Contextual Resources

Business bank balance game is a great adaptation of Jane March’s popular Bank Balance game (see below).

This version is designed specially for Level 2 learners who need practice working with large negative numbers.

Working in a charity shop is a practical set of tasks covering place value (writing cheques; counting up in 5s, 10s, 20s; adding up money) comes complete with paper money, paying-in slips and blank cheques.

Looking at Newspapers is a wonderful example of creative differentiated teaching across all levels (E1-L2). A detailed lesson description, resources and introductory PPT are included. The lesson uses Kipling’s “What and Why and When, And How and Where and Who” to help students analyse newspaper reports and interview other students, or their teacher, to create their own reports.

Internet Searching is a gentle introduction for those new to the internet (suitable for all levels from E2 upwards) based on the BBC home page.

A fabulous way to teach the importance of style, suitable vocabulary and formal letter writing. Students must read, discuss and edit an over-the-top business letter.

Supercars (including the President’s Cadillac, and an Aston Martin with an ejector seat) consists of two detailed, differentiated E1-E2 2.5 hr lesson plans complete with resources.
Includes reading and writing sentences (matching cars to scenarios), alphabet, spelling/phonics, discussion and much more.

Covers ordering by first and second place letters. Ideal for catering students or anyone with an interest in food. Great for displaying on an interactive whiteboard.
Wordle is a brilliant on-line, completely free word cloud creator.
See our blog articles for more Wordle teaching and learning ideas:
http://skillsworkshop.blogspot.com/2008/07/using-wordle-in-classroom.ht…

09-10 Football Season is a wonderful way to engage mixed ability groups of footie fans!
Covers formulating an argument, discussion, recognising points of view – facts & opinions, writing sentences & paragraphs.
Maths aspects include extracting information from tables, averages, ratios, and addition & subtraction.

Using bookmarks is a handy one page help sheet – instructions for Internet Explorer and Firefox, plus ideas for practice.

A challenging project where students must research, plan and cost a luxury garden. Includes scale diagrams, money, and shape and space problems (paving slabs). Extension options cover percentages and averages. Great for horticulture students or anyone with an interest in gardening.
Also ideal for L1-2 Functional Maths.
The project also involves web investigation (costs of garden materials) and writing a covering letter (selling the finished garden design) and therefore also covers Functional ICT and Functional English.