By Natalie Anderson and Haebin Pan, MOSAIC Surrey Language Centre
To help learners build language and connect with others beyond their own classrooms, teachers at MOSAIC BC’s Surrey Language Centre organized multi-level and school-wide communicative events for Literacy, LINC 1, LINC 3, and LINC 4 learners. The main challenge was creating interactions that were authentic and stimulating to higher stage I classes while still being accessible to lower stage I and literacy levels.
THE MINGLE
The first event was a mingle across 4 classes. Learners in each class were numbered off (1, 2, 3, 4) to go to different instructors’ classrooms so that a few students from each class were in each room. Instructors prepared sets of large, colourful, image-based conversation sheets that made it easy for everyone to participate. Lower-level students had meaningful opportunities to learn and practise foundational and high-frequency English questions and answers about themselves with new people, while higher-level learners built confidence by mentoring and supporting others, as well as using and adapting their English to explain, model and give feedback in a clear, supportive and accessible way.
THE MARKET
The second event was a yard sale where classes took turns being buyers and sellers. There were different kinds of markets: a craft market, a farmer’s market, a flea market, and a yard sale. Prior to the event, students made items for the market, such as money coupons. Students decided on the price of the item they picked, which was represented by images on cards rather than the actual object. Using images allowed all students to participate without needing to bring items from home while still providing authentic opportunities to practise the language skills needed for pricing, buying, and selling. Learners practised common questions and answers used at the market, with differentiated language supports for lower-level students and more advanced expressions for higher-level students. As the sale progressed, students became more engaged in conversations with others and began using other real-life skills, such as bargaining, negotiating, and asking follow-up questions. Overall, the yard sale provided an engaging, real-world, task-based learning experience that encouraged collaboration across proficiency levels and a lively sense of community.
Both events created meaningful opportunities for authentic communication, new friendships, a stronger sense of community, and a fun and memorable change from the regular classroom routine.
