ESOL Queen

It's that time of year again when my students are frantically preparing for their Entry 1 ESOL and Functional Skills exams in a few weeks time.  The vast majority of my learners find writing in English extremely challenging, particularly if they come from low literacy backgrounds or their first language has a different alphabet like Arabic or Kurdish. I have tried to create activities that focus on "practical" situations that my students may face (e.g. writing a text message to their teacher). However as the exam topics are not always that relevant my students everyday lives (sending a postcard is a very Western concept!) some of the worksheets have been created specifically to help my learners prepare for activities they may come across in ESOL and FS Entry 1 writing exams. Each of the worksheets follow the same pattern. There is an example text, questions to answer, a "think of" / "choose" section where students need to use their own ideas, a templa...

I have recently made a writing work book for my Entry 1 class who really need to practice their writing in order to progress to Entry 2. The workbook has 8 different texts covering letters and e-mails. Each text has an example, a framed writing activity and space for students to write on their own. There are also some correction activities at the end.  Feel free to download by clicking on picture. Let me know what you think in the comments box below 😀 

 I've been very busy over the last few weeks preparing my students for their ESOL and Functional Skills writing exams. As this year I am teaching Entry 1 and Entry 3 students, a lot of my new resources will be made for these levels, but can easily be adapted to higher or lower students.  Both the ESOL and Functional Skills writing exams require students to write specific types of texts with a specific purpose. Therefore these writing activities aim to reflect the tasks my students might come across both in exams and also everyday life.  The Entry 1 activities have been specifically scaffolded to show students an example of a note or letter and then prompt creativity by encouraging students to use their own words and write their own personalized letter. A lot low level students struggle with writing their own thoughts and ideas, so I make sure I spend a lot of time gathering ideas with them as a whole class before doing the gap fill and independent writing tasks.  Her...

Introducing ICT to Asylum Seeker and Refugee Women This year I had the privilege of introducing a small group of asylum seeking and refugee women to ICT skills for the first time. These ladies have had little or no experience with using laptops or computers and were desperate to learn. Some of them had very little English and low literacy (zero beginners) and others could read and write quite well (Entry 1+). None of these ladies knew anything about computers and had not had the opportunity to learn before- they may have spent years living in a refugee camp or been denied access to ICT education. None of these ladies had an e-mail address, but they were desperate to have one and learn how to use it! First of all, we started the classes by learning basic computer skills and how to type. My students were used to do everything with one finger on their phones, so they tried typing everything with just their index finger (this proved quite time consuming). I was able t...