Resources
LESSON PLANS AND ACTIVITIES
This site has lots of ESL teaching materials and ideas, including downloadable lesson plans and activities. It's primarily geared to elementary and middle school but there is a separate section on adult ESL exercises.
A publisher site that provides free worksheets and activities all related to life skills and sorted by level and language abilities. You will need to register, but it's free and only takes 5 minutes.
Developed by the Federal Trade Commission, this website aims to provide basic, understandable information on managing money; credits, loans, and debt; and scams and identity theft. They also have a toolbox section that has lesson plans, worksheets, videos, and resources to help immigrant communities. Note they also have a presentation on scams against immigrants. This content is for intermediate and advanced learners.
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!" Dave’s ESL Café is the first stop on the Internet for ESL teachers and students. It contains great lesson ideas, ready-to-use activities, and lots of useful links to other sites.
This site contains a lesson planner, worksheet generator, quiz center and puzzle maker, plus a great clip art gallery.
Advanced English Lessons; may be useful as a supplement to the textbook or for students self-paced study or review. Site presents grammar structures, tutorials, vocabulary & crossword puzzles to reinforce vocabulary exercises.
Communicative activities for beginner level ESL students. Each activity is developed in at least three stages (Pre-Activity, Activity and Post-Activity). The Pre-Activity is designed to present vocabulary and formulas that the student will need to use in the Activity. The Post-Activity allows the student to use the language learned in other situations and occasionally in limited creative writing assignments.
English-Zone.Com has a Teacher's Zone filled with ready-to-print materials usable for ESL teaching guides, worksheets, handouts, or quizzes. There are dozens of links to other sites for teachers as well.
ESLFlow is a very comprehensive website that allows you to search through its extensive archive of lesson plans, activities and resources by first clicking on the general level you teach (elementary, pre-intermediate and intermediate). From there, you'll be linked to tons of great resources conveniently divided by the life skills units we target, and so much more!
This site has great lesson plans, helpful worksheets, activities, quizzes and more to help you teach reading, writing, listening, and speaking to your students. Also, get great tips and ideas for teaching conversation and using music, film and video in the classroom.
This site has printable custom-made handwriting worksheets (printing and cursive).
Large on-line picture dictionary, searchable by letter or category. This site also contains comprehension actvities to use with the visuals.
The VA Adult Learning Resource Center (VALRC) offers an ESOL toolkit for financial literacy that includes lesson plans, handouts, and visuals. These materials range in level from literacy level to intermediate. This toolkit focuses largely on managing money. The topics are checking accounts and basic banking services, credit, goals and budgets, growing your money, loans, and saving money.
This site has a “free resources” link to printable worksheets and games.
This is REEP's in-house main website. If you click on REEP's Adult ESLCurriculum, you'll find resources from our intensive program. There is also a student links page that students can use.
This part of REEP's webpage has links for 'Students', 'Educators', and 'Volunteers'. Best of the Web is a comprehensive list of other websites containing tons of activity ideas for the classroom, from pronunciation to grammar to reading and more! If you have a little extra time, visit the page and see where it takes you!
It contains 1000s of ESL resources – a mixture of their own materials and some of the best free worksheets, puzzles, quizzes and other activities found on the Internet. There are many free printable worksheets and lists of basic conversation questions.
This site has lesson plans, printable handouts, and lots of great resources for teachers.
USCIS offers lesson plans with instructions and teaching strategies for novice and seasoned ESL instructors preparing students for U.S. citizenship. Lessons include content on American Government, American History, and Integrated Civics covered in the Civics Test as well as language needed for the reading and writing portions of the English Test Handouts with interactive games and student-centered activities encompass all four language skills.
This site contains downloadable, graphic images that convey mediation instructions, precautions, and patient warnings.
Created by a hospital social worker and ESOL educator, this toolkit offers explanations, tips, materials and links to help ESOL educators and programs better understand and address the health literacy challenges faced by adult English language learners in US healthcare.
CONVERSATION PRACTICE
Weekly podcast lessons that cover the most common and difficult pronunciation issues for non-native English speakers. Offered in English and Spanish.
Need some conversation questions for a particular topic? There's sure to be something you can use on this page.
A website focused on sounds and pronunciation. Offers over 300 short videos.
This website has short videos that present mini-dialogues. Note some of the dialogues are more at the intermediate level, although they are short. The videos also have a vocab section at the end, which reviews
the new vocab and gives additional examples of them in sentences.
