Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

A varied set of tasks based on two popular Quick Read titles: Chickenfeed by Minette Walters
and Murder in Catcher’s Wood by Paul Horsman (in the Sun Book of Short Stories). Includes comprehension questions, paragraphing, punctuation and writing ideas. Wonderful for encouraging the reading of fiction.
More Quick Read resources at:
http://www.readingagency.org.uk/adults/quickreads/

A series of comprehension / research / dictionary tasks based on 3 separate short texts about Remembrance Day, the Menin Gate, and the Holocaust. The final task gives a choice of creative writing ideas.
Written for employment students in order to develop research, communciation and teamwork skills (but suitable for all L2 learners).

Originally used pre-2010-election in a mixed ability (E1-L2) group but also makes an excellent Functional English resource at any time.
Detailed 2.5 hour lesson plan includes discussion, mini-presentations, web research and paired writing. Includes internet research guidance sheets, scaffolded gap-fill sheet to help with the web research task and a sample MP information sheet. Ideal for (and fully mapped to) E3-L2 Functional English.

A super, and very topical (Spring 2010), practice Level 2 Literacy test based on a student union magazine article about education cuts.
12 multiple choice questions cover spelling, comprehension, grammar, tone, punctuation, etc. These are followed by 5 non-multiple choice questions which include a writing task, persuasive writing techniques, and summarising.
Please also download the related PowerPoint (see below).
Contributed by Rachel Emmett and Rose Veitch

A series of tasks designed as both an embedded literacy / Functional English assignment and also as a model to assist Art and Design students who had to make a portfolio describing various types of fabric.
It would be of interest to other learners who enjoy fashion subjects, leading to an extended project on silk in the fashion industry. Includes reading, watching a video, discussion, research and writing.

Looking at Newspapers is a wonderful example of creative differentiated teaching across all levels (E1-L2). A detailed lesson description, resources and introductory PPT are included. The lesson uses Kipling’s “What and Why and When, And How and Where and Who” to help students analyse newspaper reports and interview other students, or their teacher, to create their own reports.

Two start of term quiz or diagnostic exercises (or use simply to get learners into the swing of things!) cover reading comprehension, sentence structure and punctuation, writing and spelling.
One for E2-E3, one for L1-L2.

09-10 Football Season is a wonderful way to engage mixed ability groups of footie fans!
Covers formulating an argument, discussion, recognising points of view – facts & opinions, writing sentences & paragraphs.
Maths aspects include extracting information from tables, averages, ratios, and addition & subtraction.

Investigate the possibility of a college stocking fairly traded products in its canteen. Covers many reading, writing, ICT, numeracy, speaking and listening skills inc. data handling, report writing, creating charts and questionnaires, giving a presentation, etc. Ideal for embedding all three functional skills (or literacy, numeracy and ICT) especially for business students.

A topical PPT with a good mix of activities covering vocabulary (the planets) , a word search (space related TV programmes) and comprehension questions based on a video of the moon landing and a related text.