Contextual Resources

A quick but very useful match-up activity that makes a good starter activity for financial literacy or employment skills courses - and it's bound to prompt discussion.

Editor's note

Written for an Australian audience but I have added a UK version on page 2.  Learners can draw lines to match the items or, for a reusable resource, the page could be laminated and/or cut into 12 cards. 

I put this together when I found so many of my learners trying to hone their employability skills did not know what a lot of the words on job descriptions meant. 

Resource 1 (Definition matching cards: job skills and attributes): I laminated these and cut them up and they worked in pairs or threes to match them up.

There are two other linked resources, as below, to help students with getting to grips with the keywords used in Job Descriptions and Person Specifications. 

A huge and extremely comprehensive pack of resources. Written for ESOL learners but many parts are also suitable for Functional English and/or Job Skills groups. Includes:

A couple of resources for planning a CV.

Firstly, I would check learners understand the term ‘Employability’ and, using the letters in the the word, ask learners to come up with ideas for the personal skills and qualities needed to get a job. For example – E – enthusiastic, energetic, M – motivated, multi-talented …etc. I would then move on to the PPT.

Three sets of dominoes to use in warm-up and for letter and word recognition activities. The first set, for pre-Entry ESOL and Literacy learners with very low levels of letter and word recognition, matches lower case to capital letter versions, the second set is a set of “doubles”, which can be used alongside the first. The third set, for pre-Entry / Entry 1 ESOL learners, matches a category to an example. Each set has 17 dominoes, so 4 each for a group of 4 learners, plus one to start.

Photos and pictures to match with accounts of real emergency situations. All in the present tense. All the accounts are true. Accounts can be cut in to strips and given to pairs of learners who can put them in to a sequence to tell a story. Leads to discussion on how we tell a story, and how we sequence sentences to make sense.
Lots of new, real life vocabulary to provoke discussion.
Some stories shorter and simpler than others to allow for differentiation in group.

A powerpoint to spark discussion and introduce the topic of formal and informal language and choosing which is appropriate for different social and work situations. Aimed at E3-L1 Functional English learners.

The PPT can be used with the word match up game, which gets learners thinking about the difference between formal and informal language. Laminate the page and cut up into individual word cards.

This wonderful pack of differentiated resources is ideal for mixed ability classes from Entry 1 through to Level 2. It takes the learner through:

• the layout of formal and informal letters
• formal and informal language
• typical vocabulary for formal letters
• sentences and paragraphs
• writing a range of letters
• revision and/or assessment exercises

Includes writing prompts, task sheets, matching /sorting cards, and a many cut and stick exercises.

Fully mapped to the Functional English writing criteria.

Aa cut and stick or matching activity first used with New Deal students (laminate for re-use). Makes a good start up activity or prompt for discussion and form filling practice.

Match the words used on forms to their meanings (laminate to make a great re-usable game) and then practise your skills on the example forms.