The Avenue – LearnIT2teach Project offers more than an online teaching and learning platform for settlement language training!
Since 2018 we have also offered training and resources for language volunteers working with newcomers. New Language Solutions is growing that volunteer training to include preparing volunteers to support newcomers in employment preparation or the workplace. We will be piloting this latest iteration of volunteer training in the April 2025.
In 2022 we conducted an environmental scan of employment training for newcomers. We wanted to identify how volunteers were supporting newcomers in employment preparation and workplace training and how those volunteers in turn, might best be supported.
The following topics were identified:
- Introduction to CLBs and Skills for Success
- Canadian Workplace Culture
- Strategies for Teaching Language
- Pre-Employment / Job Search Support
- Feedback in the Canadian Workplace
- Worker Rights & Responsibilities / Health & Safety
- Volunteering and Working Remotely
TESL Basics for Language Volunteers started as an IRCC Service Delivery Improvement (SDI) pilot project in 2018. It was developed and piloted between 2018-2020, and since that time has been offered by a growing number of front line service provider organizations across Canada.
TBLV covers seven important topics to prepare volunteers to support immigrant language learners. The online course also gives lots of practical suggestions that they can use right away.
The topics are:
- Introduction to terminology and CLBs
- Working with lower-level learners and literacy learners
- Providing positive action-oriented feedback & practicing pronunciation
- Using materials from the real world (realia) across the levels
- Daily life and employment
- Canadian culture and citizenship – this topic also builds cultural competency for volunteers to work with newcomers
- Remote volunteering – using high-tech and low-tech ways
TBLV is offered to volunteers through partnerships with front line immigrant serving organizations. After a TBLV lead is identified in an organization, they go through a brief train-the-trainer course on Avenue, then a local coach is set up with a TBLV course that they can adapt to their local or regional needs and use with the volunteers in their organization. Coaches can offer the training fully online, or in a blended format. NLS offers continuing support to TBLV coaches; for volunteers who finish all of the modules in the program, we issue a certificate of completion. When volunteers receive training, the result is more effective volunteering that will help newcomers improve their language skills and adapt to life in Canada. Volunteers in turn develop feelings of competence and efficacy that will keep them motivated and engaged, leading to less volunteer turnover.
Volunteers in the francophone community can also benefit from our volunteer training! In 2022 a French equivalent to TBLV was created: l’ABC du FLS pour instructeurs benevoles, l’AFIB. Since Francophones are a minority, learners who take CLIC or FSL classes do not have a lot of opportunities to hear and speak French. Therefore, they would appreciate having an additional francophone in the classroom.
While the francophone sector is smaller than the anglophone sector, it is also diverse and the needs of learners of French as a second language might be different than the needs of adult ESL learners. That is the reason why AFIB is not just a translation of TBLV but a French ‘trans-adaptation’ offering information about different francophone communities in Canada, specific advice for volunteers about pronunciation, literacy learners and employment-related topics.
Each year P2P looks for innovative promising practices in immigrant settlement and integration with an empirical basis for their effectiveness. In June 2024 Avenue.ca as well as TESL Basics for Language Volunteers (TBLV) and l’ABC des FLS pour les instructeurs bénévoles (l’AFIB) received Pathways to Prosperity accolades as Promising Practices! TBLV is both innovative and effective, as substantiated by our pilot report and feedback from partnering organizations. In the fall of 2024 you will be able to watch the video’s in which various NLS team members describe the projects and share our challenges and successes. Keep an eye on the P2P website to uncover what else we have in store for volunteers.
TBLV Partnering Organizations
- Abbotsford, BC, Archway Community Services
- Vancouver, BC, Vancouver Community College
- Vancouver, BC, MOSAIC
- Victoria, BC, Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria
- Golden, BC, Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy
- Surrey, BC, DIVERSE City
- Calgary, AB, Centre for Newcomers
- Dundas, ON, Immigrants Working Centre
- Winnipeg, MB, English Online
- Kingston, ON, KEYS Employment & Newcomer Services
- Leamington, ON, South Essex Community Council
- Scarborough, ON, ACSA Newcomers’ Centre
- Peterborough, ON, New Canadians Centre
- Toronto, ON, Somali Immigant Aid Organization
- Toronto, ON, Newcomer Women’s Services
- Fredericton, NB, Multi-Cultural Association Fredericton
- Saint John, NB, YMCA Greater Saint John Area
