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.

Various activities to practise travel and transport themes and ideas. Read about a journey to college, answer comprehension questions and exam style questions,  form questions, use adverbs of frequency and conjunctions, along with speaking, listening  and writing practice - all on the subject of a journey to college. 

Editor's notes

Engaging and relevant! Written for E3 ESOL but the reading text and several of the exercises (for example: conjunctions) also provide useful and relevant practice for E2-L1 Functional Skills English. 

This is a resource designed for an EL3/L1 class who still find it hard to keep their sentences under control. Having spent a year approaching building sentences from components and with rules for structure (must make sense, must have one main topic, must have a subject and a verb etc) some learners still don't have a sense of where their sentences should begin and end. They are getting the idea of planning writing and paragraphing but this is still shaky, and we are just starting to use commas.

Why might we decide to go to university as a mature student? Slides for L1 and L2 English learners to find out more about their career choices (in this case, applying for a university level course) while building their Functional English skills.

Editor's note

Slides for L1 and L2 English learners to find out more about their career choices (in this case, a teaching assistant) while building their English skills.

Editor's note

Reading comprehension and writing tasks designed to prepare adults who are returning to education and taking Functional English at Level 1 or Level 2.

Level 1 reading comprehension is based on two texts about returning to education. This is followed by two writing tasks. Level 2 includes all the L1 texts and questions plus an additional lengthy text and questions that involve summarising, and comparing and contrasting two or more texts.

Editor's note

A resource based on a current (Jan 2016) Huffington Post news report about a piece of homework that was sent home for a child to learn which contained incorrect spellings.
Learners are to identify and correct the errors, write a full explanation of their thoughts on the matter and write an appropriate email to the head teacher.

Editor’s note
A wonderful, real-life and very functional task!

Editor’s note (11/3/2015)
Now includes an E2-3 version.

Topical L1-2 Functional English reading and writing tasks based on publicity about the latest, terrible round of adult education cuts.

Two cleverly differentiated resources. One for L1-2, the other for E2-E3. Both consist of a reading comprehension and two writing tasks.

A super, and very topical (Spring 2010), practice Level 2 Literacy test based on a student union magazine article about education cuts.
12 multiple choice questions cover spelling, comprehension, grammar, tone, punctuation, etc. These are followed by 5 non-multiple choice questions which include a writing task, persuasive writing techniques, and summarising.
Please also download the related PowerPoint (see below).
Contributed by Rachel Emmett and Rose Veitch

A fabulous set of scaffolded reading/writing tasks – written for E2-E3 ESOL but absolutely ideal for Entry 2-3 (and higher) Functional English. The reading is based on three different topical texts on this emotive subject (spring 2010).
The writing involves writing a letter to your MP – a frame is provided for E2 writers. Get your college/students involved in this now!
With full details of relevant Functional English criteria.
Please also download the related PowerPoint (see below).