ESOL Skills for Life with Citizenship Context

The five life-skills contexts are:
• Connections and relationships
• Time and money
• At home and in the community
• Rights and responsibilities
• Personal development

Each of the contexts:
• is subdivided at each level (eg. Entry 1), addressing all communication modes at all
times, ie. speaking and listening, reading and writing, thereby providing continuous
opportunity for consolidation of all skills, as well as fostering independent
management
• enables development and use of language in situational cultural contexts, thereby
expanding range of correct usage and empowering the candidate in his/her
management of culturally bound activities
• addresses the same context at different levels (eg. Entry 1, Entry 2) thereby providing
for multi-level, mixed ability classrooms
• enables use of real-life material as learning resources
• enables independent management
• enables development of academic skills, eg. research, analysis, for progression into
employment, vocational, further and higher education.

Connections and relationships
Addresses basic communication skills, enabling the candidate to develop
• Communication and finding out skills
- competence in establishing and forging situational, familial as well as social
relationships, eg. just chatting at the bus stop, giving real life
information to agencies and other similar bodies (placing orders,
making requests, expressing concern, submitting a complaint, asking
for information)
- facilitation of conversational English - expressing preferences, comparing,
contrasting, relating, narrating
- simple research skills – using directories to find addresses, identifying relevant
agencies, communicating issues.
• Academic and learning skills
- analysis, evaluation, assessment, suggesting, giving advice
- identifying, planning and preparing
Time and money
• Assists the candidate with communication and other skills needed to:
- tell, read and write time
- provide and understand time related information
- understand and plan activities affected by time based events,
eg. Christmas, Easter, Ramadan, Bank Holidays
- acceptance of cultural time issues, eg. daylight saving
- read and understand principles, purpose and value of a range of financial
management systems, eg. savings accounts, current accounts, insurance,
currency conversion (of value to those looking to manage their own
businesses) taxes, including VAT
- deal promptly with, eg. bill payment, debt management, financial planning
• Academic and learning skills
- analysis, evaluation, assessment, suggesting, giving advice
- identifying, planning and preparing, comparing and contrasting.

At home and in the community
• Assists the candidate in understanding, identifying and expressing
- family relationships
- types of homes
- the content and message of advertisements
- the function, purpose and availability of public services
- cultural, civil and criminal constraints and responsibilities relating to, eg.
domestic violence, care of children
- purpose, operation and function of local and national government – thereby
enabling the candidate to participate properly
• Academic and learning skills
- analysis, evaluation, assessment, suggesting, giving advice
- identifying, planning and preparing, comparing and contrasting.

Rights and responsibilities
• Assists the candidate in the language needed for understanding and employing
systems and precautions for personal, family and work related measures to ensure
compliance with requirements
- health and safety factors – in the home, at work and EU regulations
- first aid techniques - basic
- manual handling and handling dangerous materials
- education and child care
- environmental, eg. recycling, littering
- insurance – what, why, how, how much
• Academic and learning skills
- analysis, evaluation, assessment, suggesting, giving advice
- identifying, planning and preparing, comparing and contrasting.

Personal development
• Assists the candidate in the use of language as the key route to progression into
employment, vocational, further and higher education, enabling the candidate to
- identify transferable skills
- address the application process for jobs and courses, eg, CV, application forms, supporting statement, interviews
- the purpose and value of non-verbal communication and personal presentation
- research into routes for progression
• Academic and learning skills
- analysis, evaluation, assessment, suggesting, giving advice
- identifying, planning and preparing, comparing and contrasting.