Real-World Task
Greet a classmate with a holiday greeting like Happy Holidays or Happy Thanksgiving.
Planning Context
Helpful Knowledge:
- Vocabulary related to greeting friends and classmates such as “Hello.” “How are you?” “Good morning.”
- Some basic knowledge of Canadian holidays
- Some basic knowledge of interactions such as greetings, including non-verbal aspects such as eye contact, tone and smiling.
Context:
- In Canada, people often say a short greeting to others on holidays. Common holiday greetings include “Happy Thanksgiving” and “Happy Holidays.”
It is friendly and polite to say the greeting to classmates, teachers, friends, and coworkers.
Vocabulary and Grammar
Sample Vocabulary:
- holidays
- classmates
- people
- courtesy greetings for personal interactions:
- Happy Holidays / Happy Thanksgiving / Happy New Year / Merry Christmas / Happy Easter/ Happy Canada Day / Happy Halloween (Rather than teaching all these phrases select those closest to the date of the class)
- courtesy phrases to respond to greetings (Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays to you! Same to you!)
Sample Grammar:
- Basic word order for courtesy greetings and responses.
Knowledge and Strategies
Textual and Functional Knowledge:
- Beginning to be able to convey the intended purpose of an utterance through intonation and body language.
- Beginning ability to use common expressions for greetings.
Sociolinguistic Knowledge:
- Beginning ability to convey politeness and respect.
Activities and Tasks
Sample Skill-Building Activities:
- Discuss as a class: What are some everyday greetings that you use in the community? What are the common greetings and responses? What Canadian holidays do you know? What other holidays did you have in other countries? Do you know any greetings for Canadian holidays? Are there special greetings in your language for other holidays? If discussions are not possible, use images to elicit words for situations depicted in the images.
- Create simple cards with holiday greetings on one side and responses on the other.
In pairs, learners match the correct pairs. - Use flashcards with phrases like, “Happy Thanksgiving”, “Hello! Happy Holidays?” “Happy Holidays to you, too” Practice repeating each phrase as a class and in pairs with a focus on intonation and positive non-verbal communication.
- Act out different greetings with
appropriate body language and non
verbal communication strategies and learners guess which greeting or response
it refers to. - Review the word order for courtesy formulas and have learners put individual word cards into the correct order to make the complete greeting / response.
- Listen to recordings of short greetings on the computer and practice providing the correct response.
- Listen to recordings of short dialogues on the computer and decide if the response makes sense or uses appropriate intonation, and so on.
- Play an audio with a short, simple and slow dialogue of two neighbours’ greetings. Learners repeat greetings and responses in choral practice.
- Find resources online highlighting conversations with basic greetings and responses. Have learners identify the greetings and responses used.
- Do role plays of holiday greetings with different people in the community: store clerks, neighbours, LINC teachers and so on.
Sample Skill-Using Tasks:
- In pairs, learners focus on rising intonation for greetings such as, “Hi! Happy Thanksgiving.” and contractions for responses, such as, “Happy Thanksgiving
to you, too.” “Thank you. You, too.”
Record learners to provide feedback.
Sample Assessment Tasks:
- Role play greet a classmate with a holiday greeting like Happy Holidays or Happy Thanksgiving with appropriate intonation and non-verbal communication.
Teaching Considerations
Cultural Considerations:
- In Canada, using holiday greetings is polite and appropriate,
even if you will not be celebrating the holiday yourself. - In Canadian English, a friendly, warm tone is important when responding to greetings.
- In Canada, making brief eye contact during a greeting is seen as polite and confident. Also, Canadians usually maintain an arm’s length distance during personal interactions.
Digital Literacy Strategies:
Successful completion of some tasks may require some baseline knowledge and digital skills.
Learners may need to:
- 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.
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization Strategies:
- Canada is a multicultural society, and learners may encounter a range of holiday greetings at work and in the community.
- 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:
- 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.
- Learners who have experienced trauma may feel wary of initiating any kind of new personal interaction, such as greeting a stranger. Reassure learners that this is a normal part of life in Canada.
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:
- Match pictures of different holidays with simple holiday greetings.
- Create a very simple poster for an upcoming holidays with 1-2 greetings on it.
- Copy holiday greetings on cards and exchange cards with another LINC class.
Realia:
- Holiday pictures
- Holiday cards
- Small holiday decorations such as mini pumpkins, maple leaves, Christmas decorations
- Calendars to show when holidays take place
Units and Modules:
Lessons and Activities:
- 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.
