I find teaching functional skills English , I’m getting more and more students who in fact need ESOL specialist classes. I’m not an ESOL tutor but due to the increasing demand to teach English as a second language and fill ESOL gaps in students knowledge I have developed a number of resources of common problems ESOL student have, which I have complied into a 35 page support booklet which I now give my ESOL learners. The idea is the students use this booklet to support their own self-study and English language development or I use it to set targeted and individual homework. The booklet has explainers and tasks to comeplete and ideas on how to further develop own self-study. I find it quite useful and I hope you do to. You can adapt the booklet to suit your own cohort or levels. Please be aware the the TES preview can distort the look of the resources, and this is not always a true reflection.

I have complied a wide range of texts, modern and 19th century, for you and your students to use at a drop of a hat. I have complied 27 pages full of non fiction texts in one handy booklet. This was a big hit with my classes and with my students, particularly as we the approached revision and mock exams period. I gave one to every student at the beginning of the year but also found these very useful to have out on the students desks and around the classroom through out the year. This booklet covers a wide range of diverse topics which are likely to crop up in the live exam. Topics such as war, health, education, and includes letters, diary extracts, online articles and autobiographies. Each topic has a modern text alongside a text on a similar topic but from another era in order to help students compare texts and writers viewpoints. Texts includes diary entries by Karl Pilkington and Anne Frank, autobiographies from Jessica Ennis and Billy Connolly, BBC articles looking at Stephen Hawkings view of the NHS next to a letter sent to The Times by Florence Nightingale and much more. This booklet can be used with any exam board and I have found it a useful companion to have in class to give to students for revision sessions, extension texts and sources to help you create mock (or mini mock) exams from. Please be aware that TES preview can at times distort the look of the resource and his is not a true reflection. For this reason I have included some sample screen shots of the booklet to give you a feel of what it contains. Hope it helps

This is a E3 resource for functional English. This activity has 3 parts to it which include creating a list, researching activity and a writing activity. This activity has been created in order to be flexible with your teaching style and can be used as an extension, homework or form the main part of your session. It can also be amended underpin a specific topic. Please keep in mind that TES previews can distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This speaking and listening lesson focuses around the conspiracy theory that Princess Diana was murdered. Students love this lesson because many students love a good conspiracy theory. This lesson comes with videos to help students get a full background of her life and events. It requires the students to work together to collect their own research and develop their own opinions and counter arguments which will form part of the group debate. The videos don’t come with additional worksheets although they can be created to help form part of the students research as and when you feel necessary. This lesson can be used with any exam board and also with functional skills SP & LIST. It can be developed to underpin skills such as identifying bias and critical thinking. Please be aware that TES preview can often distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This is a simple and fun lesson to introduce persuasive writing techniques. This session looks into the methods and techniques used by advertisers to persuade people to buy their products, it introduces writing techniques such as alliteration and rhetorical questions. The final task is a fun team activity in which each team is given a product in an envelope and they must create a advert, using the methods discussed, to sell this product. This session can be altered to include speaking and listening task or can be elaborated upon. Be advised that TES previews can distort the look of the resources and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

Having taught Functional Skills English within an FE setting, I understand how difficult it can be to reach students within a curriculum area and to encourage engagement with English. Often not being specialists in those areas ourselves as English Teachers, embedding can be a challenge. My largest challenge was often with students of hair and beauty and so I devised this work pack which worked fantastically well. This pack embeds E3 and L1 English elements into areas of hair and beauty such as face shapes, hair disasters and nail art, incorporating celebrity culture. This pack builds as you move through it, looking at areas such as reading for information, proofreading, identifying correct homophones and descriptive / persuasive writing. I found with my groups that this did not need to be a taught session but rather they ran with it themselves and engaged independently with it, leaving me to act in a supportive role rather than a lead delivery role. This is down to the group and paired activities within the pack, discussion topics and the options for students to make choices and to design their own nail art. This pack encourages a positive attitude towards English and helps students to see how it can help in their chosen industry. IHope it helps.

