ESOL Resources

Teaching learners at Entry Level I have found that many of them have difficulties using coins to pay for their snacks or checking their change.

This resource includes a collection of worksheets that start with several number sequences counting in twos, then move on to count the total value of different number of 2p coins and finish asking the learner to count the number of 2p coins that they need to make up different amounts. The sequence of worksheets is repeated counting in 5s and using 5p coins, then counting in 10s and using 10p coins.

This is great as a warm-up activity or a bit of end-of-term fun. It is suitable for a mixed ability group of numeracy learners, or indeed literacy or ESOL learners. This quiz tests learners’ knowledge of how old someone has to be in order to do certain things legally, e.g. be a blood donor. It can be used in small group or pair work (which worked well for me) as well as individually.

A 12-question test, designed for an Adult Numeracy class consisting largely of ESOL speakers.
Covers the terms “import” and “export”, since these often crop up in exams. Also mean, mode, median and range, and the meanings of “discount”, “under”, “approximately”, “difference” and “enlarged”. A little fraction revision, too: students have to identify 1/3 as “one-third”.

This is a reading exercise I will be using with my L1-2 readers here in the U.S.

My students all speak Spanish as their first language and there are many Spanish cognates in the text. We have also been working on “who/what/when/where/why” questions in class, so that is the focus of the questions.

Editor’s note Also suitable for Functional English.

Great set of three differentiated Functional Maths task sheets for E1, E2 and E3. Originally written for ESOL Numeracy groups but suitable for all Entry Maths learners. The picture shows part of the E3 version.

All tasks are based on office equipment (pencils, hole punches, staplers, etc.). The focus is on number skills (counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, rounding, simple fractions) but there is also a sprinkling of data handling and measure/money skills.

Fully mapped to Functional Maths criteria.

Students design a board game to demonstrate their learning. This can incorporate IT skills (Word template provided below) or can be done with paper, card and pens.

I originally did this with an E2E group and it proved popular. It’s an alternative to the “design a poster” task to review learning. The instructions are set out as a board game. it can be used for literacy, numeracy, ICT or ESOL.

Here are a set of worksheets for use with learners based around fire safety. The vocabulary included are types of fire extinguisher and types of fire. The first sheet is a wordsearch, the second features anagrams, and the third sheet is a blank learning check to see how much learners remember.

This simple wordsearch is ideal for ESOL beginners and E1-2 Literacy. Nationalities included are Polish, Bangladeshi, Italian, Japanese, South African, Chinese, British, Egyptian and Irish. The chosen nationalities give examples of the most common suffixes -ish, -i, -ian, -n and -ese.

Powerpoint for practising numbers to 20, not necessarily all at once.

Used as a starter with all ESOL maths groups to check the spelling of numbers. I created it for E1 / E2 and it could be used for ESOL, Literacy or Numeracy classes.

A selection of smileys are shown on each slide. Clicking reveals the number (as a digit) and a further click reveals the number spelt out as a word. Good used with small individual whiteboards.

A mingling exercise to get students talking to one another. Great as an induction activity for new classes or for ESOL learners to practise speaking and listening.