Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

This is an activity that’s evolved over time and I’ve used it with learners ranging from E3 to L2. It’s always fun and can get the group talking and sharing thoughts. It’s a good way to reinforce the importance of choosing the correct tone for a letter.

It also has the advantage that it needs little preparation and no resources (except pen, paper and students!).

A comprehension exercise in response to the earthquake and consequent tsunami in Japan. To be used along with research tasks or discussion.

Introduce the lesson with a discussion about the events surrounding the earthquake and some BBC footage.

The students need to be given the information without the questions to encourage them to read fully – this is not a scanning exercise. Then, when they have finished reading they can answer the questions, either in short on the sheet or in full on separate paper – differentiate accordingly.

One handout with the main rules of using speech marks and one worksheet for learners to practise applying these rules.

I used these with a strong L1 literacy group who had little prior knowledge of the rules for speech marks. They generally did well with re-writing some unpunctuated sentences I gave them but got a bit confused with the attached exercise on Prince William and Kate Middleton (they used speech marks inside the speech bubbles). This may need to be demonstrated in front of the group first. However, it did produce some very funny writing.

A Level 1/2 PPT quiz on commas. Some slides are based on persuasive-type texts so can also be used for purpose of text extension work, others are based on recent news items.

The game is multiple choice and based on colours. I use coloured hoops (as in hoola hoops) and bean bags. It can be team based or individual. Each player throws a beanbag into the hoop that corresponds with their chosen answer.

This activity introduce the concepts of paragraphing, the key features of a paragraph and then allows the learner to have a go at paragraphing a piece of text. The text is a challenging extract from Grand Designs magazine. Answer sheet included.

A student friendly resource. Uses the Functional Skills English Skills Standards / Coverage and Range information to keep track of students’ progress.

Three separate 3-page documents to track success in reading, writing, and speaking – listening – communication.

This task is aimed at E1-E2 learners but can be adapted to include other levels.
The resource is great to use with learners as a mobile phone is something of interest to them whilst they also complete lots of maths activities. It has numbers to 10 in digits and words, writing a cheque, extracting information, addition, different ways to make 10p, and prices.

A comprehension exercise based on an amusing newspaper article of the same name. Questions cover purpose of text, vocabulary, punctuation and summarising.

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.

A vocabulary building activity, involving dictionary use. Played in teams and based on the TV programme ‘Call My Bluff’. Teams compete to identify the true definition of a word when given a choice of three definitions, with one being true and two being false.

A great way to get learners to work together. I usually play this with level 1 and level 2 learners, either at the end of a session as an on going activity or as part of a session.