ESL in Canada Education Posts
From the Government of Canada Site:
Immigration has long been integral to Canada's social, cultural and economic development. With time, both the character of immigration and its role in Canadian society have changed to reflect new domestic and global realities.
Data from the 2001 Census show that between 1991 and 2000 alone, 2.2 million immigrants were admitted to Canada, the highest number for any decade in the past century. In contrast, 1.3 million immigrants came in the 1980s and 1.4 million in each of the 1970s and 1960s. The majority of the immigrants who arrived in Canada during the 1990s were in the working ages of 25 to 64 years and increased the size of Canada's working age population by more than 1.1 million.
For more information go to:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/81-004-XIE/2005005/impop.htm
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The 2003 International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (IALSS) collected data from large samples of recent and established immigrants to answer key questions about the literacy levels of these two groups.
The report on the Canadian results of IALSS, Building on Our Competencies, 4 published in November 2005, presents an analysis of skill levels for three groups of individuals - the Canadian-born, recent immigrants (those who have been in Canada for 10 years or less) and established immigrants (those who have been in Canada for more than 10 years).
The main purpose of the survey was to find out how well adults used printed information to function in society. Survey data include background information (demographic, education, language, labour force, training, literacy uses, information and communication technology, income) and psychometric results of respondents' proficiency along four skill domains: prose and document literacy, numeracy and problem-solving.
Go here for additional information:
http://www.statcan.ca/cgi-bin/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=4406&lang=en&db=IMDB&dbg=f&adm=8&dis=2
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Language Skill proficiencies of the immigrant population
Immigrants aged 16 to 65 performed significantly below the average for the Canadian- born population in all four domains. The average prose literacy score for the Canadian-born population corresponded to Level 3 proficiency, while for recent immigrants the average score was at Level 2. Differences in performance between Canadian-born and recent as well as established immigrants were largest for prose literacy and smallest for numeracy.
In all four domains, a higher percentage of both recent and established immigrants performed at Levels 1 and 2 than did the Canadian-born population. Sixty percent of recent and established immigrants, compared to 37 percent of the Canadian-born population, were at Levels 1 and 2 in prose literacy.
At the other end of the proficiency scale, twelve percent of established and eight percent of recent immigrants performed at Level 4/5. This compares to 22 percent of the Canadian-born population - indicating that the differences between Canadian-born and immigrants were larger than they were between the two immigrant groups.
There were large differences in literacy performance between immigrants and the Canadian-born with the same level of educational attainment. About two percent of the university-educated Canadian-born scored at Level 1 in prose literacy proficiency. In comparison, 14 percent of university-educated established immigrants and 18 percent of recent immigrants scored at this level. At the other end of the scale, 37 percent of university-educated Canadian-born scored at Levels 4/5 compared to 21 percent of university-educated established immigrants and 11 percent of university-educated recent immigrants.
The IALSS results show that proficiency of Canadians aged 16 to 65 in literacy, numeracy and problem solving is clearly linked to their labour market outcomes.
Read the IALSS Conclusions here:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/81-004-XIE/2005005/impop.htm
Our Comments
More English Language training is required by immigrants who are in Canada and should be obtained by potential immigrants getting ready to immigrate into Canada.
Access to English class information:
