General Resources

This scaffold has been designed to be used either as as a diary for use in class and / or as a way for students to record and reflect on their literacy/language experiences outside of the classroom.

Emojis are used to try to encourage them to consider and record their feelings.

Update 24/2/22: written by Sharon Roberts and Alexandra Bates, both of Essex ACL. 
This is a fun activity which encourages ESOL learners to engage with digital technology and transacting online. It provides opportunity to explore vocabulary related to shopping while also discussing the advantages of shopping for food online. It can be adapted to all levels and can be extended for a longer activity if required.

Editor's note

I put this together when I found so many of my learners trying to hone their employability skills did not know what a lot of the words on job descriptions meant. 

Resource 1 (Definition matching cards: job skills and attributes): I laminated these and cut them up and they worked in pairs or threes to match them up.

There are two other linked resources, as below, to help students with getting to grips with the keywords used in Job Descriptions and Person Specifications. 

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

An updated version of 'Numeracy during the Summer' by Judith White (2006). 

Numeracy during the summer. Keep your students’ skills going during the summer break with these ideas. One page for Entry Level learners, one for Levels 1/2.
Covers number, measures, shape and space, and data.

Suits ESOL students at Entry 3+.  It creates plenty of scope for  further work e.g.

This reading resource is designed for Functional Skills English learners.  It is aimed at level 1 and level 2, although it may be adapted for Entry level 3 also.  The resource is comprised of two texts that suggest how teenagers and young people can look after their mental health during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.  Text A is adapted from the UNICEF website, and Text B is an informal email written from one worried friend to another.   The questions are written to model the reformed Edexcel Functional Skills exams, and are aimed to gi

A hastily written resource (I didn’t want to have to wait another 4 years!) on Feb 29th 2020 (but can be used throughout the leap year). Covers Functional Skills (Measures) content descriptors relating to using dates and units of time. Number topics such as estimation and checking, multiplication, division, odd and even numbers, and sequences are also included. There is an emphasis is on using non-calculator written methods to convert between units of time.