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 recently created several resources to use with very low literacy Pre-Entry learners on Zoom. For the last six weeks we have been learning about rooms in the house and household objects. These materials have been created specifically for learners who are unable to read and write on their first language and who really struggle with learning to read in English. I have chosen to focus on rooms/ house objects as a way of making language meaningful and practical for my learners and to encourage them to practice using English in their everyday lives. Several of my learners really enjoyed describing their 'bedrooms' and 'living rooms' to me using their mobile phone cameras to give the class a tour and others started to write down object words on post-it notes which they stuck around their house! I have also tried to breakdown words by basic phonic and sound patterns. The Teach ABC English  https://www.teachabcenglish.com/book-1-activities.html website has some great ...

I really love the build up to Christmas lessons at my school, as there are so many great opportunities to find out about important days and festivals in my students' own cultures. I am so blessed to teach students from over 20 countries currently and know learners from over 50 places (from Argentina to China and every country in between!).  From my experience students love to share about their own cultural traditions and celebrations. It is a great opportunity for them to learn from each other and to learn about important celebrations in the UK, It is also a good time for students to practice making comparisons between cultures. Just the last week I discovered the Egyptian Christmas is on a different date to the Polish one and that the Kurdish New Year (Naroz) is different from the UK! Here are some of my Pre-Entry and low Entry 1 Festival activities (click on the pic to download):   Here are some of my Level 1 and 2 Festival writing worksheets (click on the pics to downloa...

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