Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

For students struggling to learn the alphabet. It is an Alphabet Arc with further practice pages that have an increasing number of blanks to fill in. It is designed to be given out as one page at a time, to help in memorising it. I encourage my students to write out the alphabet on their exam paper, to avoid them making avoidable errors in the alphabetical order questions. 

Editor's note

A Beginners / Entry 1 level set of activities to introduce and practise using adjectives within the theme of travel.

Practise vocabulary, antonyms, spelling, sentence structure and handwriting.

Editor's note

Although written for ESOL most parts of this resource are also very suitable for E1-2 Functional English. In addition to the many tasks it also provides a short overview of adjectives  and basic sentence structure . Great for the build up to summer holidays - or indeed any time of year!

These three simple resources are aimed for teaching the layout features and conventions of informal and formal letter writing.  There are three templates: 

A set of five texts about screen time, physical and sedentary activity, and sleep for Children under age 5. The texts can be used in various combinations for Functional Skills (FS) speaking, listening and communicating; reading and writing activities. Teachers can pick and choose their own texts and create related DARTs (directed activities related to text) and questions to suit. There will also be pre-prepared resources on skillsworkshop. See "See also" for links.

Functional Skills Level 2 Reading Task on Convid-19. 

Two texts based on the current Corona virus crisis.

• Text 1 - opinionated, news article from a professor
• Text 2 - factual guide from Gov.Uk 

Editor's note

A set of Functional English tasks that underpin the revised Functional Skills English content, 2018 [1].  Resources will be released gradually (as they are written!) from Oct 21st until Nov 11th 2018. All tasks are based on one or more texts from a graduated set of seven, all focusing on the 2018 Armistice Centenary commemorations. Five sets of tasks, based on Texts A, B, C, D and E are now available.

A simplified adjectives resource that I created to use with E1/E2 learners to introduce them to writing a description of something. Students should be encouraged to provide one describing word each that can be displayed on the whiteboard before discussing the term adjective.

This resource covers what an adjective is with underlining and cloze writing exercises to build knowledge before students attempt to write a description of two pictures. The descriptions of the pictures can be basic but students should be encouraged to use full sentences.

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.

Simplified texts and DARTS activities with follow up writing tasks at E1 and E2.
Based on material from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website http://hmd.org.uk/
Prior to completing the reading and writing tasks the class listened to a podcast of a survivor talking about their experiences.The material from both the listening activity (http://hmd.org.uk/resources/podcasts/i-was-there)

Set of four graduated activities for preEntry up to Entry Level 2 ideal for mixed ability literacy and ESOL groups. Colour word cards provided.
Match identical pictures (Milestones 6-7)
Match or write colour words to pictures (Milestone 8 – Entry 1)
Simple cloze activity (E1-E2)