Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada

The Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC; French: Cours de langue pour les immigrants au Canada, CLIC) program is a free language education programme—funded and regulated by the Canadian government's Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship—that offers full-time and part-time English- (excluding Quebec) and French-language lessons to adult permanent residents (or those with approval-in-principle) and Convention refugees.[1][2]

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The LINC is not available for Canadian citizens, refugee claimants, temporary residents (e.g., foreign students, foreign workers, or visitors).[2] The program is designed to meet English language needs, ranging from day-to-day living to job searching. This includes improving reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills.[3]

Language classes are facilitated by local immigrant-service agencies; for example, ISSofBC is a community organization that provides LINC in British Columbia.[3] The program is primarily provided in English; the French-language program, CLIC, is provided by institutions such as:[4]

• Educacentre College in Vancouver, BC[5]
• La Cité des affaires (affiliated with Collège La Cité) in Ottawa
• Collège Mathieu in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan[6]
• Collège Boréal in Southern Ontario
• L'École des adultes Le Carrefour (affiliated with the Conseil des écoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario)

LINC classes are based the Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB; Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens), the official national standards for the assessment/measurement of adult immigrants' ability in English (or French) as a second language.[1][2][7]