ESL Bits (23rd Feb)

I've added a link to BITS Interactive Exercises on End Tests and Interactive English. These use British texts and can provide good practice for meaning and gist for Level 1 literacy tests, though the questions are on the easy side. Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for this.

Online Dictionaries (Feb 5th)

I've reviewed and updated the dictionaries section on the General English page. New links include the Shahi page which links to Flickr photographs.

More thoughts on the Skills for Life Blog.

ESOL Grammar Activities

I have added a page called ESOL Grammar Activities, linked from both the Teachers and Students pages. This page will carry our quizzes and links to other sites' activities for aspects of literacy grammar which particularly cause difficulty for second language learners.

More details on the Skills for Life Blog.

Red Kite Learning (Sept 24th)

I've added a number of links to Red Kite Learning:

• The main page and newsletters (to Background)
  
• CV and Interview Assistant (to Jobsearch and Topics)
• An interesting video on listening skills to the Speaking and Listening Page

Connected to Red Kite are the numeracy activities from LLU+. The demos are mostly fine, though some of the Level 2 are difficult. I'll add some to Maths Activities. You can access more if you register and create your own for the bank of activities.

Skilled to go (July 3rd)

I've put a link to Skilled to go on the English and Maths page.
The site contains excellent learning materials for both literacy and numeracy. The development has been done for the Office of Fair Trading on the theme of consumer protection. Most of the materials are good quality paper-based, though I noticed at least one listening exercise with an mp3 file.

Practice Tests and Functional Skills (July 3rd)

I have added links to:
Edexcel's E3 practice tests on End Tests and English and Maths
Edexcel's L1 and L2 practice tests on End Tests and English and Maths; they look the same as those on Move On
I've also put a round up of Functional Skills sites on the Key Skills Page

Speaking and Listening Page (April 9th)

I have added a new page for Speaking and Listening, linked of the Teachers Page. This contains so far:

• detailed links for all Skillswise listening activities
• lists of relevant units in printed DFES packs which have linked audio
• lists of relevant NLN materials

DFES and NLN resources are freely available within FE and Adult Learning in England and Wales.

Further details on Skills for Life Blog.

Fire Extinguishers, etc (March 19th)

I have added 5 simple matching quizzes about Fire Extinguisher labels. These have been designed for Hairdressing students I support who get the labels confused. I imagine they could be used for other curriculum areas as well. They are listed in Quizzes under Hairdressing.

Other new links include:

• a series of new links on different pages for Move On, including their E3 Fractions Hot Topic
• BESOL, a blog for ESOL students in Blogs
• Spelling City, a Look, Cover, Say which lets you save lists and do other activities with the lists to Interactive English and English Activities
• Football Academy, literacy and numeracy games on a football theme from Learndirect Scotland, to Interactive English
  

Video Jug Punctuation (March 5th)

I've added links to three "how to use" Punctuation videos, Capital Letters, Apostrophes and Commas to the English Activities page, and a general link to all videojug's Punctuation videos on the Elearning page. They are very clear and English English, but they are so comprehensive they will be more useful for L2 learners. More on Skills for Life Blog.

I've also added other links for 2 mental arithmetic games, Odd One Out and SumDiv, to Maths Activities.

Dustbin Quizzes (Jan 21st)

I have added a couple of "Dustbin" quizzes on the spelling page, using the Classtools site. It's early days but it looks interesting.

I've also checked and updated the Topics and Jobsearch pages.

Move On Tests in City and Guilds Format (Jan 18th)

The Move on Site has now three practice tests for Literacy and Numeracy at both levels in a format closely resembling the City and Guilds format, linked from here. Unlike City and Guilds own tests you can review questions afterwards in the Move On fashion. These will greatly help learners prepare for the tests.

New Activities (Jan 17th)

New activities added recently include:

• 2 quizzes to Grammar, linked to Level 1 End Tests style questions, also on End Tests and English Activities
• A new quiz for E3 calculations to Maths quizzes and Maths Activities - hopefully more to follow
• 4 Data Handling activities for Maths Activities, from the Gold Dust Resources aimed at teachers but useful demonstrations for Level 2 learners as well
• The Free Rice vocabulary game to English Resources
  

More details for some on Skills for Life Blog

New Links (Dec 18th)

New links added today or recently include:

• MindMeister - free online mindmapping (to Elearning)
• Inspiration Lane - daily updates of ESOL teaching ideas - great and inspiring for any teacher (to Elearning)
• Visual Dictionary links pictures to meanings (to Learn English)
  
• Blogs from Rash Kath from India starting from Mathematics Learning (look for Videos as well) (to Elearning)
• English Page - EFL site with Tense Work found useful by one of our dyslexia teachers (to Interactive English)
  

More details for some of these on Skills for Life Blog

Word Sorting Activity, Peter Symonds (Sept 26th)

Today:

• I have added a link for a series of Word Sorting activities from the Houghton Mifflin site to the Interactive English page.
• I have updated all links for Peter Symonds College interactive activities and added a link to a general index of many of these activities. The old links are now on a protected intranet.
• I have started correcting some out of date and dead links.

Some more details on Skills for Life Blog.

Skillswise at E3 (August 24)

I have added links for the new Skillswise Entry 3 modules to the relevant pages (Interactive Sites: General, English, Maths.)

I will add specific module links to the English and Maths Activities pages as soon as time and access to a network point allow.

More details on Skills for Life Blog.