Adult Literacy, Functional English, and GCSE Resources

A resource based on a current (Jan 2016) Huffington Post news report about a piece of homework that was sent home for a child to learn which contained incorrect spellings.
Learners are to identify and correct the errors, write a full explanation of their thoughts on the matter and write an appropriate email to the head teacher.

Editor’s note
A wonderful, real-life and very functional task!

Tips and four tasks designed to help Level 2 Functional English learners think about how they can identify BIAS in texts.

A resource designed to be used with Abigail Illife’s excellent Plural Spelling rules resource [ see ‘See also’ below].

Learners can practise their proofreading skills and apply the spelling rules. Give learners the first sheet and ask them to highlight the mistakes. As well as spelling mistakes there are capital letters and the US spelling of centre.

Students are to plan and advertise a Christmas fete.
The resource covers writing lists and sentences, proof reading and using basic adjectives.
Students could use the Internet to find some ideas for Christmas stalls.

A simplified adjectives resource that I created to use with E1/E2 learners to introduce them to writing a description of something. Students should be encouraged to provide one describing word each that can be displayed on the whiteboard before discussing the term adjective.

This resource covers what an adjective is with underlining and cloze writing exercises to build knowledge before students attempt to write a description of two pictures. The descriptions of the pictures can be basic but students should be encouraged to use full sentences.

Aimed at E1-E3 learners, this resource can be used to introduce the spellings of days and months at E1 or E2, or as a revision tool at E2 or E3. After finding the names of all 7 days and 12 months in the Wordsearch, where they are presented in upper-case letters, the learner uses the next sheet to write the names in the chart using the correct combination of upper and lower case letters.

One of the Level 2 Functional English Writing exam papers asked students to write a speech.

I found a speech online and showed them how to use repeated words, emphasis, subheadings and to think about their audience. I then used the Drink Aware website to create this resource to enable students to practise speech writing.

This resource could also be used to practise writing letters or emails to colleagues to encourage them to think about drink driving, and to practise other aspects of writing styles for Level 2 exams.

A simplified reading about cyclones with reference to the two cyclones in Australia in February 2015 followed by some exercises. The exercises are at different levels to meet the very different abilities of students in my class.

Editor’s note
Lovely selection of reading materials and exercises – includes fill-in tables, questions, word searches (two levels), and a blank map to add cyclone paths. E1-E3.

Update (28/2/15)
Small error in wind speed chart now corrected.

Editor’s note
Updated Sept 17. Errors corrected and minor layout changes.

A handout and exercise sheets for using direct and reported speech. Gives several example of each and the exercises work by switching the same message between direct and reported speech.

I have used this as a speaking/listing exercise as well as writing for grammar/punctuation. Target group is really L1 /L2 but can work well with high E3 too.

This is a simple activity to get learners used to the concept of writing instructive text. It can be used as an introduction to the topic of ‘Purpose of Text’ and is easily adaptable to different contextualised areas e.g. instructions on how to: hang a door; insert hair rollers; change a tyre; make a bouquet etc.

The activity allows for ease of differentiation between levels, based on your assessment of the output, and works well as a main activity for Entry Level learners, or a fun warm-up for Level 1/2 learners.