Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

NEW 8/2/22  answer sheet now also  available - visit our ANSWER SHEETS page for more information.
New 27/1/2022  A related interactive Wordwall activity (organisational and textual features) is now available to accompany this resource. 

A hastily put-together New Year resource based on a short Guardian article about the record breaking temperatures experienced in the UK on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Functional Skills English slides on comparing texts - part of my Skills Building Series.

This resource explores the fundamental skills to support learners in achieving success with the comparison question in the Edexcel Functional Skills English Level 1 and 2 Exam papers. It provides learners with opportunities to practice their comparison skills using images, videos (audio with lyrics) and short texts. 

Editor's notes

 A resource covering:

Speaking & Listening: Class discussions. 

Reading: Read to obtain detailed information. Organisational features. Punctuation. Writers choice of words.

Writing. Write a structurally objective report with correct punctuation and ambitious vocabulary.

Editor's notes

An interesting and challenging resource for Levels 1 and 2. Love the way the writing task encourages the use of specialist/technical/advanced vocabulary.
No answer sheet.

The Legend of the Loch Ness Monster.

Speaking & Listening: Discussion - Real or Myth? 

Reading: Purpose of text. Organisational Features. Punctuation. Synonyms activity. Comprehension. Effect of word choices.

Writing:  Write questions for an interview. Create a leaflet for a tourist board. Write a letter of complaint. 

Editor's notes

Bound to prompt a lot of interest and discussion! No answer sheet.

Slides (with short texts. images and videos) that explore the connection between stress and social media, social media addiction and the life we portray via social media.  This resource combines reading, writing and speaking and listening tasks to expand key vocabulary and encourage deeper critical thinking.  Maths skills are embedded through the reading and interpretation of line graphs.

Editor's note

I wanted to introduce the concept of basic parts of speech (nouns and verbs) to my E1 class, even though the terms as such are above E1, to help them get their heads around sentence building.  I put this resource together to focus on nouns and proper nouns which I’ve used as the basis for a couple of sessions on sentence structure and punctuation (capitalisation).

Editor's note

This is targeted towards learners preparing for the Entry 2 Functional Skills Writing exam.  It uses the Entry 1 Cat Care text created by Emma Gentili (go to "See also"), and can be used in mixed ability classes together with the E1 resource. 

Editor's note

Love it when skillsworkshop users recycle resources! A great adaptation of the original E1 version :) 

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.  

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

A mixed set of L1-2 reading questions based on an interesting, quite technical article from the European Space Agency site. Some questions are straightforward Level 1 comprehension and vocabulary; others are more challenging and cover tone, style, language and organisational features. There is also a writing question where learners have to stick to a word count and rewrite information from the text in their own words. Might also be useful for low level GCSE. 

With FS curriculum mapping. No answer sheet.