Canadian Language Benchmarks: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:05, 15 October 2023

Revision as of 17:07, 25 January 2024

Line 26:

== History ==

The CLB grew out of a federal government initiative undertaken in 1992, to support the language learning needs of immigrants to the country. In 1993, Citizenship and Immigration Canada established the National Working Group on Language Benchmarks. In November 1996, the group published the Canadian Language Benchmarks (Working Document). This working group was eventually to become the Board of Directors of the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks. The CCLB received its charter as a non-profit agency in March 1998. In 2000, the Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000, by Grazyna Pawlikowska-Smith, was published. It was the culmination of years of work by dozens of experts, and has since steadily grown in popularity with students, teachers and institutions.

In 2012, a revised version of the CLB was published and an updated theoretical framework. A team of writers and language experts worked on the revision in both English and in French. The CLB/NCLC theory was validated against the Common European Framework for Language, the ACTEFL and the Quebec version of the benchmarks. The validation showed that the CLB and NCLC are valid and reliable for high-stakes use in a variety of contexts including community, academic and workplace.

A set of benchmarks for literacy learners who have English as a Secondsecond Languagelanguage was also first developed in 1996 and revised in 2000 by the Government of Manitoba. A revised version of the literacy benchmarks was done in fiscal 2013-/2014 and expected to be released once validation is complete in 2014.<ref> See [https://web.archive.org/web/20140619070457/http://www.language.ca/index.cfm?Voir=sections&Id=17357&M=4038&Repertoire_No=2137991327 CLB 2000: ESL for Literacy Learners]</ref>

The CLB has also been used to identify the level of curricula, courses and requirements for entry into post-secondary training in some parts of Canada, e.g. in Manitoba, some Ontario community colleges and in British Columbia where it is part of an articulation agreement.<ref> See work done by [http://www.arucc.ca/conferences/arucc2008/CIITE%20-%20Systemic%20Change%20in%20Ontario's%20Colleges%20and%20Institutes%20Part%201.pdf CIITE].</ref>

Since 2002, the CLB has been used increasingly as a scale to help define the language demands that are used in some occupations and professions. The first benchmarking projects were done at the provincial level by Red River College in Manitoba. In 2002, CCLB did the first national benchmarking project to identify the language demands of the nursing profession.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.language.ca/documents/FINAL_NURSING_REPORTS_cclb.pdf |title=Benchmarking the English Language Demands of the Nursing Profession Across Canada |access-date=2014-06-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130819013457/http://www.language.ca/documents/final_nursing_reports_cclb.pdf |archive-date=2013-08-19 |url-status=dead }}</ref> This was followed by the development of a national test to verify the language competency of internationally trained nurses, the Canadian English Language Benchmarks Assessment for Nurses (CELBAN). Further research was done by the Centre for occupations in the following industries: Traveltravel and hospitality, Truckingtrucking, Tradestrades, Foodfood and Grocerygrocery, and professions like Pharmacypharmacy, Physiotherapyphysiotherapy and Occupationaloccupational Therapytherapy, Audiologyaudiology and Speechspeech Languagelanguage Pathologypathology. Many of these profiles have been captured in documents called "Occupational Language Analyses" (OLAs) which reflect the communication skills extrapolated from occupational competency documents, the Essential Skills and aligned to the CLB/NCLC. Many of these are available on the website, [Canadian Language Benchmarks and Essential Skills for the workplace<ref>https://www.language.ca/resourcesexpertise/essential-skills/ Canadian Language Benchmarks and Essential Skills for the workplace]<ref> or by contacting the CCLB. The CLB has also been correlated to the Essential Skills in a document called "Relating Canadian Language Benchmarks to the [Essential Skills".</ref></ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20140616060946/http://www.language.ca/index.cfm?Voir=sections&Id=17367&M=4038&Repertoire_No=2137991327 Relating Canadian Language Benchmarks to the Essential Skills].

== CLB and Assessment ==