Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating

‘Speaking, listening and communicating’ within Functional Skills English qualifications is non-written communication, normally conducted face-to-face, and can also include ‘virtual’ communication methods such as telephone or spoken web-based technologies. The terms ‘speaking, listening and communicating’ are intended to be interpreted in a broad, inclusive way and are not intended to create any unnecessary barriers to students with speech or hearing impairment.
 

Aimed at getting motor vehicle students talking in readiness for Functional Skills English (speaking, listening and communication) exams.
Lots of prompts for discussing the pros and cons of driving modified cars. Fully mapped to E3 Functional English.

Level
Entry Level 3
English
SLd/E3.3
SLd/E3.2
SLd/E3.1
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Context
Motor vehicles & Transport

This is a worksheet that can be used for discussion and /or writing. The learners can discuss the advice they would give and then practice writing it down in full sentences using correct selling and punctuation. It also helps them to start thinking about being tactful!
Ideal for, and fully mapped to, Functional English writing and discussion.

Level
Level 1
Entry Level 3
English
Functional English - writing
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Adult Literacy: Speaking & Listening
Context
Hairdressing & Beauty therapy

I first used this was used as practice for the written and spoken part of Functional Skills exams.

Learners need to begin by discussing TV shows and hopefully someone will mention Big Brother. Then they have to write about 150 words about what sort of housemate they would be in the house.

Next they have to read through the 20 housemate descriptions and choose 10 of them to join them. This needs to be a team decision.

Level
Level 2
Level 1
English
Adult Literacy: Engage in Discussion
Functional English - writing
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Context
Art Film Media Music Radio TV

Find out and record everyone’s favorites from a diverse list of foods. Use as an icebreaker in any Entry Level literacy, numeracy, Functional Skills or ESOL lesson.

Also ties in well with lessons on diversity, healthy eating, collecting data, making / taking simple surveys, tallies, counting, asking questions, etc.

Mapped to Functional Maths and SfL adult numeracy, Functional English (speaking, listening and communication) and SfL adult literacy.

Level
Entry Level 1
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 3
English
SLlr/L1.6
SLc/E2.3
SLc/E2.2
AL SLc/E1.3
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Maths
HD1/E3.3
HD1/E2.4
HD1/E1.1
Functional Maths - numbers and the number system
Functional Maths - handling information and data
Context
Catering Food Nutrition

A fabulous City and Guilds style E3 literacy assignment that covers all aspects of E3 speaking and listening, reading and writing (see editor’s note below). Based on a trip to a seaside music festival, it makes a very appealing summer-time revision activity for music fans of any age.

Level
Entry Level 3
English
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Functional English reading
Functional English - writing
Alphabetical order
Form filling
Context
Leisure, Hobbies, Travel & Tourism
Art Film Media Music Radio TV

A fabulous City and Guilds style E3 literacy assignment that covers all aspects of E3 speaking and listening, reading and writing (see Editor’s note below). Based on a real trip to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford it is written in a generic style and could be any local museum / art gallery.

Level
Entry Level 3
English
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Functional English reading
Functional English - writing
Alphabetical order
Form filling
Context
Leisure, Hobbies, Travel & Tourism
History, culture, museums, libraries

This is an adapted and expanded version of Jodie Travis’ ‘Hired or Fired’ resource which is of course based on the popular TV show “The apprentice”. I used Jodie’s resource last year with a really big group, getting them to create a poster to ‘sell’ Manchester. I added some more ‘Apprenticey’ bits in, such as getting them to pitch their ideas at the front of the class after they’d made the posters, and it worked really well.

Level
Level 1
Entry Level 3
Entry Level 2
English
Adult Literacy: Engage in Discussion
Functional English - writing
Adult Literacy: writing composition (Wt)
Present information
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Context
Employment skills & Public services
Art Film Media Music Radio TV

Fun, hands-on activity that provides practice in both reading and listening to / following instructions. You should end up with a paper hat!
Fully mapped to Entry 2 Functional English (reading; speaking, listening and communication) and the adult literacy curriculum. Page 1 is for reading practice (or for the tutor to read aloud to the students), page 2 can be chopped up and used as a re-ordering exercise.

Level
Entry Level 2
English
SLlr/E2.4
SLlr/E2.2
AL Rt/E2.1 Follow main points of short texts
Rs/E2.1
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Functional English reading

This is a resource I developed, prior to the May 2011 referendum, to use as part of ‘language for expressing opinions’ at E3 Level. It’s quite basic but can be developed in different ways for classes of different levels. It is based the Victor the Vote Counter video available on YouTube or www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

Level
Entry Level 3
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 1
English
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Listen for detail
Listen for gist
General
Generic resources for literacy, numeracy and beyond
Context
News, Politics & Government items

I created these hand-outs for my Entry 1 to Level 1 learners and used them to accompany Saul Pope’s E3-L2 Problem Page resource (see below for a link to Saul’s resource).

I found the resources very useful for both motivational purposes (all students enjoyed the discussion aspect) and also to inform future planning (all students found it difficult putting pen to paper when writing their response).

Level
Level 1
Entry Level 3
Entry Level 2
English
Adult Literacy: Engage in Discussion
Functional English - writing
Adult Literacy: writing composition (Wt)
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Context
Independent living
Health, Social care, Early years