The LINC program is Language Instruction For Newcomers to Canada. It is an Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) federally funded program that teaches settlement English to adult Immigrants to Canada.
Instructors for the LINC program come from a variety of educational and social backgrounds and are responsible for everyday instruction for their classes. IRCC is pushing to offer more settlement services online, including language services, due to the low cost in creating these courses, as well as the ability to capture a wider audience physically, socially, and demographically. With the onset of COVID 19 they now have a greater need to go online. Case in point would be the launch of a technology program called LearnIT2Teach. All LINC instructors in government funded language learning programs are encouraged to participate in the LearnIT2teach program to support the implementation of technology tools in their classrooms. IRCC has recognized that digital literacy is a major component in classroom pedagogy, however, there seemed to be a lack of instructors who were comfortable using technology in the classroom. LearnIT2teach is designed for English as a Second Language (ESL) instructors who want to incorporate more technology into their classrooms and want to teach blended classes.
LearnIT2Teach has designed, evaluated and researched their program since it’s inception and then changed updated their product using the data accumulated. Since the project is also funded through IRCC and is distributed across Canada for all LINC teachers to use, their reports are fundamental in incorporating and updating what the teachers and students will use.
A number of their reports can be found on their website: LearnIT2Teach
The report can be found here: New Project Evaluation Report
Thank you for this information, Sundeep! I’ve been involved with LINC in the past and was curious to know which platform instructors are using and how things are going with it!
Online learning for new immigrants is a challenging situation indeed as literacy is at times an issue in addition for learners of English as a Second language and I’ll take a look at the links you provided.