Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

Update 24/2/22: written by Sharon Roberts and Alexandra Bates, both of Essex ACL. 
This is a fun activity which encourages ESOL learners to engage with digital technology and transacting online. It provides opportunity to explore vocabulary related to shopping while also discussing the advantages of shopping for food online. It can be adapted to all levels and can be extended for a longer activity if required.

Editor's note

Get your learners thinking outside the box with this unusual warm up quiz that works well at all levels

Also provides discussion prompts and makes a great introduction to spelling compound words.

An interactive presentation to explain the meaning of nouns, verbs and adjectives and an accompanying hands-on activity to sort words into nouns, verbs and adjectives. This is good to use early in a course as it is fun and gets learners working in groups,

A PPT to supplement work on this topic in the context of hairdressing.
Also includes a quick starter on punctuation.

Simulation of completing an online CV. Very easy to use, fill in the boxes and print after completion.

Simulations of email and online banking registration forms. Can be used in succession, as for the banking registration form you need an email address. When you press the “create account” button it will open the printing menu. Good luck!

A PPT about imperatives. Students identify imperatives and the language / layout of instructions, then have a go at writing their own.

Editor’s note
For sample instruction texts please to use with this PPT please see Carrie’s “Lasagne instructions” ,“Glass bead steriliser instructions” or “Pancake imperatives” below.

A powerpoint used as a starter with all ESOL maths groups to check the spelling of numbers. I created it for E1 / E2, but always use it as a check with E3 – L2 at the beginning of the year. They all enjoy it and never complain it should be for babies. It could be used for ESOL, Literacy or Numeracy classes.

A selection of smileys are shown on each slide. Clicking reveals the number (as a digit) and a further click reveals the number spelt out as a word. Would be good used with small individual whiteboards.

A set of Power Point slides to get Functional Skills students writing.
I use it towards the end of lessons to get them doing some free writing and to demonstrate whatever they have been working on in the lesson.
Ideas include: smoking, binge drinking, pets, tattoos, Christmas, mobile phones, changing laws, cars and more!

The resources have been designed to complement the alphabetical ordering component of the E2 and E3 adult literacy exams. There are are four printable worksheets suitable for levels E2-E3. Two worksheets have also been adapted as PPT slides which include audio files so that the jobs and instructions can be heard as well as read.