This is a short lesson about study / revision skills to help students plan and prepare for up coming exams and independent study. It comes with some tips and suggestions about how to best prepare and plan your time, advice on rest breaks, avoiding procrastination and a short video. This is useful to use in tutorials, booster sessions or workshops. Feel free to adjust to suit your needs and classes. Please note that the TES preview distorts the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This fast paced and fun lesson is designed to support a low level or mixed level Functional Skills English class with their writing skills. A great lesson to use at the start of the academic year, this lesson revolves around a article about a 5 year old body builder who made it into the Guinness book of Records and focuses on using direct speech, alliteration, puns and hyperbole to show bias and make writing more interesting. Many tasks are group are pair based to help support lower ability learners, but has some higher ability elements to stretch and challenge stronger learners. Vocabulary focus begins with the starter and is reinforced as you move forward, so students are thinking about language and words from the very start. This resource comes with a full PowerPoint, and 3 worksheets including the article, worksheet and a planning scaffold. TES preview often distorts the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection of the material. Feel free to play with and amend this resource to fit your teaching style and / or needs of your cohort. Hope it helps.

This is a short and sweet resource which can be used as a recap/workshop session or as a introduction session to implicit and explicit meaning. This session is fast paced, team based and leads into a creative writing final main task, although it is easy to adapt for your own needs. This session is based around a short video where the viewer must piece together the overall story from the imagery depicted. Students look for implicit and explicit meaning from this video and then create a piece of descriptive writing based from what they have concluded. This session comes with a quick starter from the outset, quick group activities, team and class discussions and a final individual task with a support starter structure to support the lower ability students. Please keep in mind that TES previews can distort the look of the preview and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This is a fast paced, engaging complete lesson designed for Level 1 and Level 2 Functional Skills. The session is based around the theme of your dream house with the aim of the session being to write a formal persuasive letter using DAFOREST language features and considering the audience your writing to. Using team / paired and individual tasks, this session allows the student to engage their imagination and design their ideal, dream house then plan and complete a formal letter inviting Architectural Digest to film a short segment for their online magazine. The session comes with support devices such as word banks, planning scaffolds and sentence starters as well as elements of stretch and challenge. This is an adaptable resource which can be amended to suit the needs of your classes. Be advised that the TES preview is not always a true reflection of the resource. Hope it helps.

I teach English to hairdressers in very short sessions (1 hour) and most of the time, the students have a short attention span. I create lessons which often cover 1 topic which I teach over two sessions, this is what you will find in this lesson - two sessions on one Powerpoint. This helps me to use the slides as a refresher if students struggle to remember the previous weeks session. However you can obviously alter the lesson you suit your own timetabled sessions. This session covers both Reading and Writing by looking at sustainability within the hairdressing industry. The sessions comes with a full PowerPoint, worksheets and video. Please be aware that the TES preview can at times distort the look of the resources and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps

Many students have already heard of some, if not all of the DAFOREST set of language features which is why I always use this resource at the start of the year. The new AQA English Language exam will expect students to be able to build and expand on this basic knowledge, however in my experience reinforcing DAFOREST with students helps to fill gaps in their knowledge and gives them the confidence to build upon their knowledge of language features. This handy poster / handout is a fun Star Wars based set of examples which is great for students to keep in their books or files for reference. Feel free to look around my shop for other resources which you may find useful in your sessions. Hope it helps

This fantastic lesson looks at question 3 from paper 1 of the AQA English Language exam - spec 8700. Using the work of Stephen King "The Body" this lesson uses power-point, paired activities, video and activity sheets to focus on how authors use Openings and Endings to convey symbolic meanings, in this case - the end of childhood and innocence. The lesson comes with plenty of paired, timed activities to help support less able students and a discussion on inference to help stretch and challenge the more able in your class. I have also introduced a mnemonic for the more commonly used structural features called ROW OF CLONES to help students learn a range of techniques authors may use in their writing which my students found incredibly useful last year. The final aim of this lesson is for the student to be able to write a full Point, Quote, Infer answer to this exam question. This resource is adaptable, will fill and hour to hour and half lesson, engaging, quick paced and comes with fun starters and plenaries. Please keep in mind that this movie is a 15 certificate and using this resource for anyone under that age maybe worth some consideration. Mild language used in the extract, however as I taught in a college, this was fine to use. Hope it helps.

