Passages To Canada - Digital Archive

Instruct your students to interview a family member or friend in your community who has immigrated to Canada. Be sure to ask him/her why they chose to immigrate to Canada, and when he/she first felt that Canada was their home. Log on to www.passagestocanada.com to record his/her story in the Passages to Canada online archive.

Have your students read some of the profiles found in the Passages to Canada Digital Archive and complete a list of challenges faced by new immigrants coming to Canada. Discuss your findings with the class.
Many artists use their experiences and surroundings as the inspiration for their artistic work and creation. Examine the examples of the artwork of Gu Xiong and Marie-Denise Douyon and select the one which strikes you the most. Have students review the piece as a critic then create their own representation of what immigration means to you, in whichever artistic medium you would most like to work with. Display the final work to the class for discussion.
A number of the Passages to Canada profiles feature people put into extraordinary circumstances. Instruct students to review the stories of Kim Phan Phuc, Ibi Grossman, Mateo Pablo, and Godwin Eni and research the various reasons for immigration. What does the class think about the impact and responsibility that Canada holds for refugees of war-torn countries?
Have students compare and contrast the experiences of immigration and the journey to Canada of three speakers in the Digital Archive. How do their reasons for leaving their home country compare? List the different motivations and present this list to the class.
Instruct students to study an aspect of a Speaker’s artefact collection and research the historic and cultural meaning associated with the object or image. For example, in Elvira Vargas Ovalle’s profile, she has submitted a recipe for ‘Pan de Muerto", or "bread of the dead". What is the significance of this food in the Mexican celebration of remembrance of ancestors?
Have students use the interactive world map found within each "theme page" of the Digital Archive trace the path of three speakers journeys to Canada by consulting their interview transcripts and their stories. For each place that was visited along the way, record five facts about that region of the world. Students should share their findings with the class.
Instruct students to find two speakers from the Digital Archive who arrived in Canada from the same country of origin. How do their stories compare? What factors contributed to differences or similarities in their immigration experience?

Imagine that you have moved to a new country and left behind everything that is familiar to you, including: your family, friends, language, culture, food, religion and traditions. Write a letter to your best friend or family member back home. Discuss your feelings about leaving your home country, the challenges that you will have to face in the new country, and how coming from another culture affects your life in your new country.
Divide the students into teams for a debate activity in which they are given time in class to prepare arguments and rebuttals. The following could be used as the topic of discussion: In Canada, immigrants are encouraged to retain their native customs and traditions. The policy of multiculturalism is central to the contemporary Canadian identity. However, some argue that multiculturalism makes unifying the country more difficult. What is your view? Why?
Have students produce their own profile about their history or their family’s history of immigrating to Canada. What artefacts would they use to illustrate important events? What aspects of their story of immigration would you share? Divide the class into pairs and ask students to interview each other, then share with the class.
Have students create a scrapbook of newspaper and magazine clippings that address the topic of immigration. As a class, discuss recurring themes.
Have students determine which of the speaker’s profiles left the greatest impression on them. Using the story on the Passages to Canada website www.passagestocanada.com identify and explain the central theme of his/her journey to Canada, with students reflecting on why they selected this story and how it affected them.
Ask the class: If you could not live in Canada, what country would you choose to live in? What factors would you consider in your decision? Have students research their selected country online and describe how living there might be different from living in Canada.
Have students present a personal culture shock experience to the class which involves traveling to a new place. Be sure to discuss what happened and how the situation was dealt with. What did you learn? In what ways are the situations/events different in your native country? This activity can be organized according to speaking and listening partners to encourage note taking and question formation.
Organize as a class a "celebrate diversity day". Ask students to share something from their culture (e.g., traditional food, the meaning of a ritual, etc.) with other members of the class.
Play a "Share your Culture" game. Have students write a paragraph describing something unique about their own culture. Collect paragraphs and read them aloud to the class. Ask students to guess which country is being described. The paragraph could also be posted in the classroom and students could write their guesses and reasons for their answers.
Create a class circle and have students tell the story of how they got their name. Is there a specific meaning or story associated with their name? Students may need to do some genealogical research prior to engaging in this activity.
Have the students create timelines that outline their movement patterns from the time of their birth until the present. Identify pull factors (job opportunities, better neighborhood or school) and push factors (language barriers, long commute for parents to get to work etc.,) that may have contributed to their family’s decision to move. Have the students present their findings to the class.
Have students create a PMI chart that outlines the pluses, minuses, and interesting points of being an immigrant male or female in Canada versus the country they (may) have emigrated from. Have students present their findings to the class for discussion.

