Humour

Any resource that has a touch (or more) of humour.

Based on an hilarious Comics Relief YouTube clip. A great way to get students to look at conversations in speaking and listening or to look at humour, irony and sarcasm.

You can vary the questions or just use them as a discussion prompt. I have found it works well with lower level learners and with higher ones as well. Even students who don’t like the shows or the people will have some comments

Level
Level 2
Level 1
Entry Level 3
English
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Adult Literacy: Speaking & Listening
Context
Voluntary, Charity and Community
Education and teaching

A short reading adapted from an online news report. Exercises include comprehension questions, placing sentences in the correct order, matching words and phrases and a fill the gap exercise. Answer sheet included.

Editor’s note
Fully mapped to E2 Functional English (reading) with extra teaching tips.

Level
Entry Level 2
English
AL Rt/E2.1 Follow main points of short texts
Functional English reading
Context
News, Politics & Government items
Motor vehicles & Transport

Cards that can be laminated and used over and over again for speaking and listening using persuasive language. Ideal for Functional Skills English speaking, listening and communication practice.

Level
Level 2
Level 1
Entry Level 3
English
Present information
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating

[img_assist|nid=4771|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=100|height=69]Another great set of three comprehension resources from Australia. Each with a related, differentiated crossword puzzle. All based on the same Australian news article about the danger of swooping magpies.
The Satellite (Australia) September 13 2010
http://www.thesatellite.com.au/story/2010/09/13/steer-clear-of-swooping…

Level
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 3
Level 1
Level 2
English
Functional English reading
AL Recognise and understand a range of words
Context
Leisure, Hobbies, Travel & Tourism
Animals, animal care, farming & equine

L1 literacy / ESOL practice on a slightly humorous BBC News article. It covers the main areas my learners have issues with: spelling, true or false and synonyms. With answer sheet.

Level
Level 1
English
AL Ww/L1.1 Spell & use spelling strategies
Adult literacy: reading comprehension (Rt)
AL Recognise and understand a range of words
ESOL
General ESOL
Context
Motor vehicles & Transport

Pass Percy’s three point test and then complete his informative and persuasive writing tasks!

Level
Level 2
Level 1
English
Adult Literacy: writing composition (Wt)
Context
Employment skills & Public services
Business & Money management

An outstanding resource for E1 emerging readers. Based on a humorous story, this set of multi-sensory phonics activities includes a 2 page story; detailed tutor notes; various sets of word cards for spelling, reading, rhyming, listening/speaking and alphabetical order activities; and a crossword.

Level
Entry Level 1
English
AL Rw/E1.2 Decode simple, regular words
AL Apply strategies to spell correctly
Follow and understand
Fiction

E1-E2 ESOL gap fill exercise that focuses on personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, they) and possessive adjectives (my, your, his, her, its, our, their). Lovely real life style story with a touch of humour.

Level
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 1
ESOL
ESOL Rs/E2.1b Use knowledge of simple and compound sentence structure to work out meaning
ESOL Reading: sentence focus - grammar, punctuation (Rs)
Context
Retail Hospitality Customer service

This is a fun, short warm up activity to energise learners at the start of the lesson. It asks students to make a decision on a question and either stand up or sit down depending on their views.

I use it with my Foundation learners, as I teach them maths at 9am in the morning and sometimes they need a short activity to engage them!

Two different versions are included. Some of the questions are not for the faint-hearted but all can be easily edited to suit your own learners.

Level
Level 1
Entry Level 3
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 1
General
Study Skills and General Teaching

One handout with the main rules of using speech marks and one worksheet for learners to practise applying these rules.

I used these with a strong L1 literacy group who had little prior knowledge of the rules for speech marks. They generally did well with re-writing some unpunctuated sentences I gave them but got a bit confused with the attached exercise on Prince William and Kate Middleton (they used speech marks inside the speech bubbles). This may need to be demonstrated in front of the group first. However, it did produce some very funny writing.

Level
Level 2
Level 1
English
AL Ws/L2.4 Use apostrophes & inverted commas
Ws/L1.3
Context
News, Politics & Government items