I always find that the topic of Donald Trump is a big hit in my classroom but the idea of having to compare two takes on 1 topic isn’t. Many students find this task a daunting one and so I created this lesson to introduce the notion of writing a comparison to my students. The lesson looks at two speeches made by both Obama and Trump, the resource is 10 pages of individual, group activities including watch and retrieve information, targeted and differentiated questioning, group discussion and a final written task. It has been designed for you to deliver in which ever way suits you best. I teach GCSE sessions in 3 hour blocks and so there is enough material in this resource to fill one 3 hour session. This is a resource which can be used with GCSE but also L2 functional skills. It focuses on students being able to explain , provide insight and discuss inference rather than language features but also allows lower ability students to talk about the facts and their opinions. Please keep in mind that the TES preview distorts the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This resource is designed for L2 Functional Skills English classes and covers inference and comparison on a introduction level. The lesson is fast paced and is designed so tasks can be delivered as team activities or individually. The lesson is scaffolded from L1, with inference via images to L2 with compare two different view points via styles of writing. I teach apprentices within a short space of time, so please alter the session to suit your own classes. The test preview at times distorts the look of the resource, so please keep in mind this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps

This resource is an entire lesson with enough material to fill up a 3 hour session or 2 smaller sessions. The session aim to help students practice their skills for paper 2 question 4, the comparison between a modern and older text on the same theme / topic. The topic of this session is immigration and looks at the immigration of Irish people to America and modern day Syrian refugees and underpins the idea of equality and compassion. Comparison materials are a letter written in 1884 and a poem written in 2017. I have found that in a world of fake news, memes and multicultural classrooms that students are very interested in these topics as they are often unsure of today's world and it's politics. This is a lesson which is designed to let the students do most of the thinking and analysing and is a perfect session to deliver as exam dates become nearer and they need to become more independent in delivering answers and insight. There are plenty of short timed paired and team activities which build up students knowledge and insight and ends with a chance to deliver a exam style answer and a short self assessment. Worksheets come with support material to help those who struggle and open questions to push those who are more capable. Please keep in mind that at times the TES preview somehow distorts slides and worksheets and that is not reflective of how the resource will look when downloaded. Hope it helps.

This is a fantastic lesson which I have used for 10 years in my classes. This lesson focuses on the true story of Sophie Lancaster who was killed in 2007 simply for the way she dressed and for the purpose of GCSE English, has been adapted to support students with paper 2 question 5 from the AQA paper. What you will get in this resource is a full lesson powerpoint with team activities and group discussion, reading material and supporting worksheets - 10 in all, 2 videos and a link to the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. The lesson breaks down the language used in an article by the Daily Mail and ends with a task where the students are to write a motivational speech about tolerance but also embeds “British Values” by looking at tolerance, discussing prejudices, equality and identity. I teach in a college of 16 - 19 year olds and a lesson like this is perfect for them as they can identify with this topic but also relate it to other aspects of life, therefore they get deeply involved in this session as there is much for them to talk about. The range of activities ranges in levels to suit your learners which also makes it easy for you to adapt this lesson depending on the level, age or sensitivity of your students. There is enough material with this resource to fill 3 hours of session time and a range of different activities to adapt to level of engagement. Within my college, I find youth workers are particularly interested in supporting this session and will join the class when I’m teaching it, others have adapted it to use in tutorials and managers have used it as an example of good practice and shared practice to Ofsted. Please note that TES preview can distort the way the resource looks and this is not a true reflection of what it looks like. Hope it helps.

This 31 page booklet is an excellent tool to have in your classroom. The idea came about to create a full booklet of each of the skills needed for the exam to support prolific absentees, late enrollers, to use in booster sessions and revision workshops and for students to use in their independent study and revision. This booklet looks at the skills needed for question 5 from both the AQA papers, creative and persuasive writing. The booklet walks students through tasks and activities needed for these particular questions and gives them a chance to practice their writing skills. Please be advised that the TES preview can distort the view of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps

I’m offering out 3 free modified posters for you to use in your classroom to help promote awareness in your students. Airborne transmissions E- Safety Depression These can be used as permanent fixtures in your classroom or can be modified into leaflets to give out individually or to have casually around your classroom for students to have free access to. Please feel free to look in my shop for a wide range of resources which you may find useful for your sessions. Hope it helps

A quick a simple piece of independent study / homework or extension for paper 1 question 5 from the AQA new spec for GCSE English Language. This resource is styled on the type of question the exam may ask, it can be adapted for students of other cultures who may not know or celebrate Halloween, they can write about a festival in their culture. Hope it helps