My Top FREE ESL Resources to Use Online
As an experienced teacher, I understand that teaching English as a Second Language can be both thrilling and demanding. Whether I’m teaching in a foreign country, a brick-and-mortar classroom, or through an online platform, I recognize the significance of having a wide range of excellent resources, free ESL resources, to augment lessons and effectively engage students. Additionally, it’s always refreshing to mix things up from time to time.
I recommend five free ESL resources that I personally found helpful in my teaching journey. These websites cater to learners of different levels and ages, and offer a range of resources that are suitable for both classroom and online teaching.
ESL teachers from all over the world swear by British Council’s collection of free lesson plans and activities that work great for students of all ages and language levels.
I often visit the British Council’s website to access a variety of resources that are tailor-made for different age groups. This was particularly helpful when I was providing private ESL lessons on Preply because my students ranged from 4th grade to adult business.
British Council has an extensive collection of engaging articles, thought-provoking essays, and interactive activities that I can choose from. What’s great is that many of these resources are available in PDF format, making it easy for me to print them out for my students. The collection of posters and games they offer is particularly useful as it adds an element of fun to the learning process.
For younger learners who enjoy hands-on activities, British Council also has a dedicated website called LearnEnglishKids that is filled with age-appropriate resources and activities. Some even come with games, which my students absolutely love.
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UsingEnglish.com is a versatile platform offering a wide range of resources. I often referred to their articles and guides for various activities, from pronunciation exercises and grammar explanations to engaging teaching articles that included games and activities for classroom use. The best part about games and recall activities is that they are easily adaptable for any age group or English level.
One of my most used activities in my ESL class in South Korea was an Error Correction Race.
In my school, we named grammar exercises Case Studies, but you might know them as part of your morning starter exercises. Instead of working on these exercises independently, students will race in teams to find the most errors in either a passage or, as in my case, a case study.
Turning a mundane morning routine into a game not only increased student productivity but also made them eager to participate in a grammar activity. (Which… as a language teacher.. I couldn’t ask for more)
There are so many more helpful games and activities you can use on this site. UsingEnglish is particularly helpful if you are planning to teach English in Asia. Their comprehensive content was especially helpful for honing my students’ language skills.
When I was having trouble finding an interesting way to teach grammar to my advanced or adult students, I found the free version of ESL Brains to be extremely helpful. It gave me creative and unique approaches to teaching grammar that I hadn’t considered before.
I eventually signed up for a subscription plan that only costs me $6 bucks a month for premium. The premium plan gives me more choices than the free one, but don’t worry, the free plan still has a lot of great lesson plans to choose from. You just need to make an account to access any of them.
I use ESL Brains lessons to kickstart my weekly lessons based on different topics, such as “Honest, creative, or lazy?” to discuss personality adjectives. This lesson lasts 45 minutes and starts with a warm-up activity, like discussing excuses for being late to work. After this, students participate in conversations about personality adjectives and complete sentences using related vocabulary.
Another great part about ESL Brains is the fact that they are online-friendly since they also come with presentation slides!
Most of the other lessons are pretty much the same as this one in terms of format.
The lessons created by ESL Brains are dynamic and encourage critical thinking and language proficiency.
To get better at English, you need to practice a lot. We teachers know this, and it’s easy to do during class or a lesson. But what about when students go home? How can they keep practicing then?
Manythings.org has your back!
Speaking repetition videos and reading resources are, as you know, vital in the language world. I often assigned their speaking repetition as homework for students to practice independently.
The site’s audio resources and reading materials were incredibly beneficial for enhancing language skills. I did use these mainly with my high beginners and intermediates since and if you have beginners it could be a little difficult for them to understand. Ello.org has options for low-beginner audio sentences to practice!
TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language. How this is different than learning English as a second language is that EFFL refers to a form of English teaching where both the students and teachers are not native speakers of English. I ranked this fifth because it’s important to have resources that focus on teaching language, not necessarily just on language learning.
It is important to note that TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, which means it focuses primarily on the methods and techniques used to teach English rather than on the process of learning it. Therefore, this approach suits those who want to become English teachers or are already teaching the language. However, knowledge about the learning process is still an essential aspect of teaching, although it is considered a separate issue.
During my teaching stint in South Korea, TEFL.net was my go-to resource for classroom activities and worksheets. Since a lot of the textbooks and workbooks that I received from the institutions were not always the way I wanted to teach my class.
Whether I needed additional materials for public or private school settings, TEFL.net had many ideas. I found their grammar worksheets and articles on classroom games or activities particularly valuable for keeping lessons engaging and fun.
I highly recommend these top five free ESL resources as they have significantly enriched my teaching experience, especially teaching abroad. These platforms offer a wide range of resources, from lesson plans to engaging activities, and they cater to learners of different levels and ages.
The best part? They are all available for free, making them accessible to ESL teachers worldwide.
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Whether you’re searching for grammar skills, vocabulary worksheets, games, or comprehension activities, these resources will guide you in creating effective and engaging ESL lessons.
Happy Teaching!