Contextual Resources

An activity to introduce the past simple form by reading about Christmas. Read about Christmas in the present and past tense then identify regular and irregular and past simple verbs. Introduces students to past tense and also familiarises them with British Christmas traditions.

Editor's note

Wonderful! I love the simplicity yet usefulness of this resource.

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.

A huge set of resources for E1-E2 reading, writing and SLC.

Can be used as revision, the core of two or more lessons (the writing tasks would make a good lesson on their own - there are four tasks, two for each level) or for assessment. Optional marks and detailed mapping is provided and many, but not all, questions are exam-style. 

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. 

Entry 3 activity to reinforce the importance of good attendance and punctuality in college. First activity asks students to choose and circle the correct word and further activities practise spelling, grammar, vocabulary and punctuation at Entry 3 level. 

Editor's notes

A brilliant idea and excellent practice for ESOL students - especially at the start of the academic year. 

A reflective iceberg (integrated, collaborative, engaging, balanced, economical, reflective and gradual) structure sheet for learners to complete. Six sections, each with prompts/exemplification: remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating and creating.

This scaffold has been designed to be used either as as a diary for use in class and / or as a way for students to record and reflect on their literacy/language experiences outside of the classroom.

Emojis are used to try to encourage them to consider and record their feelings.

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.

I made this resource for my ESOL Functional  Skills Level 1&2 class. Learners have to find where articles are missing and type them in (a/an/the). Uses three increasingly complex/lengthy texts: a charity letter, an OU magazine article and some recipe instructions.

Find the missing articles: 3 page worksheet (Google docs)  - best viewed in "print" mode.