Canadian Language Benchmark Essay

One example of a successful national benchmarking system is the Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) for Canada’s two official languages, English and French. On a larger scale in Europe, over 40 countries have adopted the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, developed by the Council of Europe. (Eaton, 2010, p. 10). Online and internet literacy is becoming as essential for communication as traditional methods of communication used to be. In the 21st century, though, since English has become spoken on such a wide scale, it has become less important for students to mimic speech in the way they did in the past. English teaching in the 21st century is more about helping people express themselves with respect to their own cultural and regional identity than

Mimicking British or American English is less important than allowing people to express their own cultural voice using their own variety of English. To teach people to speak English in the 21st century, a teacher needs to expose students to as many different varieties of English as possible (Bieswanger, 2008). This will give the student the skills necessary to communicate with individuals from other nations or regions in a culturally aware way. This will also prepare the 21st century student to be able to navigate the increased multilingual needs of the world in the next few decades (Modiano, 2009). teaching landscape must evolve

With the increased need for students in the 21st century to benefit from efficiencies derived from real-time communication and internet, the teaching landscape must evolve to fulfill such needs. Teachers in the digital age have the challenge of embracing technology and keeping up to date with the constant change of it. Since real-time communication and use of internet in teaching result in greater