The Fédération canadienne pour l'alphabétisation en français (FCAF), a national literacy organization, is bringing the Towards Clearer Communications project to every provincial capital city during 2004 and 2005. The project's forum focuses on the benefits of using plain language whenever communicating to the general public. If communicators from the private and public sectors wish to improve the clarity of their message, they should attend this bilingual forum.

Visit www.clearercommunications.ca to view the agenda and dates. Please register on-line. Some of the workshops include:

• How to communicate with less-literate Canadians
• How to design effective forms.

Hear case studies from the health, financial, print media and government sectors on how plain language can narrow the gap between communicators and the general public.

For more information contact: Tobias Keogh, FCAF, 613-749-5333 or
1-888-906-5666, email: tkeogh@fcaf.net

“Training for the Enhancement of Online Educational Resources”

If you have browsed the NALD Literacy Collection (www.nald.ca/CLR/search/) recently, you may have noticed that some of the listings have a logo that looks like this:

This logo means that the document has been evaluated and is recommended for adult learning by literacy coordinators and instructors of the Community Academic Services Program (CASP) in New Brunswick. Each document has received a star rating, with 5 stars being the highest.

By clicking on “See Practitioner Evaluation,” you will be taken to a page of information about the document. This information was provided by the evaluators, and includes details about the subject area, who it is intended for, what format it is in, and how appealing it is likely to be to students.

The purpose of this project, called “Training for the Enhancement of Online Educational Resources,” was
to make it easier for CASP instructors to find appropriate learning materials to use with their learners. This is accomplished by having all the evaluated materials accessible through one central location:
www.nald.ca/EvalToolNALDResources/search/eval_list.asp.

Since these resources are evaluated, centralized, and free of charge, this will also be helpful to other adult literacy learners and tutors looking for classroom materials.

The Community Academic Services Program is a free community-based literacy program for adults, customized to meet the needs of the individual learner. For more information about CASP in New Brunswick, please see: www.anbi-lnbi.nb.ca/English/WhatWeDo.htm#CBL.

Share the LEARNing

ABC CANADA has developed tools to assist literacy groups in documenting calls received to their LEARN lines.

The Telephone Log Form (available in PDF) and the Telephone Log Data Sheet (MS Excel) are both available at no charge to all not-for-profit organizations across Canada. To download and learn more about these resources, please visit: http://www.abc-canada.org/learnline_resources/

“Dark Secrets”

In an effort to reach potential adult literacy students, ABC CANADA has launched two new television public service announcements (PSA) entitled, “Dark Secrets”. To view the two humorous spots, visit
www.abc-canada.org. To purchase a copy of the PSAs or to have a tape sent to broadcasters in your community, please send an email to
info@abc-canada.org.