Teflnet TEFL Site Awards

Paul Emmerson

Business English teacher and author Paul Emmerson has a website full of articles, tips, activities and other resources for BE teachers. His Business English Idea Bank provides lots of different topics for teachers to explore with their students, including business writing as well as the “soft business” of travel and entertaining. Paul also explains how to integrate a variety of different skills into a BE course, including grammar and pronunciation. Those who teach business 1:1 will also find useful tips and ideas. (more…)

American TESOL Webinars

Every Friday at 4pm EST on the American TESOL website you can watch free 30-minute webinars about teaching English. The webinar speaker is Shelly Terrell, an English language teacher, consultant, social media expert, and writer who travels around the world inspiring teachers to keep their students motivated. The webinars open in Adobe Connect, a program that allows you to watch, listen, and contribute via chat or voice. All you need to do to join the webinar is go to the American TESOL website and click on the link to the Live webinar. Type your name and enter the room as a guest. (more…)

Best of The Reader

Best of the Reader is a collection of eBooks that are available online for teachers to download, print, and use in class. The readings and exercises are taken from past issues of The Westcoast Reader, a newspaper for adult English learners based out of Vancouver, Canada. This free collection contains fourteen books with related tasks as well as a teacher’s guide. Each book has 8-10 stories and an answer key. The exercises include vocabulary review tasks, comprehension questions, and writing activities. (more…)

Demand High ELT

The concept of “Demand High,” which has been defined as an idea that focuses on moment-by-moment learning, was coined by Adrian Underhill and Jim Scrivener, two experienced teacher trainers in the ELT field. Their blog “Demand High ELT” explores the idea of “deep learning,” and challenges teachers to find new ways to optimize learning in the classroom. Scrivener and Underhill are interested in discovering how teachers can help learners stretch their understanding and use of the English language. By demanding a bit more from learners at key moments, and by reflecting on their own teaching rituals and attitudes, ELTs may be able to help students achieve higher skills and goals. The Demand High site asks teachers to think about questions like this: (more…)

Some of the best TEFL sites for professional development these days are actually blogs. Chia Suan Chong, an English language teacher and teacher trainer in London, tackles some of the most interesting topics in the ELT industry. Her recent blog series “The Devil’s Advocate” examines some of the recent controversies. Chia, the DA,  invites conference speakers, textbook writers, and other bloggers to debate topics such as learning styles, technology, and most recently ESP. (more…)

grabandgolessons.com

Classroom Hero is full of “grab-and-go” activities for ESL teachers who need to add some excitement to their classrooms. Teachers who are tired of traditional textbook materials will quickly see why it’s worth a small subscription fee for these high-quality materials made by quirky Josh and his talented team. Each printable PDF comes with quick facts that outline the level, language focus, key vocabulary, and applicable exam skills to be practised. You’ll find role play cards, grammar games, and stories that require students to get up and use the language in ways you hadn’t thought of before. (more…)

ESL Writing

Rob Whyte’s website is a workshop of ideas that teachers can pick and choose from. Whyte is an author and professor, and his ideas are refreshing, fun, and free. Whyte often uses and adapts authentic resources to build his own activities and lessons. On his regularly updated website you’ll find ideas, worksheets, and lessons, that you can print, download, or use for inspiration. While the website is called ESL-Writing, there are also ideas and materials for teaching listening and conversation.   (more…)

Ted Power

Ted Power’s website is full of teaching resources for English language teachers. You’ll find handouts, readers, games, and teaching ideas to get you thinking about trying new teaching techniques. The Discussion section offers a large list of activities, including dialogues and short dictations for your students to practice. You’ll also find a handy resource about minimal pairs that includes tips on fixing common pronunciation errors.  (more…)

elt-resourceful

ELT materials writer and teacher trainer Rachael Roberts shares her ideas, tips, and thoughts related to teaching and writing on her website and blog. Rachael has specialized in EAP, ESOL, and IELTS, and is the author of a number of coursebooks for teaching English. She also gives webinars for some of the large ELT publishers. In her elt-resourceful blog, Rachael explores several different topics that material writers and teachers are interested in, including exploiting authentic materials for listening and reading practice. She often offers ideas on different ways to use and adapt a textbook, and her blog feels like a good set of teacher’s notes. If you feel stuck in your methods, Rachael’s ideas may help you try a new approach. She also responds to questions in her comment section. (more…)

