Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy

CLB FL-Reading

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Real-World Task

Read 2-3 words in a message from a friend wishing you well on your cultural holiday like Congratulations, Best Wishes, or friend.

Planning Context

Helpful Knowledge:

Basic greetings: hello, hi, good morning
Names of own cultural holidays
Knowledge of some Canadian holidays
Lowercase and capital letters

Context:

It is common in Canada to acknowledge the cultural holidays of your friends or co-workers.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Sample Vocabulary:

holiday
congratulations
friend
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy New Year
other cultural holidays such as Christmas, Eid, Diwali, Hanukkah, Holi, and so on

Sample Grammar:

Capital letters for the names of holidays
Spacing between words

Knowledge and Strategies

Textual and Functional Knowledge:

Most holiday wishes are expressed as complete phrases.

Sociolinguistic Knowledge:

Many people exchange greeting cards for cultural holidays.

Activities and Tasks

Sample Skill-Building Activities:

Discuss as a class: what is a holiday? Give examples of holidays that learners might recognize, such as Eid, Diwali, or Christmas. Elicit other holidays from learners and make a list on the board.
Sit in a circle. Go around the circle and say your favourite holiday. As an instructor, make a list of the holidays celebrated in the class and use this information to plan vocabulary activities and the rest of the tasks.
Using word cards with clear photographs and/or symbols, practice the names of the cultural holidays. Invite learners to be the teacher and teach the class how to properly say the names of their holidays.
Play holiday bingo using symbols or clear photographs on a bingo card. Give learners a blank Bingo card template and have them glue pictures to the card (this ensures each card will be different). Call out holidays and have learners mark them off on their cards. The first learner to get a line wins.
Once learners are comfortable with the names of the holidays, practice saying the greetings. Some greetings have common English translations, like Happy New Year. Other greetings are commonly used in Canada without a translation, like Eid Mubarak.
Read a very short, simple, instructor-made story about a holiday or several holidays. Read the story aloud to learners several times and then choral read and echo read the story. Have learners match the right picture or symbol to the holidays in the story.
Copy own name. Out of a list of 3 names from the class, circle own name.
Copy the name of own cultural holiday. Draw a line between the word you copied and the correct word in a list of 3 holidays.
Look at several greeting cards, either realia or instructor-made, and circle the greetings. Find someone in the class to give the card to and copy their name on the front of the card.
Match 2 to 3 clear pictures or symbols representing holidays to the correct word.

Sample Skill-Using Tasks:

Read a greeting card for a cultural holiday. Circle your own name and match a word to a vocabulary card.

Sample Assessment Tasks:

Read 2-3 words in a message from a friend wishing you well on your cultural holiday like Congratulations, Best Wishes, or friend. Show comprehension by saying 2-3 words aloud or by matching them to vocabulary cards.

Teaching Considerations

Cultural Considerations:

Cultural holidays vary from culture to culture, and some cultures celebrate the same holiday in different ways. Encourage learners to be open to learning about each other’s celebrations.

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:

Include a personally-relevant cultural holiday for every learner in the class.
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 been discriminated against or persecuted based on their culture or faith may find this topic triggering. Learners who have been forced to flee their homes may also find this triggering. If the topic is triggering for learners, you can focus on a cultural (rather than religious) holiday in Canada, such as Thanksgiving.
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 choose and copy the name of a classmate onto a computer printed or dollar-store greeting card to give each other cards.
Create a class calendar for the cultural holidays celebrated in the class. On those occasions, make some basic greeting cards, copying the name of the learner celebrating and a basic greeting.

Realia:

Holiday decorations
Greeting cards, such as greeting cards from the dollar store

Units and Modules:

Tutela (CCLB): Greetings and Introductions: CLB 1L/2L (Not the right level but can be adapted)

Lessons and Activities:

Tutela (Archway): Personal Information: Alphabetic Focus: CLB 1L/2L (Not the right level but can be adapted)
Tutela: Norquest LINC Phonics Curriculum: CLB FL
Tutela: Foundation L-CLB 2L Phonics Curriculum
The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Adults Learn to Print
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:

ESL Image Bank: Traditional Clothing