Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

Write or match the correct word under each picture.
Milk, bread, oil, tea, eggs, potatoes, bananas, and biscuits.

A recap game to practise applying knowledge of when to use capital letters. Learners supply names, dates, places and objects to create a mis-matched story.

It could also be used as an icebreaker.

A fun starter or plenary activity for the Christmas season to revise spelling of cardinal numbers. The worksheet contains a version of the traditional Christmas lyrics with all the cardinal numbers replaced by gaps for students to complete, thus gaining practice in spelling the numbers 1 to 12, as required by Cambridge Progression Entry Level 1 Sentence Unit. Students are then prompted to write the remaining numbers up to 20, as required by Cambridge Progression Entry Level 2 Sentence Unit.

Mingle activity to use straight after the Christmas holidays to review past simple.
Learners ask each other questions to try to find one name of another learner to fill in each square. First to finish shouts “bingo!”
Review as a group and check questions using past simple.
Give a prize to the winner.

Cards which can be used as a plenary or warm up to match definitions and features to types of text.
Editor’s note
With Functional English mapping

This is a resource for mixed ability groups. It can act as an ice breaker and will help students ot think about word choice and context. It is useful in writing sessions.

This can be played by 4 or more players. If you have more than 8, you may want to print out the “things” cards twice.

This is a great session starter. Students will work on their sentence construction and vocabulary with a card game that allows them to experiment with word order and effective word choice. Students have to put the words into a sensible order, even if the subject of their film is far from sensible.

In this game, students compete to make the scariest film title, or to sabotage other people’s film titles. It is a light hearted and fun game. The film titles created can also become writing prompts.

A classic anonymous poem that has the correct spelling but the wrong words.

Read the poem aloud to your students before they have sight of it. Then give them page 1 of the work sheet.

A mingling exercise to get students talking to one another. Great as an induction activity for new classes or for ESOL learners to practise speaking and listening.

Page 1: 8 maths questions relating to olympic torch
Page 2: Picture quiz: who is carrying the torch?
Page 3: Picture quiz: famous UK landmarks.
Page 4: UK cities – anagrams
Page 5: Answers

• Quizzes on pages 2 and 3 make good ice breakers and can also be used for SL&C discussion prompts.