Frequency Level Checker

The Frequency Level Checker is a free online tool for reviewing the word count and reading level of a piece of text. It was developed to help English language teachers select suitable texts for learners. The developers of the FLC used the General Service List of English Words by Michael West to determine Levels 1 and 2. Level 3 is based on the Academic Word List by Averil Coxhead. To analyze a piece of text, simply click on the “Try it!” link. Then copy and paste the text you have chosen into the text box provided. (more…)

Chia Suan Chong’s Blog

Some of the best TEFL sites for professional development these days are actually blogs. Chia Suan Chong, an English language teacher and teacher trainer in London, tackles some of the most interesting topics in the ELT industry. Her recent blog series “The Devil’s Advocate” examines some of the recent controversies. Chia, the DA,  invites conference speakers, textbook writers, and other bloggers to debate topics such as learning styles, technology, and most recently ESP. (more…)

The Round

The round is an independent e-publishing collective created by two English language teachers who specialize in material writing. Lindsay Clandfield and Luke Meddings came up with the idea after noticing that a number of high quality ELT blogs had emerged on the web. Both writers are experienced in working with big publishers, and know how difficult and frustrating it can be to break in and earn fair compensation in this industry. The round offers writers support and promotional assistance so that writers can self-publish their ELT ideas and experiences in book form. Since its establishment in 2011, two titles have been published with help of the round, including the creators’ own activity book called “52″.  (more…)

Teflpedia

Teflpedia is a wiki all about teaching English. It was established in 2008 and has been open to the TEFL community ever since. You can view the wiki without creating an account, but if you want to contribute to it, you must create a log in name and password. In addition to reading and writing TEFL related articles, there are spaces to contribute and download lesson plans and personal essays. There is a Discussion tab in the top left corner of each article if you want to discuss the entry before making any edits. (more…)

World Stories

World Stories is a free site where you can find English stories for your students to read and listen to. The stories include original and translated stories, and can be listened to online or downloaded. Many stories are available in English as well as another language, such as Portuguese, French, or Chinese. (more…)

Telescopic Text

If your students are hesitant to write, try asking them to write one basic sentence, such as “I made tea.” Telescopic Text is a fun tool for learners to practise expanding their writing. After they write a basic sentence, they insert new words or phrases piece by piece. They can expand the sentence by adding adjectives, adverbs, and even (more…)

Writing Prompts

Writing Prompts is a simple website that provides intriguing topics for your students to think and write about.  The prompts are ideal for language learners because they are very visual, and a limited amount of text is used.  Your students can practise narrating, writing dialogues, stating opinions, describing, using conditionals, and more. (more…)

This website by English language teacher Kieran Donaghy promotes the use of film in the language learning classroom. The site provides full lesson plans centred on a variety of films and topics. Many of the lessons contain short films that are embedded right in the posts. The lessons are categorized by level and age appropriateness and include homework and follow up activities.

Donaghy has also included some useful links for teachers who want to find scripts, audio clips, and other film related sites. This site is clean, colourful and open for comments. Find out which lessons other teachers have enjoyed using with their English language learners, and be sure to check out the Film Words glossary!

http://film-english.com

ESLTopics.com

If you’re looking for worksheets on basic topics like Jobs, Animals, Travel, or Business, check out ESLTopics.com. The PDF printables are free and will supplement many topics that you’ll find in traditional textbooks. To find out which printables are the most popular, simply look at how many times they have been downloaded. The board games are popular, as are the advice columns. (more…)

Britkid

This reading practice website features nine fictional teen characters living in Britain. The characters are multicultural and come with biographical information, such as language, food preferences, and hobbies. The theme of the site is race and racism, and the author has worked hard to avoid stereotyping. The characters live in the fictional town of Britchester. The biographical information is written in the first person narrative form. After learning about a character, students can take the Britkid to a map of Britchester and choose a location to visit. (more…)

Film English

This website by English language teacher Kieran Donaghy promotes the use of film in the language learning classroom. The site provides full lesson plans centred on a variety of films and topics. Many of the lessons contain short films that are embedded right in the posts. The lessons are categorized by level and age appropriateness and include homework and follow up activities.  (more…)