Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

The need for deliberate teaching of phonemic awareness, and a means of doing this.
A research paper followed by a useful step by step method.

A set of resources created for a group 16-19 year olds with high functioning ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) but suitable for any E2-E3 literacy /Functional English student.

Involves discussion of year’s highlights, and a written reflection and prediction exercise. Finally, the students record their hopes and wishes which are then kept in sealed envelopes until l the end of the academic year (or other agreed date).

Aimed at getting motor vehicle students talking in readiness for Functional Skills English (speaking, listening and communication) exams.
Lots of prompts for discussing the pros and cons of driving modified cars. Fully mapped to E3 Functional English.

This is a worksheet that can be used for discussion and /or writing. The learners can discuss the advice they would give and then practice writing it down in full sentences using correct selling and punctuation. It also helps them to start thinking about being tactful!
Ideal for, and fully mapped to, Functional English writing and discussion.

I first used this was used as practice for the written and spoken part of Functional Skills exams.

Learners need to begin by discussing TV shows and hopefully someone will mention Big Brother. Then they have to write about 150 words about what sort of housemate they would be in the house.

Next they have to read through the 20 housemate descriptions and choose 10 of them to join them. This needs to be a team decision.

Find out and record everyone’s favorites from a diverse list of foods. Use as an icebreaker in any Entry Level literacy, numeracy, Functional Skills or ESOL lesson.

Also ties in well with lessons on diversity, healthy eating, collecting data, making / taking simple surveys, tallies, counting, asking questions, etc.

Mapped to Functional Maths and SfL adult numeracy, Functional English (speaking, listening and communication) and SfL adult literacy.

Listening activities are few and far between but this fabulous set is ideal for, and fully mapped, to Entry 1 and 2 Functional English learners.
Based on four everyday listening events

• An announcement in a station
• A notice in a waiting room
• A news report
• A telephone conversation

Each provides practice listening for gist and detail in short explanations. The ‘waiting room’ PDF also provides practice with listening to instructions.

Each document includes.

This is an adapted and expanded version of Jodie Travis’ ‘Hired or Fired’ resource which is of course based on the popular TV show “The apprentice”. I used Jodie’s resource last year with a really big group, getting them to create a poster to ‘sell’ Manchester. I added some more ‘Apprenticey’ bits in, such as getting them to pitch their ideas at the front of the class after they’d made the posters, and it worked really well.

Set of challenging L2 discussion, writing (and even movie production!) tasks. Particularly suitable for older learners who remember the Tomorrow’s World TV show and/or technology lovers. A link to the BBC video archive is included. Writing tasks include informal and formal letters and a persuasive essay.