Real-World Task
Complete a guided text to describe an experience in a store.
Planning Context
Helpful Knowledge:
- Norms of customer service in retail context.
- Knowledge of common retail processes, such as returns, complaints, and refunds.
Context:
- Emails/ online feedback processes on a website are common ways to give feedback and/or complain about poor customer service in stores.
Vocabulary and Grammar
Sample Vocabulary:
- bag
- buy
- customer service
- cashier
- discount
- price
- receipt
- refund
Sample Grammar:
- Use of simple, common verbs (be, have, want, go).
- Nouns (singular, plural).
Knowledge and Strategies
Textual and Functional Knowledge:
- Beginning ability to use appropriate phrases and expressions for salutations.
- Beginning ability to recognize basic email conventions.
- Common everyday English spelling and punctuation conventions.
Sociolinguistic Knowledge:
- Connection between Canadian social conventions and written messages.
Activities and Tasks
Sample Skill-Building Activities:
- Elicit information about learners’ experiences in stores with customer service.
- Match vocabulary words to visuals for shopping including cashier, customer service, layaway, and so on.
- Copy vocabulary words to visuals for shopping including cashier, customer service, layaway, and so on.
- Read 2-3 sentences in a sample email and identify parts of the message (greeting, a few key details).
- List adjectives to describe how a shopping experience made you feel.
- Copy adjectives for how a shopping experience made you feel and match to visuals.
- Discuss some common ways a store or business can respond to a customer complaint (including a refund, exchange, apology).
- Listen to a very simplified description of a negative or positive experience in a store and circle words from each sentence.
- Role play in pairs by stating in one sentence what you would like after a negative experience in a store (for example, “I would like a refund, please.”)
- Listen to an email describing a problem with a shopping experience where the customer is asking for a replacement item.
- Create a short, simple instructor-made story on the topic, and have learners listen as the instructor reads, following with their finger. Have learners repeat after the instructor to match intonation and fluency. Finally, have learners read the story as a group, and then individually. These activities practice vocabulary in context, show relevancy of the language and improve fluency.
Sample Skill-Using Tasks:
- Complete a gap fill activity by choosing and copying the correct word to describe a shopping situation shown in a visual.
- Complete a guided text describing a problem with a shopping experience where the customer is asking for an exchange.
Sample Assessment Tasks:
- Complete a guided text to describe a bad experience in a store using a list of vocabulary words into a template.
Teaching Considerations
Cultural Considerations:
- Facilitate a basic discussion on the differences of common practices related to customer service between Canadian customer service and their own.
Digital Literacy Strategies:
Successful completion of some tasks may require some baseline digital knowledge and skills.
Learners may need to:
- Use familiar apps and web pages
- Understand and use (email, meeting) etiquette
Instructors can:
- Use digital tools such as translation or pronunciation tools to support language learning and foster autonomous learning.
- Introduce websites that are relevant to the task(s).
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization Strategies:
Instructors can:
- 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.
Trauma-informed Strategies:
Possible Trauma Triggers:
- Learners who have experienced trauma can be triggered by people in positions of authority; make sure learners understand their consumer rights in the workplace and give strategies for making polite requests.
Strategies:
- Learners who have experienced trauma may feel wary of initiating any kind of perceived conflict, such as making a complaint or returning an item. Reassure learners that this is a normal part of the shopping process in Canada.
- Create a safe and supportive classroom environment by establishing familiar routines, repeated activities, and model friendly and non-evaluative interactions; learners who have experienced trauma often benefit from having routine.
- Recognize and respect learners’ right to choose if, when and what they share about themselves and their routines.
Resources
Outings, Guest Speaker Suggestions, Extension Activities:
- Complete a class survey about customer service experiences.
- Role play customer service oral interactions, learners use scripted templates with the instructor playing the role of store representative.
- Invite a guest speaker from a local store to explain how to ask for a refund.
- Visit a local supermarket or store to identify different areas of the store, for example, customer service, cashier, self-checkout, deli counter, and so on.
Realia:
- Authentic websites for online shopping which have feedback / review forums
- Store weekly flyers
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.
