Functional Skills English

A reading comprehension and vocabulary activity suitable for both ESOL and Literacy / Functional Skills. The activities are based on a BBC News article about John Cronin’s online business, John’s Crazy Socks. John, who has Down’s Syndrome, is a co-founder of the business, along with his father, Mark.

This resource is aimed at high E3, L1 and L2 ESOL learners who make mistakes when using conjunctions, prepositions and adverbs in their writing to express contrast. There are seven speaking, reading and writing tasks in all.

[img_assist|nid=6104|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=100|height=71]A Powerpoint presentation designed to prompt discussion and accompanying reading comprehension to advise about avoiding scams.

Editor’s note
With curriculum mapping. Covers reading, writing and SL&C.

An ESOL reading comprehension based on a BBC News report on the death of Stanislav Petrov, who averted a potential Cold War disaster in 1983.

The text contains several examples of past perfect, reported speech and third / mixed conditionals. The activity combines reading for gist, for detail, identifying vocabulary and identifying parts of speech. An extension activity gives learners an opportunity to write a similar short text, using the same elements of grammar to tell a story about a decision that changed events.

Designed for Entry 3 – Level 2 Functional Skills English.
Students loved this lesson. Can be designed around other areas but covers:
Writing persuasively.
Fact and opinion.
Research write a factual article
Create a poster using appropriate language.

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).

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.

A resource suitable for GCSE or Functional Skills English (L2) that uses an image of an old lady as the basis of a series of activities for students to learn/embed the following:

• To understand how to quickly plan a piece of writing,
• To consider genre, audience, purpose, tone and use language devices
• To improve the impact of the writing.
• Use A FOREST to remember language features.

The power point presentation (18 screens) includes:

This is a reading comprehension and dictionary exercise based on the life of Fidel Castro. I have provided the reading text first and then the vocabulary work. However, with some groups it may be better to work on the vocabulary before tackling the text.
Editor’s note
Also includes a useful research/summarising/timeline activity and points for writing or discussion. Includes curriculum mapping but no answer sheet.

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.