This exciting lesson is designed to help students prepare for paper 1 question 1 from the AQA English Language exam - spec 8700. It's primary focus is to help students gain a understanding of inference and how to use it in a structured answer for the exam. This is done by weaving activities focused on PQI (POINT, QUOTE, INFERENCE) around clips from the Tom Hardy movie "Warrior" (cert 12A) in where we look the Character of Tommy, played by Tom Hardy, and use inference to examine what kind of person he is. This lesson uses bite sized activities to keep the lesson moving forward at a good pace and to engage the students, this includes team activities and class discussions. The lesson includes some high level analysis of the character of Tommy and low level activities to help those who have mixed level classes reach all students. Hope it helps

This resource is 5 pages worth of discussion points on the topic of social media. Social media is in everyone's lives yet the rules on how we interact with other, including businesses via these medias is fuzzy and unclear to those generations growing up within the digital age. This lesson is a speaking and listening activity designed to let small groups work interdependently to discuss the use of language and formal / informal constructs on social media in different contexts to help them think about their own personal use of language in different contexts. This can be used to build up towards or be used as a speaking and listening assessment. It can be adapted to suit your own preferred method of delivery or to help facilitate a larger group discussion rather than smaller, independent ones. Please be aware that at times, the preview on TES distorts the resource making things appear out of line etc, please note this is not how the finished product looks. Hope it helps

One of the ways I try to bring English to life for my students is to show them how versatile English is by embedding it into a wide range of topics. I like to choose topics which will engage or strike a cord with my students. One of my sessions which has done this is this one, which looks at the ever increasing problem in the UK, the illegal trade in primates. This lesson is designed for those classes which are " slow burners" with the aim of slowly introducing a topic and building towards the practice exam question. Although Q3 from Paper 2 is based on a period piece of text, this lesson uses a modern text to help first develop the skills in learning, identifying and analysing language features before moving onto older / tricker texts, as in my experience…an older text tends to throw students and will lower their confidence or willingness to engage. The trick here is to show students that there is no difference in the skill used, just a difference in the text provided. This is a complete lesson with enough interesting and engaging material for a 3 hour session. It comes with a power point full of group /paired / individual tasks and starter and self / peers assessment activities. Also included are 2 worksheets and 3 short video clips. This lesson hopefully will build your students confidence in tackling this question, despite the era the text may come from. The theme of this lesson goes down well with students as it is based around the UK pet trade in small monkeys and is designed to help raise cultural awareness and British Values in animal welfare within young people. Due to this, this lesson can be expanded upon if needs be to include a group debate or discussion to hit the criteria of the speaking and listening element of the spec. Please be aware that the TES preview distorts the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection, hope it helps

This is a brilliant resource I have used with both GCSE and Functional English students to help them understand bias writing and inference. I have an FE background and so encouraged to embed English into other disciplines, this resource was initially used to teach dance students however I quickly found that students from almost any discipline responded to this resource and so its compatibility naturally grew. Therefore this resource can be used when teaching Paper 2 Question 3 with AQA GCSE English Language students or L2 FS. This resource uses a clip from Americas Best Dance Crew, this dance troop are diverse in culture, gender and age - as the youngest is only 15, knowing small details like this can help students confidence and can go a little way to helping to break down barriers of gender and culture. It also allows the teacher to expand on these ideas and themes if they so wanted to. This lesson uses group and team discussion, allows the students to share and build on their own ideas therefore encouraging independent discovery and learning and looks into biased writing, identifying biased language and phrases and ends with a final writing task of their own with a peer marking assessment. The identifying task is designed to challenge and there are words banks to support the weaker students. This resource can be altered and developed further to suit your course and / or students if desired. Hope it helps

This is a complete mock paper 2 exam for the AQA English Language 8700 spec. It features all questions from 1 - 5 in the style of AQA , The sources are a twitter war between Perez Hilton and Lady Gaga and a letter written in 1874 by the poet AC Swinburne, both documents tackle the issue of public slander and public arguments. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can often distort the look of the resource, it is not always a true reflection of the how the resource truly appears. Hope it helps

This is a very simple break down of how to use speech marks suitable for Functional skills students or lower level students. There are 3 pages worth of examples and tasks with a small vocab builder task. This could work well as a piece of homework / extension activity or as a starter for the higher level students. Hope it helps

This is a simple activity which can be used to encourage students to proofread. It can be used with students of all levels, GCSE or Functional Skills, as it can be used as a starter, plenary, homework or as an extension activity. Please be advised that TES previews can often distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This work pack is designed for Functional skills and covers areas such as reading for information, summary writing and speaking & listening. The lesson is designed around the murder of Sophie Lancaster, who was killed for the way she dressed. This lesson touches upon issues such as equality, prejudice and British Values . Feel free to tinker with to suit the needs of your students. Please be aware that TES previews can at times distort the look of the resource and this is not true reflection. Hope it helps

This is a simple A4 sheet which shows a break down of each question of the AQA exam (both papers). Students can keep in a folder or fold up and keep in their pockets and use for revision. It is very useful as it reminds student of the main elements of each question, times, marks and skills the question is testing and how they need to structure their answers. This helps students to gain in confidence, promotes independent learning and active revision. Hope it helps.

