Section 1.8: CLB and Essential Skills

Table: CLB and Essential Skills Fast Facts

	Canadian Language Benchmarks	Essential Skills
	The CLB standard was developed for people who have English or French as their second (or possibly third or fourth) language.	Essential Skills were developed for people who have English or French as their first language.
	The CLB standard describes the speaking, listening, reading and writing language tasks that a person might perform at home, at work or in the community.	Essential Skills describe workplace tasks in terms found in Essential Skills profiles or in the national occupational standards developed by sector councils.
	The CLB standard describes specific language tasks separately for speaking and listening.	Essential Skills describe speaking and listening skills as Oral Communication.
	The CLB standard describes language task competencies in four skill areas: speaking, listening, reading and writing. The competencies are described over three stages and 12 levels.	Essential Skills have nine skill areas: Reading Text, Document Use, Numeracy, Writing, Oral Communication, Working with Others, Thinking Skills, Computer Use and Continuous Learning. Some Essential Skills have assigned complexity levels to four or five levels (i.e. ES1–ES4/5).
	CLB /NCLC are the national standards for English and French proficiency for immigrants in Canada.	Essential Skills are a national standard; they are a framework of skills for life, work and learning.
	See language.ca for more information on CLB/NCLC.	See www.itsessential.ca for more information on Essential Skills.

Some newcomers may have skills that fall below the range of equivalency. See www.itsessential.ca for more information on how to relate CLB to Essential Skills using the Comparative Framework.