The Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks Celebrates its 10th Year

By Anne Senior

The Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks (CCLB) is celebrating its 10th year as the centre of expertise in support of the national standards – Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) and les Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens (NCLC). These benchmarks are used for describing, measuring and recognizing the second language proficiency of adult immigrants and prospective immigrants for living and working in Canada.

The CLB/NCLC provides descriptive scales of communicative proficiency in English or French as a Second Language, expressed as benchmarks or reference points.  They cover four skill areas:  reading, writing, speaking and listening, and use real-life language tasks to measure language skills. They are made up of twelve benchmarks in three stages. In the CLB/NCLC standard, language progression is based on three factors: progressively more demanding communication tasks; progressively more demanding contexts, and progressively higher expectations of effectiveness and quality of communicative performance.

The Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks recognizes that language is the key to success for immigrants and for the Canadian employment sector, which so desperately needs the skills and resources that many immigrants bring. Therefore the CCLB, as the not-for-profit support arm for the implementation and use of Canadian Language Benchmarks, has developed, or has collaborated on the development of a number of resources and tools, to support the work of career professionals, human resource professionals, employment counsellors and settlement workers, in helping newcomers to access employment, bridge-to-employment opportunities and other training.

Work Ready is an exciting on-line tool available at www.language.ca. It is a treasure box of resources, tips, examples and practical tools for working with Internationally Trained Individuals (ITI’s). It includes best practices and case studies, as well as suggestions on how to develop an inclusive workplace and provides examples of how good and bad communication strategies can impact on an organization. Work Ready challenges users to examine how they use language in the workplace, encourages them to be clear and effective communicators and helps them understand the language challenges that a second language speaker may face. Work Ready is an interactive site, because CCLB encourages users to share their ideas, best practices and questions with each other.

The Workplace Language Assessment Pre-Screening Tool is a thirty-minute language resource to assist counsellors, in approved programs, when referring Internationally Trained Individuals (ITI’s) with language levels in Canadian Language Benchmarks stage II (about CLB 6) to next steps or pathways such as the following:

• Further language assessment
• Bridge-to-work programs
• Post-secondary education
• Support to pass accreditation tests
• Employment

The WLA Pre-Screening Tool provides a general indication of a client’s language skills related to the Canadian Language Benchmarks.

The Can Do checklists are a series of checklists covering benchmarks 1-10, which show what a learner can do at each of the benchmarks. These checklists are available as PDF files, pads or posters. They are a useful resource for clients to self-evaluate their language skills.

Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) checklists can be used with clients to document the education, skills and experience that they already have. The two-sided document available as a PDF shows how personal attributes, Essential Skills, Canadian Language Benchmarks, and transferable and specific job competencies are identified and recognized to create an individual PLAR Profile and Proof of Learning Plan.

CCLB has an interesting tool that incorporates both Essential Skills and Canadian Language Benchmarks. This is a series of Occupational Language Analysis (OLA). These identify the Canadian Language Benchmark levels required for a specific occupation, using Essential Skills profiles and the National Occupational Standards. An introduction for counsellors on using OLAs can be found on www.itsessential.ca. The Canadian English Language Benchmark Assessment for Nurses (CELBAN) is an assessment tool designed to assess the English language proficiency of internationally-educated nurses who are applying for licensure in the nursing profession in Canada.  The CELBAN self-assessment tool and further information on CELBAN are available at www.celban.org. The CCLB web site, www.language.ca, provides access to the websites mentioned above and gives information on the many other tools and resources developed by the CCLB.

As part of the CCLB’s 10th anniversary celebrations the centre is conducting a national consultation on the Canadian Language Benchmarks. Staff will be presenting at many conferences throughout the year soliciting input. Your feedback, thoughts and ideas will greatly help the centre as it moves forward so please attend our sessions or provide feedback through the centre’s website.

Anne Senior is a special consultant with the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks in Ottawa, and is working on employment-related tools. She has over twenty years of experience providing second language training, language assessments and cross-cultural training.