With a growing influx of new Canadians, or immigrants on their way to becoming Canadian, making up portions of the Stettler area workforce, programs are being developed and expanded to meet their needs.
At Stettler Adult Learning, there are always two English as a Second Language (ESL) classes going on. The classes vary by semester – sometimes they’re both in the morning, sometimes both at evening, or one in the morning and one in the evening, explained Brenda Barritt, the program manager at Stettler Adult Learning.
The organization looks at literacy – which means more than reading and writing, but intellectual understanding – from birth to adulthood. They’ve developed programs to help adults learn to read and educationally entertain children, learn to speak and write English, acquire a GED (General Educational Development) certification, and through a partnership with Campus Alberta Central, can help with upgrading.
“We’re seeing more new Canadians, and we try to adapt to that,” Barritt said. “In a lot of cases it’s not actually a language arrier, but an accent barrier.”
Barritt explained that many new Canadians have a strong understanding of the English language as well as a deep vocabulary, but born-and-raised Canadians sometimes cannot “see” beyond the accent.
“They have a hard time understanding and assume the person doesn’t speak English,” she said.
After ESL classes, which act like a gateway into Adult Learning programs, students sometimes can work with tutors one-on-one to diminish accents or learn coping techniques to get beyond that.
Part of the mandate of Adult Learning is to help employers see beyond the accent as well.
“We have these intelligent, trained, smart people who sometimes can be dismissed because they’re not being heard,” she said.
Other times, rather than speaking slowly, some people will try speaking louder, which doesn’t help the new Canadian understand any better.
For some new Canadians, education isn’t new.
They’ve achieved educational success in their home countries, in many cases achieving post-secondary diplomas or degrees which aren’t recognized here.
“We’re able to offer upgrading of pre-college and college skills that they may have taken elsewhere, but don’t receive credit for here in Canada,” Barritt explained. The goal of that is to avoid having skilled people, especially in trades, working menial jobs because of the country in which the skills were learned.
In other cases, though, going through college again is a bridge to Canadian society.
“We had a couple from (Asia) who got their GEDs,” Barritt explained. “They had their Masters' (degrees) in their home country. But this helped them understand the Canadian society in ways they didn’t before.”
The one-on-one tutors are more than that, Barritt said. They become bridges into the community, helping prevent new Canadians from being isolated by their differences from their born-and-bred countrymen.
With Alberta’s job market maturing, the era of easy-to-get, well-paying jobs is coming to an end, Pam Taylor, also with Adult Learning, said. Employers now require, at minimum, a high school diploma or GED in almost all cases, which has pushed the number of students at Adult Learning upwards.