The content in each of the ESL courses is organized into four interrelated strands, or broad areas of learning: Listening and Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Socio-cultural Competence and Media Literacy. Effective instructional activities blend expectations from the four strands in order to provide English language learners with the kinds of experiences that promote meaningful learning and that help students recognize how language and literacy skills in the four strands overlap and strengthen one another. The program at all levels is designed to develop a range of essential skills in the four interrelated strands, built on a solid foundation of knowledge of the language conventions of standard English and incorporating the use of analytical, critical, and metacognitive thinking skills. Students learn best when they are provided with opportunities to monitor and reflect on their learning, and each strand includes expectations that call for such reflection.
These courses are designed for English language learners who have had opportunities to develop language and literacy skills in their own language appropriate to their age or grade level. Most English language learners are in this group. These learners may be entering secondary school from elementary school alongside their English-speaking peers, or they may be entering secondary school in Ontario having recently arrived from other countries. They can read and write in their own language within the expected range for students of their age in their own country. They can build on their existing first-language skills when learning English in an ESL program.
The five ESL courses are based on levels of proficiency in English. Depending on learners’ previous experience with English, students may be placed in ESL Level 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. For example, a student who has been in full-time education in his or her country of origin but who has never studied English would be placed in ESL Level 1. A student who has been in full-time education in his or her own country and has studied some English might be placed in ESL Level 2 or 3 on the basis of the initial English language.
