Skills for Life Teaching Resources

Skills for Life Home

• Reading Entry 1-3
• Writing Entry 1-3
  1. About the Paper
  2. Classroom Activities
  3. Skills Development
  4. Other Information
• Writing Levels 1 and 2
• Speaking and Listening Entry 1-3
• Speaking and Listening Levels 1 and 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Developing General Writing Entry 1-3 Skills

 

Improving Spelling

1. Spelling tests/quizzes
   Arrange “spelling bee” tests to revise vocabulary items. Or put the class into teams and have a spelling competition.
2. Correcting commonly misspelt words
   You can prepare lists of typical misspellings by your students. Distribute a list and ask the students to correct the spelling errors.
3. Anagrams
   Change the letters around for everyday words you want to check or revise and use them as a warmer at the beginning of a lesson.

Checking your answers: advice for students

In the Skills for Life exam, candidates will receive marks for the following: Sentence (use of grammar and punctuation); Word (vocabulary, handwriting and spelling); Text (communication of message and organisation). When checking their writing, they should look for these things too.

 

Text

• Does it look like a letter, report, etc.?
• Is it easy to read?
• Is the information in a logical order?
• Have you included all the necessary information?
• Have you included any unnecessary information?
• Is the style consistent?
• Does it have a suitable beginning and ending?
• Have you divided your writing into paragraphs?

Sentence

 

grammar

• Are the tenses produced written correctly and appropriately?
• Are all the sentences complete?
• Do the verbs and their subjects agree?
• Is the word order correct in questions?

punctuation

• Do all sentences and proper nouns start with a capital letter?
• Does each sentence end with the correct punctuation?
• Are the commas in the correct place?

Word

 

vocabulary

• Are you sure of the meaning of the words you have used?
• Have you used descriptive words to describe people, places, etc.?
• Are you using the same words too often?

spelling

• Have you checked the words you usually misspell?

Analysing Tasks

 

1. Hand out a sample writing task. Ask the students to highlight the following:

• who they are writing to
• the instruction words
• what information they have to include
• the format required

2. Ask the students to decide what kind of language and vocabulary they should include.

 

Linking Words

1. Hand out a sample writing task with connecting words removed.
2. Ask the students to supply connecting words.
3. Highlight how words such as 'because', 'and', 'but' etc. are used.
4. Now hand out a series of sentences on a particular subject (e.g. favourite food). Ask students to join the sentences using connecting words and removing repetition.