Prepare a profile page for a member of your community who has immigrated to Canada. Include artefacts and an interview that relates to a specific story or aspect of your subject’s life. Present your project in the form of a web page, research paper or class presentation.
Design an immigration poster highlighting what you think would attract someone from another country to Canada or design a poster that is reflective of either your country of origin or Canada.
Complete the sentence "Living in Canada means…" and illustrate your idea with a collage of pictures. In groups, discuss your finished product. Post them around the classroom and, as a class, determine the most significant aspects of Canadian identity. This could facilitate a discussion about cultural stereotypes, discrimination, identity and nationality.
Listen to three audio interviews in a specific themed section of the Passages to Canada Digital Archive. Compare and contrast the experiences of the individuals whose stories you select. Interview a person in your community on a similar topic involving immigration. Write a report on what you have learned, and present your findings to the class.
Assign students a specific interview to listen to and prepare comprehensive questions, inference questions, vocabulary and/or multiple choice questions to be used in preparation for TOEFL testing. Have the class exchange the questions amongst themselves as an additional activity.
Divide the class into small groups to research the immigration of a specific cultural group and reflect on how that history might affect the integration of that group into Canadian society (e.g. Chinese Canadians). Have the students present their findings to the class.
Have students download the "Mock Citizenship Test" and test themselves, friends and family members. Once they have administered five tests, have them analyze what aspects of the test gave participants the most trouble. Should the tests be amended? What would you add or remove from the test? Is this a good way to determine whether someone should become a Canadian Citizen?

Some people choose to retain as much of their native culture and traditions as they can when they move to a new country. Others may choose to abandon their culture and adopt the traditions of the new country. Examine both of these positions and state which you support.
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? It is important for everybody in a multicultural society to learn about all of the cultures represented in their society. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
If you were to give advice to somebody moving to Canada, what would you tell them? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
Intergenerational differences amongst immigrants to Canada can sometimes be very pronounced. What are some of the similarities and differences between generations, and how does this affect adjustment to life in a new country?
Each country has some defining characteristics that form the main components of its core culture. What would you say are the most important qualities of Canadian culture? Support your response with details and examples.
People choose to immigrate to many countries for many different reasons. Explain why you believe people choose to immigrate to Canada.
Do you support or oppose the following position: Canada has a responsibility to accept and help all those who claim refugee status here. Use specific reasons to support your answer.
Why do many citizens identify as hyphenated Canadians (Chinese-Canadian, Indian-Canadian etc.)?
What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of identifying with two cultures?

Note to Educators:
Activities contained in this section are applicable to language learners, new Canadians and high school students. Please select those which are most relevant to your group.
These questions incorporate the specific language skills offered to ESL /FSL students through the areas of conversation, pronunciation, reading, writing, listening, grammar, and TOEFL preparation.

Teachers should print off a story and separate it into sentence strips or cards with two or three sentences on them. Have students work in small groups to put the story back in order (either at a group of desks or by standing with a card each in the correct order). Vocabulary lists should also be made in which partners figure out the meanings with the context of a profile passage. Dictionary usage could be implemented. This aids in Pronunciation, Spelling, Listening, and Reading Coherence.
Have students bring a cultural artefact (or a picture of one) from their native country or another country they are interested in. One student describes his/her artefact, without showing the item, to another student or a small group, giving as much detail as possible about its shape, colour, size, use, etc. The other students listen and draw what they visualize and write one or two of the most important things they learned about it. After each turn the artefact (or picture) is shown to the group and compared with what the listeners drew and wrote about it. This aids in Speaking, Listening, and Writing.
Each student writes an immigration-themed discussion question on a slip of paper. The students are then divided into two lines, facing each other, and discuss their question with the student across from them. After a period of time, the teacher has one line remain stationary while the other moves one space over (with the last student traveling down to the first position) and they discuss their question again with a new partner who has a new question. Students can then write a summary of what they heard. This aids in Speaking, Listening, Writing and Comprehension.
Teachers should print off a few Passages profiles and post portions or whole stories on the classroom wall. Have students work in pairs, with one acting as a recorder/secretary and the other as a running reader/dictator- they can swap half way or for different passages. This activity could be expanded by preparing questions ahead of time about the selected profiles, with the questions given to the recorder/secretary and the reader/dictator would be responsible for finding the answers. This aids in Reading, Speaking (reporting and asking for clarification), Listening, Pronunciation and
Writing.