ESOL Queen

Over the years, I’ve written lots of posts on this blog, but I’ve rarely shared much about my own journey. So, here’s a little look at what led me into teaching—and why I would recommend ESOL as a career.       My interest in teaching English to international students began when I was a teenager. My family regularly hosted students from other countries visiting the UK, particularly from Germany, China and Hong Kong, so I grew up with many international friends. I really enjoyed studying French at school and later had the opportunity to work as a short-term English teaching assistant in France while studying for my A Levels.  This experience led me to pursue a degree in English Language and TEFL at Swansea University, where I achieved a First-Class degree. After graduating, I decided to take my Cert TESOL course in Bournemouth.                       The Cert TESOL course taught me how to teach English with co...

Wow, the world of teaching has changed dramatically since I first started this blog during Covid-19 in 2020. Back then, I would spend hours creating and designing teaching materials from scratch.  Now, in 2026, AI tools have completely transformed the way I plan lessons. Over the past year, I’ve been exploring different AI tools that help me: save time on lesson preparation create targeted ESOL resources set clear SMART targets and lesson aims In this post, I’m sharing some of the tools I’ve found most useful in my own teaching practice. My Favourite AI Tools for Teaching Materials 1) Chalkie Chalkie is a great tool for quickly creating lesson PowerPoints and worksheets. I’ve only used it a few times, but one thing I learned quickly is that you need to be very specific with your instructions to get the best results. Why it’s useful: Fast lesson creation Simple to use Free and paid options available Best for: Teachers who want quick, ready-made lesson content. 👉 I’d definitely rec...

 Hi everyone, After receiving many requests, I have now managed to update my Easter and Ramadan/ Eid phonics resources. These resources no longer have the dates included, so they can be used each year. These resources have been designed to be used with low literacy students at Pre-Entry (Pre-beginner level). They can also be used with students at Entry 1 (beginner) level. I hope you find them useful. 😃 Here are my Ramadan/ Eid resources: PowerPoint:  Worksheet:  Easter PowerPoint:  Easter Worksheet: 

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 😃

Hi everyone, Thank you so much to everyone who has visited my blog, shared my resources and spread the word about my blog! What started as a small lockdown project in 2020 with just a few views each month has now expanded to over a 1000 visits per month, which is really exciting! I often receive many requests to edit my resources. Unfortunately, with the restrictions on Bloggler I can only upload resources via Google Docs, which makes access to 'edit' documents a bit tricky, as it would mean everyone could edit at the same time. If anyone knows a solution to this, I would be really grateful for ideas 😀  Whilst, I will do my best to respond to you, I currently do not have a lot of time to answer all the requests due to my current work commitments.  However, you can find the majority of my resources on the website ISLcollective under the name of Squeen , with the options to download and edit as you wish.  You can access my materials here: English ESL worksheets, activities...

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 been very busy teaching my Entry 1 students writing skills over the last few weeks in preparations for their Entry 1 ESOL and FS writing exams.  Enabling ESOL students to write at Entry 1 can be a challenge, as some literacy concepts such as writing postcards and letters can be quite alien to learners. Writing postcards especially is a very British/ Western activity and these days so much communication is now done online digitally (when was the last time you handwrote a note rather than send a text message?). One of my students pointed out today that she doesn't need to worry about spelling when she e-mails her boss as the computer checks everything automatically! Therefore, I try hard to familiarise my students with as many different types of written text as possible and encourage them to write about places they are familiar with using the name of another friend in the class to write to.   As with my previous Entry 1 worksheets, the first page is designed as an ex...

 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...

I've uploaded more Level 1 and Level 2 ESOL and Functional Skills worksheets to my blog. Check them out here on:  https://www.esolqueen.co.uk/p/entry-3-level-1-and-level-2.html Here are a few examples: Presentations: Presentation Plan Presentation about Food Grammar: Tense Review Worksheet Writing:   Write a letter of complaint about windmills Write about a traditional story

Check out my new Entry 1 Grammar worksheets: Be with I and You in + - and ? https://drive.google.com/file/d/15KuOryO4Hud5XzON25exm5Sfk3-pVKpQ/view?usp=sharing Be with He, She and It in + - and ? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1clFwyph3GgdHxavi53n1jhfh2DZQyHiC/view?usp=sharing Be with We and They in + - and ? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n6-xfCa3B7gzIyfXW7CXj7iDsMhZI5JV/view?usp=sharing Wh- Questions: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11c8o8jvF4xcLGmyfNTNwNZw3vAo6Fwm5/view?usp=sharing Wh- Questions and answers using be : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CWNOpGW35nNI021_i6lVUO3YDH8DdTlI/view?usp=sharing Present Simple Verb Examples and Activities: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jOMMbGew0iMmnXdESquw1JJdefq6w_PM/view?usp=sharing Be and Present Simple Word Order: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PSN0qkocrsMPULq63V4MY5-plk2Kf08K/view?usp=sharing