Contextual Resources

A set of tasks to practise reading and writing skills. Read about a student and his work and college life.

• Practise using conjunctions.
• Learn synonyms
• Practise using punctuation correctly.
• Write about your own experience of studying and working

Editor's notes

So practical and down to earth! Find out about Joseph's day to day college life and his busy job with Deliveroo. Also very useful for E2-E3 Functional Skills English students.

Slides designed to support delivery of Gateway's EDSQ (Essential Digital Skills Qualification), unit 1, at Entry Level and Level 1, with embedded Functional Skills English activities at L1 and L2. This set of slides covers section 1 of the standards (Using Devices and Handling Information) and includes: using devices, finding & evaluating information, managing and storing information, and identifying and solving technical problems

Editor's notes

Reading, writing and discussion activities based on one of  the Edexcel exam contexts ('Learning to Drive').  PowerPoint includes chunked texts, key vocabulary tables, a video resource, and discussion and writing prompts. Resource lends itself well for additional reading comprehension prompts and explorative discussions. 

Editor's note

The reading focus is purpose, tone and organisational / formatting features. The final task is to write an online forum entry. 

I wrote this resource to explore the Reformed Entry Level 2 reading and writing content, and the format of the new assessments from various awarding organisations (AO). 

A Bonfire Night themed resource covering some aspects of literacy and numeracy.
The resource contains a basic reading comprehension about the History of Bonfire Night. This is followed by a numeracy activity where students have to buy fireworks for a display with a budget of £300. The final activity is a writing task and learners have to create a poster advertising the event.

I created this for an ILS (independent life skills) class but it could be used with Entry Functional Skills learners too.

A set of cards including birthday, get well, good luck and new baby aimed at E1/ E2 learners. Print them off and fold in half as practise for writing short messages. It may help to elicit suitable phrases from students and discuss suitable layout for their text inside the card.

I also recommend bringing in some sample envelopes to help learners recognise how to lay out a name and address.

Ideal for Entry Functional English writing.

This is a lower-level version of ‘My Busy Day’ Housework by Laurence Fletcher (see below) for a basic literacy for ESOL class. Also suitable for M8-E1 literacy.
Reading comprehension, simplified cloze and sentence exercises.

Two practice Christmas cards to help E1-E2 learners with writing their cards. Print off and fold in half.

I also recommend bringing in some sample envelopes to help learners recognise how to lay out a name and address.

Lovely workbook for E1 ESOL, Literacy or Functional English. Use a prompt for discussion about the importance of keeping in touch, letting people know where you are, and asking for help. With plenty of opportunities for students to write their own texts.

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).