Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

I first used this was used as practice for the written and spoken part of Functional Skills exams.

Learners need to begin by discussing TV shows and hopefully someone will mention Big Brother. Then they have to write about 150 words about what sort of housemate they would be in the house.

Next they have to read through the 20 housemate descriptions and choose 10 of them to join them. This needs to be a team decision.

Find out and record everyone’s favorites from a diverse list of foods. Use as an icebreaker in any Entry Level literacy, numeracy, Functional Skills or ESOL lesson.

Also ties in well with lessons on diversity, healthy eating, collecting data, making / taking simple surveys, tallies, counting, asking questions, etc.

Mapped to Functional Maths and SfL adult numeracy, Functional English (speaking, listening and communication) and SfL adult literacy.

A fabulous City and Guilds style E3 literacy assignment that covers all aspects of E3 speaking and listening, reading and writing (see editor’s note below). Based on a trip to a seaside music festival, it makes a very appealing summer-time revision activity for music fans of any age.

A fabulous City and Guilds style E3 literacy assignment that covers all aspects of E3 speaking and listening, reading and writing (see Editor’s note below). Based on a real trip to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford it is written in a generic style and could be any local museum / art gallery.

This is an adapted and expanded version of Jodie Travis’ ‘Hired or Fired’ resource which is of course based on the popular TV show “The apprentice”. I used Jodie’s resource last year with a really big group, getting them to create a poster to ‘sell’ Manchester. I added some more ‘Apprenticey’ bits in, such as getting them to pitch their ideas at the front of the class after they’d made the posters, and it worked really well.

A substantial set of resources for BTEC Sport students. Based on a Functional English lesson given on Sport Relief day (but suitable for any time of year as it is based on the Back Up charity for spinal cord injuries – not Sport Relief). Includes

Fun, hands-on activity that provides practice in both reading and listening to / following instructions. You should end up with a paper hat!
Fully mapped to Entry 2 Functional English (reading; speaking, listening and communication) and the adult literacy curriculum. Page 1 is for reading practice (or for the tutor to read aloud to the students), page 2 can be chopped up and used as a re-ordering exercise.

This is a resource I developed, prior to the May 2011 referendum, to use as part of ‘language for expressing opinions’ at E3 Level. It’s quite basic but can be developed in different ways for classes of different levels. It is based the Victor the Vote Counter video available on YouTube or www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

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.

An unusual and very useful exercise written for preparation for work students who were nervous of taking messages and writing down information. It also provides useful reading and comprehension practice for all Entry Level learners and will prompt discussion on the importance of asking the right questions and writing down messages.
Ideal for Entry Level work skills students and for underpinning Entry 2 Functional English. Fully mapped to E2 Functional English crieria and the Skills for Life curriculum.