"Those Who Know": Views on Literacy among Adult Immigrants in Canada

Abstract

Two approaches (quantitative and qualitative) are used to explore the topic of Canadian adult immigrants who are new users of English and who have little literacy experience. First, available statistics from a number of sources are used to provide an overview of this group. Second, a Toronto‐based case study is used as an example of the kind of qualitative study which is needed for a richer understanding of the issue at hand. The study explores the everyday uses that a group of Latin American adults have for reading and writing. The results suggest that literacy needs exist in both Spanish and English. The article concludes by drawing attention to the contradiction, on the one hand, of government commitments to immigration, multiculturalism, and training and, on the other hand, of the lack of appropriate services provided for the special needs of immigrants.

Individual Variables, Literacy History, and ESL Progress Among Kurdish and Bosnian Immigrants

“…That the preliterate learners are the oldest on average with the lowest scores is consistent with the observation that proportionally more older learners speak neither official language; however, among those in the Census who arrived more recently (1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986), the age spread has been more evenly distributed (Klassen & Burnaby, 1993).…”

“…Pendakur (1992) reports that approxi-mately three quarters of the immigrants (72% for men and 81% for women) who reported the ability to speak neither official language had fewer than nine years of schooling and more than half had fewer than six years. In comparison, fewer than one quarter (21% of men and 22% of women) of those who reported ability to speak an official language had fewer than nine years of education (Klassen & Burnaby, 1993).…”

“…The Canadian Census figures, based on self-reporting, and data from the Language Skills Used in Daily Activities (LSUDA) study, based on a performance test of functional literacy, suggest that gender, age, occupation, years of schooling completed, and country of origin are all significant variables in predicting proficiency in English (Klassen & Burnaby, 1993). In particular, the adult English as a second language (ESL) literacy population-that is, those with minimalliteraey skills in any language-"tends to include more women than men, they tend to be older, and to be outside of the labor force or employed in marginal sectors of the economy, [and] the difference in level of education attained is growing in comparison to the Canadian-born population" (p. 382).…”

Immigrants' perceptions of quality of life in three second‐ or third‐tier Canadian cities

“…Quality of life (QOL) describes “the degree to which a person enjoys the important possibilities of his or her life” (Raphael et al , 229). The main determinants of immigrant QOL include: education (Klassen and Burnaby ; Statistics Canada ; Guhn et al ), income (Hatfield ; Heisz and McLeod ; FCM ; Sharpe ), and employment (Tran ; FCM ; Galarneau and Morissette ). In terms of education, recent immigrants are twice as likely to have university‐level education compared to non‐immigrants (Statistics Canada ).…”

Mixed Methods Research in TESOL: Procedures Combined or Epistemology Confused?

“…In TESOL research, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches dates back at least three decades, when Chaudron () discussed their interaction and D. A. Johnson () used both types of data to investigate the language learning of young migrants. Mixing the two approaches in TESOL was also reported in the 1990s, though not under the title of mixed methods (e.g., Ferris & Tagg, ; Klassen & Burnaby, ). Later, reports of mixed methods language education studies continued to increase, importantly in journals such as TESOL Quarterly (e.g., Coady, Harper, & de Jong, ; Lamb, ), Applied Linguistics (e.g., Caldas, ), Language Learning (e.g., Hu & Lei, ), and The Modern Language Journal (e.g., Ziegler, ).…”