclusion with your learners. Have each learner write a few sentences about themselves, where they are from, and what language(s) they speak. Work together as a class to write an introduction about inclusion. With permission, include photographs of learners on their pages.
Realia:
- Cultural objects like decorations or clothing
- Examples of music from cultural holidays
- Cultural foods
Units and Modules:
- Tutela (ATESL): Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism: a 3/4 Module (Not literacy but can be adapted)
- LINC 4 Classroom Activities Canadian Culture (p. 141-196) (Not literacy but can be adapted)
Lessons and Activities:
- Tutela: Norquest LINC Phonics Curriculum: CLB 4L
- Tutela: Comprehending Instructions: How to Roast a Turkey: CLB 3/4 (Not literacy but can be adapted)
- 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.
