ESOL Queen

Hi everyone, I have finally found some time to upload onto my blog again! I have recently been using Chat GPT to make some resources for my Level 1 and 2 Functional Skills English students. This technology is great for providing me with relevant texts at the appropriate English level for my students and for giving me Functional Skills style questions based on the texts. I had a lot of fun typing into Chat GPT tasks like, "Give me a biased text on online banking in the UK" and "Give me an instructional text on how Easter is celebrated in the UK". Check out the results in these worksheets below: Banking and Financial Literacy Functional Skills Level 1 and 2 Easter Level 1 and 2 Functional Skills Reading Culture Level 1 and 2 Functional Skills Reading Do you teach Level 1 and 2 Functional Skills? What resources do you use for teaching reading? Let me know in the comments below 😃

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'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...