Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

I have had feedback from people using the Big Brother PDF discussion worksheet (see link below – under see also) but without any pictures! The fun part of the session (and for it to really work) is to show the students the people they have chosen: this generates plenty of discussion about prejudice and stereotyping. So, here are the 20 pictures to match to each description given in the earlier resource. (You should feel free to edit and adapt according to the demographics / prejudices / preconceptions of own students).

This resource has a range of activities to help students learn useful expressions/ language to make a complaint.
It is useful in building confidence in making complaints in person and on the telephone.

Editor’s note
Includes sample dialogue with questions (can also be used as a reading comprehension), matching cards, sammple scenarios, curriculum mapping and teaching notes.

Video task and reading comprehension based on the style of Entry ESOL reading exams. Taken from BBC Newsround website.

Editor’s note
Questions suitable for mixed ability classes from E2-L1 and make good discussion prompts for further work.

This is a selection of literacy tasks, based on the Poppy Appeal 2016 and John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields’, covering aspects of speaking and listening, reading and writing.

Editor’s note: covers all aspects of L1-2 Functional English – also suitable for GCSE.

A huge and extremely comprehensive pack of resources. Written for ESOL learners but many parts are also suitable for Functional English and/or Job Skills groups. Includes:

These lesson activities are based on scenes from David Lean’s 1984 film, A Passage to India. Topics relating to culture, integration, separation, race, ethnicity, identity and humanity can easily be raised and discussed via the materials and the film scenes. There are many ways of using this original material and the suggestions are just activities that have worked with L2 and [even] L1 students.

I have created this lesson to try and cover the main criteria laid out by C&G for the Speaking and Listening English Functional Skills, Level 2 internally set assessment (activity 2 – presentation).

I trialled it with my learners as a ‘practise’ presentation before their final assessment. In the future I hope to use it as an official internal assessment, once I have received official feedback from the awarding body external verifier, learners, other tutors, etc.

Reading, writing and discussion tasks based on an email about a charity event. Discuss the email with a friend, design a poster, complete compound sentences, and answer a wide range of reading questions. Its wide appeal makes it ideal for mixed ability Entry groups.
With detailed E1-E2 Functional English curriculum mapping.

Set of listening actvities ideal for, and fully mapped to, Entry 1 and 2 Functional English learners.
Based on two everyday listening events

• A radio advertisement for a local estate agent
• An airport tannoy announcement
  Each provides practice listening for gist and detail in short explanations & instructions.

Each activity includes.

This is a literacy resource based around a recent news story. There are a range of tasks relating to an anti-litter app called ‘littergram’ and legal challenges made to the use of its name, with the potential to extend tasks into other aspects of littering and how the litter problem might be resolved. A final extension task asks students to take their own photographs of local examples of litter as supporting evidence for a writing activity.