Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

An outstanding set of resources. Developed to prompt discussion on knife crime with parents and children in a family learning setting, they are equally suitable in an FE setting – prompting discussion between students and tutors. The materials can be used to focus on knife crime but are also useful as part of wider discussion about criminal behaviour.

The resources include

Level 1 reading comprehension, spelling and vocabulary tasks based on an Australian local news article about a successful youth art project in Deception Bay. The tasks can be concluded nicely with a related crossword puzzle – ideal for individual work or for group work if displayed on an IWB.

Written for E3-L1 ESOL students but equally suitable for literacy students. Match the two parts together to complete the phrase.

Ideal for E1-E2 ESOL (and even as quick revision for Entry Level 3). Also suitable for E1 Literacy reading.

A flexible set of exercises based on common classroom items such as pens, pencils. folders, hole punch, etc. Can be used in a variety of ways – with or without learner support. Includes worksheets and flash / matching cards. Detailed preEntry mapping information. First used at the start of the academic year with a new preEntry class.

Challenging multiple choice quiz of vocabulary “borrowed” from other languages such as French, Greek and Italian. Words and phrases include: fait accompli, deja vu, ad hoc, bric-a-brac and many more. Makes a good warm up and could be used with small groups or individually.

Set of interactive and paper based activities based on buying and describing clothes. The on-screen activities (match words and pictures, drag and drop sentences, cloze activitiy, crossword) make a good group activity on an interactive whiteboard and can be extended and consolidated using the dialogue prompts, vocabulary cards and other activities in the PDF document.

An outstanding resource for E1 emerging readers. Based on a humorous story, this set of multi-sensory phonics activities includes a 2 page story; detailed tutor notes; various sets of word cards for spelling, reading, rhyming, listening/speaking and alphabetical order activities; and a crossword.

Two Tarsia puzzles based around formal and informal language. Guaranteed to prompt discussion as learners solve the puzzles. I suggest that the smaller one (16 piece triangle) is roughly at L1 and the larger on (24 piece hexagon) is at L2. I have duplicated some of my word choices from Imogen Stewart’s excellent ‘Little Britain’ (Language: formal, informal or slang?) resource which was also about formal and informal language (see link below). ‘Cheers’ has ‘regards’ as its synonym because of email sign offs – which I have found to be an interesting topic for discussion.

A flexible and appealing set of exercises that can be used in a variety of ways – with or without learner support. Two worksheets for reading and spelling common items of food and drink, plus word cards. preEntry mapping information. First used as a preEntry revision exercise.