GRAMMAR PRACTICE
For grammar quizzes, notes, and analysis. It also has a very interesting section on differences between English and 16 other languages.
Subscribe to this site and receive via e-mail a different grammar lesson each day. However, anyone can access the website’s 300+ short grammar lessons for a review.
For easy explanations of English grammar rules, examples, and tons of practice exercises for reinforcement separated by level (easy, intermediate, difficult), visit this site.
Click on the grammar topic you're looking for and it will reformat the online practice to a printable handout for class.
NEWS AND CURRENT EVENTS
EFL / ESL English Lesson Plans & Podcast for studying Current Events and News. Thousands of free 13-page, printable handouts with downloads & quizzes.
This CNN site contains a new story, abridged version of the story, and story outline, along with comprehension activities. Appropriate for high-intermediate and advanced students.
This site is a list of thousands of links to newspapers from around the world.
Daily news articles specifically designed for adult ESOL students. Each article is written differently at an easy, medium, and difficult level.
Somewhat similar to The Times in Plain English, newsela takes daily news articles and simplifies them for ESOL students. Their news relates to war & peace, science, money, law, health, arts, and sports. An account must be created to view the full news articles, but it's free.
This PBS site is originally designed for 7th-12th grade students, but material can be adapted for high-intermediate to advanced adult ESOL students. Contains different subject areas, lesson plans, and articles.
This site takes real news articles down a level in complexity, so they are easier to read for adult ESOL students.
Contains current news articles and videos. Now also has a Learning English section at the top of the page that has stories divided into three levels. Note there are also printable worksheets, assessments, and lesson plans for English teachers and individual learners.
LIFESKILLS READING AND PHONICS
A free tutorial that uses cartoons and sounds with audio narration and clickable words to teach phonics.
This project was designed to create leveled reading selections that are appropriate for and valued by adult learners (both beginner and intermediate levels). These materials, combined with the research-proven strategies of repeated reading and guided oral reading, aid in building learners' fluency and comprehension skills. The focus of these reading selections will be on topics such as civics, employment, housing, health, school, money, and government.
This site contains 28 free online phonics lessons, as well as training videos. It is good for low beginner students.
VISUALS GALORE!
Free, downloadable clip art organized in thematic categories.
Through flickr and Creative Commons, millions of photos are at your disposal completely for free! Start searching....
Tip: Once you choose the set of flashcards you like, scroll to the bottom and you'll see an option to print large, medium, or small cards. Download the pdf. file and you're all set!
Local map of the Gates of Ballston neighborhood created by a REEP volunteer.
This website allows you to create your own comics in a quick, easy way. You do need to create a login and password, but it's free.
ON-LINE DIRECTORIES AND SEARCHES
A guide to ESL lesson plans and teaching resources on the web
Search of on-line ESL teacher resources
This site contains a variety of resources for ESL and literacy teachers and tutors—most are articles or links to other sites.
REFERENCE SITES AND OTHER RESOURCES
This site contains articles about teaching ESL, as well as lesson plans, handouts, and links to other sites.
This is a site that is an encyclopedia of writing systems and languages. It explains how the English language developed and gives information on English letters, vowels, and dipthongs.
The Online English Grammar includes a subject index of grammar points, with keyword examples. For each grammar point, there is a clear explanation and several examples of usage.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING
The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1959. Headquartered in Washington DC, CAL has earned an international reputation for its contributions to the field of ESOL and literacy. CAL's mission is to promote language learning and cultural understanding by serving as a trusted source for research, resources, and policy analysis.
The ESL Starter Kit helps new teachers and tutors with most aspects of the ESL teaching experience. The six sections of the Kit include Assessment, Lesson Planning, Classroom Management, and Accessing Resources. The Starter Kit is highly recommended for new teachers and volunteers.
The New American Horizons Foundation aims to enhance the development of teachers through the creation of a series of 12 training videos, Teaching ESL to Adults: Classroom Approaches in Action. These videos can be streamed online for free.
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) is the international education association for ESL teachers. This contains information on the field and how professional development.
VALRC provides adult literacy resources, information, and professional development in Virginia. The calendar of events includes training opportunities throughout the state.
This is a listing of a large variety of teaching techniques that can be used in adult ESOL classrooms. For each technique listed, an explanation is given along with variations of the technique and skills that students are practicing.
COMMUNITY RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS
The REEP Community Resource File contains an extensive list of service providers and community assistance organizations in and around Arlington County, Virginia.