Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

For students struggling to learn the alphabet. It is an Alphabet Arc with further practice pages that have an increasing number of blanks to fill in. It is designed to be given out as one page at a time, to help in memorising it. I encourage my students to write out the alphabet on their exam paper, to avoid them making avoidable errors in the alphabetical order questions. 

Editor's note

A Beginners / Entry 1 level set of activities to introduce and practise using adjectives within the theme of travel.

Practise vocabulary, antonyms, spelling, sentence structure and handwriting.

Editor's note

Although written for ESOL most parts of this resource are also very suitable for E1-2 Functional English. In addition to the many tasks it also provides a short overview of adjectives  and basic sentence structure . Great for the build up to summer holidays - or indeed any time of year!

Simplified news article about a bus crash in Australia. Reading activity with DARTs. Can be extended into a speaking and listening and writing activity.

Editor's notes

A very sad story.  Ideal for E2-E3 reading and discussion (and equivalent Australian levels). Dictionary/vocabulary work, T/F questions, sentences, cloze exercise and discussion prompt.

A set of tasks to practise reading and writing skills. Read about a student and his work and college life.

• Practise using conjunctions.
• Learn synonyms
• Practise using punctuation correctly.
• Write about your own experience of studying and working

Editor's notes

So practical and down to earth! Find out about Joseph's day to day college life and his busy job with Deliveroo. Also very useful for E2-E3 Functional Skills English students.

Cut and order word sort based on transport, money and grammar terms.  Tasks and extension tasks on the same sheet. Scissors needed for separating the cards. Works best with students working in pairs.

Editor's notes

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best! With useful extension ideas. Laminate for repeated use. Also handy for Functional English alphabetical order work.

Basic vocabulary word sorts, the first being based on fruit, vegetables and drinks, and the second on places (e.g. town, city), food and animals. Tasks and extension tasks on the same sheet. Scissors needed for separating the cards. Works best with students working in pairs.

Editor's notes

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best! With useful extension ideas. Laminate for repeated use. Also handy for Functional English alphabetical order work

A set of 48 DARTs (directed activities relating to text) that can be stuck onto lolly sticks or used as is to encourage learners of all levels to interact with texts. The sticks are probably best used with realia such as: posters, local leaflets, booklets, instructions, recipes, newspaper/magazine cuttings, business cards, etc. but the resource includes a list of suitable Skillsworkshop texts. 

Most of the sticks are based on the Subject content functional skills (SCFS): English (DfE, February 2018)

Written specifically for the new reformed English content which expects secure homophone skills at much lower levels than previously. Covers all the homophone spellings required at E2 using differentiated sets of cloze exercises. 7 sets each with 15 questions / sentences plus detailed teaching notes and an appendix listing all E1 & E2 spellings.

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.  

Learners use a gap-fill to complete positive and negative restaurant reviews.
I designed this resource to encourage learners to use a thesaurus to help improve their vocabulary and use more interesting adjectives.

I’ve used it with Entry level and Level 1/2 learners.

Editor's note

Fully mapped to the new 2018 Functional English content which comes into effect September 2019.