15 places to start getting published

1. Articles here!
TEFL.net accepts submission of articles on almost every subject related to teaching English, including from beginning and non-native teachers who feel like they have some ideas or experiences to share, even if they are ideas they heard from elsewhere that they want to pass on (copyright laws allowing, of course). See How to Submit Content for details. The editor rarely rejects relevant articles outright, and he and/ or I can help you if you need some help getting it written up in a publishable way. There are no restrictions on length or format.

2. Ideas here!
As well as the TEFL.net Articles page, there is also a page for more practical ideas- Idea Thinktank.

3. Onestopenglish lesson share
I published my very first thing by submitting a lesson plan (Man and Wife speaking game) to the website of Macmillan, a big UK-based publishers. I won a stack of books, had my ego boosted and got the idea that writing was something I could and should do more of. I also went on to suggest writing a whole bunch of FCE lesson plans for them, and that became my first paid writing job and eventually led on to publishing a book with Macmillan Latin America. Despite being set up as a competition, I found that all of my entries to the Lesson share “won”, and I imagine they don’t often reject people’s lesson plans as long as they are written well.

4. Other Onestopenglish sections
Although most Onestop content is commissioned to professional writers, they do have other competitions (some temporary and some longer lasting) anyone can enter.

5. Other sites
The other publishers don’t have such an obvious way of submitting content to their websites (as far as I am aware) and can be difficult to contact, and some of the more academic websites have very strict criteria on the kind of subjects they accept and how it should be written. Most other websites, however, are desperate for more content- especially the completely independent ones. You can find a selection of these by googling something like TEFL + “submit article” or by looking at the sites I have published stuff with (see my full list of publications for details). Again, if the site editor has a problem with what you have written they will usually edit it or give you some advice on how to rewrite it rather than rejecting it outright. Please note that site editors often have another full-time job and so can take rather a long time to reply. Note also that submitting the same thing to more than one site is not a good idea as copied content will hurt their Google rankings and turn readers off.

6. TEFL.net reviews
As writing articles can be quite demanding in terms of thinking of good ideas and writing them up without having one obvious format to follow, many people find that a good place to start is book reviews. In my role as TEFL.net Reviews Editor I arrange for publishers to send brand new books out to our volunteer reviewers and then give them whatever help they need writing it up. Usually that is just a little minor editing, but some people do need specific advice or models to follow. Although we occasionally have university professors and published authors reviewing for us, the vast majority of our reviewers have never published before. For details on how to get involved see the TEFL.net Reviewers’ Guide.

7. Other online reviews
A few other sites have regular book reviews and it is possible to get involved in a similar way to volunteering to review for us at TEFL.net Book Reviews. Try a suitable online search to find sites, e.g. “TEFL book reviews” or “English teaching” + materials + review and then look for a button that says “review for us” or similar.

8. Magazine reviews
Reviewing books is also a good way of getting published on paper for the first time. I have published many reviews in English Teaching Professional and (mainly) Modern English Teacher magazines, the two main practical TEFL magazines from the UK. Although they are stricter on length and format than websites tend to be, you do not need to write in academic English or provide sources etc unless you want to. Reviews on paper are still (for whatever reason) more likely to be taken seriously than online ones, and my reviews in magazines have led to being offered my two brief chances at fame- a chance to submit a proposal for a major textbook for a big publisher (not accepted, but a step in the right direction) and a lead article that got my name on the cover of a magazine for the first time and a tiny mention in the latest edition of The Practice of English Language Teaching. Make sure you read their instructions on how to review for them carefully and contact the right person (usually a specific Reviews Editor).

9. Other easy magazine stuff
TEFL magazines often have several other sections that, compared to articles, take less effort to write for and have less of a backlog of content and so tend to get published easier and quicker. These include letter pages, brief teaching idea forums, sections for photocopiable materials, and competitions. As with all magazine content, make sure you read several editions of the magazine before submitting so that you can get a feel for the subjects they cover, the formality of the language used, the background of the readers etc. Also make sure that you know exactly which section you are submitting content for, that the format is right and that you are submitting in the right way (e.g. to the right postal or email address).

10. Magazine articles
Although writing a whole article for a magazine is usually a step up from the ideas suggested above (it took me years to pluck up the courage and get together the ideas), as long as you write something similar to the other articles in the magazine you will find that the editors are surprisingly open to new content from unknown writers, even if you sometimes have to wait so long that you think you’ve been rejected before the positive feedback comes back! Ways of making sure you get published and fairly quickly include copying the other articles quite closely in topic, length and style, being very clear about what section of the magazine you are writing for, and sending your article in the right format to the right person. Depending on how busy they are, the editors might also be able to offer you information on what section or topic they are particularly looking for articles on and more information about the kinds of people who will be reading it. They also might sometimes be able to tell you if an idea for an article is something worth writing up for them.

11. Local teaching association newsletters
A less intimidating and time consuming way of getting a first article published on paper is through the newsletters or magazines of local teaching associations such as TESOL or IATEFL. As well as articles, they might also accept teaching ideas, lesson plans, letters, book reviews and even humorous pieces or anecdotes. Depending on the association and even the whims of the editor, though, you may actually find that they are fussier about content than some of the internationally available practical TEFL magazines. If everyone else who publishes in that local magazine works in a university and/ or has an MA and you don’t, it might be better to look elsewhere for a place to first get published.

12. Forums
Although TEFL forums such as the TEFL.net Teacher Forums are usually used for asking for and giving advice, some people use them for submitting games and other teaching ideas, lesson plans and even articles. The advantages are that you can get instantly published and get instant feedback and that you don’t have to worry too much about polishing up a first draft before submitting it. The main disadvantages are that some of the feedback can be very negative and that it will rarely be read once it disappears off the page of most recent topics.

13. Your own blog
Perhaps one step up from contributing to someone else’s forum is starting your own blog to publish your teaching ideas, musings on teaching matters, lesson plans etc. You can see my attempt at www.tefl.net/alexcase and TEFL.net’s sister site offers an easy way to set up English teaching and learning sites at English Club ESL blogs. The advantages are similar to submitting ideas to a forum but with more chance of building up something you can be proud of and include on your CV. The disadvantage can be the amount of effort that it can take to actually get people to come onto your blog and read what you have written. With both blogs and forums, it is probably best to use them as a way of thinking through your ideas and getting them down for the first time before you go on to polishing them up and publishing them somewhere with a proper editor.

14. Other people’s blogs
Most TEFL blogs will be willing to accept guest posts, or at least article length comments on what they have written. Two blogs that are often asking for guest authors are EFL Geek and my own blog TEFLtastic (www.tefl.net/alexcase).

15. EL Gazette
The ELT trade magazine/ newspaper EL Gazette is always looking for writers of news stories, especially ones that take a little digging to produce. This is a good place to start if your instincts are more journalist than teacher trainer. I couldn’t find details on how to submit ideas online, so I must have seen it in the print edition.