Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

Use alone or as a consolidation resource for learners after attempting  E2 Homophone Cloze Exercises’ and/or  E3 Homophone Cloze Exercises – Set 1’ . Covers 7 sets of homophones from the E2 and E3 spelling lists. There are also some follow-up exercises.

Short sets of words for alphabetic sorting.   These can be used with literacy or ESOL learners.  I found they worked well at the beginning of each session while learners were still arriving into the class.  They work well as individual or pairs exercises.

The first set works best when each list is cut up and laminated as individual words in each group, so learners can sort them kinaesthetically.  

Three sets of dominoes to use in warm-up and for letter and word recognition activities. The first set, for pre-Entry ESOL and Literacy learners with very low levels of letter and word recognition, matches lower case to capital letter versions, the second set is a set of “doubles”, which can be used alongside the first. The third set, for pre-Entry / Entry 1 ESOL learners, matches a category to an example. Each set has 17 dominoes, so 4 each for a group of 4 learners, plus one to start.

Root word family cards are two sets of flash cards that can be used to visualise the concept of root words to entry level and L1 students.

The entry level cards contain a number of root words and their word families, with a picture representation of each word. The level one sheet contains a higher level of vocabulary and the pictures have been removed.

Lesson Ideas

This is a set of ‘shun’ suffix word cards to accompany the “Which suffix -cian -ssion, sion or tion?” resource (see below).

Print the sheets onto card or have them laminated, then cut up the individual root word cards for learners to sort under the correct headings.

Visual colour-coded resource, explaining the main plural spelling rules. Created for E2/E3 learners, but could also be useful for all visual learners working between E2-L2.

Includes: colour-coded fact sheet, blank table, worksheet and flash cards to cut out and laminate. Could be used for a number of different activities.

A 12 piece follow me game where homophones must be matched to the correct sentence. A good mix of common and more unusual homophones such as preys/praise/prays and there/their/they’re. First used in a Motor Vehicles Functional English group but suitable for any L1-2 English / literacy group.

Guaranteed to create promote discussion as learners play the game (best laminated). As usual with Tarsia puzzles, you can choose to print a standard or large puzzle (select Output – large, i.e. 3 pieces per A4 sheet).

From one of our Australian contributors, this makes a good end of term quiz and discussion prompt re. similarities to cockney rhyming slang, informal language, etc.

Set of integrated form filling resources used in an E1-2 ESOL class but also suitable for E3 Literacy and E2 Functional English. Includes key words and pictures, synonyms matching activity and two short reading / form filling tasks.

A recently designed resource that I wanted to share with my fellow skillsworkshop users. I wanted something to use with my learners as a spelling lesson. I have tried to involve various activities to help motivate and keep interest whilst learning spellings.

Resource includes a cloze exercise, comprehension questions, homophones and plurals, and a final crossword to check skills.