A full 4 page progress assessment for Paper 1 Question 5. As controlled assessments are no longer in use with this specification I found it useful to have regular bite-sized assessments to track a learners journey and progress whilst on the GCSE course. These assessments are based on each question from the AQA exam paper and mirrors the phrasing and tasks that students will find in the real exam. It comes with planning scaffolds to help students structure and organise their ideas. It is a great way to prepare students and highlight areas of weakness and strength. Hope it helps.

This is a fun, lively student centered lesson which revolves around team work activities and allowing the students to push their creativity and imagination. Many students struggle with imagination when it comes to question 5 and many panic, especially as it holds so many marks. This lesson uses images to inspire a range of vocabulary, language features and ideas for a storyline all within the planning of a haiku, therefore underpinning some of the essential skills needed to answer this question. This is quick paced session with a range of 10 minute activities which encourage independent learning and team work. I found that many students created a range of fantastic haiku’s which I made into a booklet for the students to take away with them. This sort of thing also scores brownie points with the managers and Ofsted but also helps to develop a sense of achievement and self confidence in English, which many students lack. It is also great for the students to know their work in English has a use other than for passing an exam and many feel pride in that. This lesson covers: planning for written work, synonyms, metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, long short sentences, imagination but can be adapted to cover much more if so desired. It ends with a peer marking assessment based on the Facebook liking system using emoticons and a chance to act like an examiner and identify language features. There is a homework task, which if desired, could be turned into a in class task other than homework. Hope it helps

This is a diverse resource allowing you to use / deliver in a way which suits you and your learners. It is a 9 page handout which has 2 short story examples with questions, aimed at both lower and higher ability students, and writing prompts in the form of titles and images. The aim of this resource is to help students not only create stories but to keep them short. Many of my students over the years, both teens and adults, seem to struggle on how to keep a story short, they will write themselves either in circles or into a corner and will usually fall back on lazy and typical writing techniques such as " then she woke up and it was all a dream" or " 10 years later he was…" which is why I came up with this resource. This handout comes with paired and / or individual activities and offers tips on how to avoid these typical pit holes and plenty of prompts in order to practice their story writing skills. This resource can be used either as a piece of homework, extension class activity or can be adapted to form apart of the main lesson and it can be used with any exam board for GCSE English language. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can at time distort the resource and this is not a reflection of how it looks. Hope it helps

This is a full lesson with 3 hours worth of resources and activities. This session breaks down and examine the comparative question A6 from paper 2 (WJEC / EDUQAS exam board) by using 2 texts which describe Manchester at different periods, Engels from 1844 and Bill Bryson from 1995. This session encourages independent / discovery learning and is filled with quick paced paired activities in which the students work together to identify and source conclusions from the text given. There is a short class discussion fore the students pool all their findings together in order to come up with a structured answer. Work sheets and support material is available to support weaker students and a starter paragraph is available to get the students into the swing of writing a prepared exam style answer. There is a start and plenary included in the session but there is also enough room for this session to be adapted any way you need it in order to suit your own students and teaching style. Please keep mind that TES previews sometimes distorts the PPT slides and this is not a reflection of how the resource looks. Hope it helps

This is a simple read and obtain worksheet based around an article talking about celebrity. It is a resource which allows room for development into areas such as bias, inference and debate. It is designed for students who struggle more than most and I found it works well with speakers of second language. Please keep in mind that TES previews can often distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This is a complete mock paper 2 for AQA English language 8700 based on two great disasters, 9/11 Twin towers attacks and the great fire of London in 1666. The paper uses sources which were written at the time of the disasters, an article from an American newspaper and extract from the diary of Samuel Pepys. This later extract from 1666 does not quite fit the exam spec in terms of period texts, therefore I have included a simplified version of the extracts along with the original extracts to help your students understand the text. You may want to cover some more of the difficult areas of the diary extract with your students before you set this mock if you feel the need or do some underpinning of these two events to help students put them into context. Please be aware that the TES preview can at times distort the resource and this is not always a true reflection of it’s presentation. Hope it helps.

This is a complete mock exam for paper 1 of the 8700 spec for AQA English Language. The paper focuses on Animal Farm by George Orwell. This resource is designed for you to use in any capacity you feel necessary. It can be used as a formal timed assessment in class or you can take a more informal road and use it as a workshop or as a lesson. The resource comes with a paper mock, powerpoint with a quick warm up / starter and a video from Thug Notes. Be advised that Thug Notes does contain some low level language and some bleeped out words, so you may want to omit this from the lesson if you are teaching younger students or replace it. As I work with 16 + students and adults, Thug Notes is more acceptable . The TES preview can at times distort the look of the resource so please be aware that this is not a true reflection of the product. Hope it helps.

This is a complete mock exam for paper 1 of the AQA GCSE 8700 spec. The extract is taken from Harry Potter and the lesson comes with a small starter / warm up session. The session is created for you to use in any way you wish. You may want to sit a formal practice in which there is a word document of the mock paper or have a more informal approach to the lesson in which there is a powerpoint for you to use and adjust to suit your needs. Hope it helps

This is a L1 activity based around the idea of a bucket list. 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 is a complete mock exam for paper 1 of the AQA GCSE 8700 spec. The extract is taken from Mockingjay from the Hunger Games series. The lesson comes with a few small groups task starters and a selection of 2 videos - you can chooseich one best suits your needs. The session is created for you to use in any way you wish. Be advised that Tes previews distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps