Classroom Activities and Tools

Online Dictionaries for English Learners

• Cambridge Dictionaries

• Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary - simple English definitions

• English Picture Dictionary

English Class Activities

• Assembling an ESL Teaching Toolbox - this article has suggestions for activities and items every teacher can collect to use in class.

• I Have, Who Has? This is a great way to practice vocabulary and can be used with words or pictures (or both!) on the cards. Directions: Cards are prepared ahead of time on a template, filling in each word once under "I have" and once on a different card under "who has." Students receive one or more cards so that all the cards are divided amongst the class. One student goes first, reading the card aloud. (For example, "I have sock. Who has jeans?") The student with the card with that word reads that card aloud ("I have jeans. Who has shirt?") The game moves around the room until all of the cards have been read. For a more complete explanation of the game and a free template, click here or here. To watch a short video explaining the game, click here.

• Bingo - generate free bingo cards at this site.

• Mad Libs - play online at this site.

• 15 Formats for Structuring a Class Discussion - includes high-prep, low-prep, and ongoing strategies

• Wheel of Names - add names or vocabulary words and spin the wheel for an interactive lesson activity

• Tekhnologic - this site has free downloadable and customizable activities for use in class, such as customizable games on Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. View all downloadable items here or view collections (organized by theme) here.

• Cultural Orientation Resource Exchange (CORE) has lesson activity suggestions for teaching refugees about the norms of American life, including health and hygiene, COVID-19, and US laws. These may be adapted to add into English lessons for all internationals.

Compilations of Resources

• The Internet TESL Journal has articles, lessons, games, questions, techniques, links, and more for ESL teachers.

• English Club: teacher worksheets and handouts

• ESL Flow: English teaching activities and worksheets

• English Worksheets: free downloadable English teaching worksheets (mostly geared towards children, but may be useful or adapted for adult learners, as well)

• ESL Library: activities and worksheets (requires a monthly subscription)

• The Presbyterian Church in America’s Mission to North America ESL page has many activities and resources for teachers.

• Free printables and flashcards for the classroom or home practice can be found at MES English and at ESLflashcards.com.

• The ESL Miscellany, by Pro Lingua Associates: Ever feel stuck when planning a lesson? Want some tips on teaching cultural aspects? Need some vocabulary lists and grammatical explanations? This book is a wealth of knowledge for all ESL teachers and is fully photocopiable.

• Conversational English lesson ideas from FluentU

• Holiday celebration ideas from Mission to North America ESL

• ESL Speaking Activity - this article from ProLiteracy outlines a simple speaking activity for classes of all kinds. (Be sure to teach students how to share their preferences for choosing a question, too. Sentence starters like "I want to answer..." are helpful in this context!)

Grammar

• English Grammar Revolution has easy-to-understand explanations of grammar topics.

Pronunciation and Rhythm

• Jazz Chants, by Carolyn Grant: This book offers a variety of jazz chants to help your students become familiar with the rhythm of language - and they are fun! Used copies can be found on Amazon (click the title link above) for just a few dollars. A jazz chant is just a short section of speech spoken to a rhythm, and can be combined with claps or finger snaps or even music! For an example of a jazz chant in practice, watch this video.

• Minimal Pairs are pairs of words that only differ in one sound, like bat and rat or sit and set. These are great for practicing pronunciation. This site has lists of pairs to practice. Adding in one set of pairs per lesson can help your students grow in pronunciation ability. This site (created by a British English speaker) is the most comprehensive minimal pair site. Words are separated by phonetic symbols; scroll to the bottom of the page to see a key.

• Rachel’s English has numerous videos about American English pronunciation, including individual vowel sounds, diphthongs, and individual consonants, as well as conversation skills. (Also available on YouTube here.)

• Sounds American is another YouTube channel teaching English pronunciation.

• Intercambio offers these videos for pronunciation, some comparing similar sounds and others using the Color Vowel Chart.

• Real English has lots of free videos of native English speakers speaking in relaxed, everyday speech, using interviews on the street with average people. This is a great way to give your students practice in listening to diverse, authentic speech, since often, textbook audio and even teacher talk can be a lot slower and simpler than what they will encounter in everyday life. The videos are available with or without subtitles, are fairly short, and are grouped around types of conversations (such as introductions). You could watch one a few times before having students practice with each other!

Vocabulary

• Making Vocabulary Activities that Stand Out, from Oxford University Press

• The ESL Teacher’s Book of Lists: As we get to know our students, we often find certain areas of need that they'd like to focus on, such as medical, school, or work vocabulary. This excellent resource (fully photocopiable) offers numerous lists of themed vocabulary words, grammar, pronunciation, and even themed units for teachers to consider in planning. This can be especially useful for teachers of advanced students, who don't need textbook practice as much as personalized life information. The first edition and second edition are available here.

• From Cambridge: Ideas for learners to practice English at home

Reading

• Bow Valley College ESL Readers: This is an excellent book series with very simple and applicable short books that are free to download and print. They are geared towards adult English learners who are just learning to read.

• The Good News Coloring Book, with pictures and Scriptural content, is available in 115 languages and can be downloaded for free. Some languages are available in bilingual versions, with English and another language on the page together.

• Emergent Readers: This site includes resources for teaching ESL literacy (including a free downloadable phonics assessment), presentations and articles, and free teaching resources to go alongside a text used to teach ESL beginning literacy, At the River and Other Stories for Adult Emergent Readers by Shelley Hale Lee.

• Leamos - Easy-to-use online course that teaches non-literate Spanish-speaking adults to read and write in Spanish. Learning to connect print skills with oral language skills in their native language before trying to learn English makes learning a lot easier. Leamos has 43 lessons that take a student from low or non-reading and non-writing skills to being able to read street signs, forms, prescription labels and more. It can be used by learners at home or in a class setting with minimal support from a tutor or family member. It can be used on a computer, tablet, or phone.

• LESLLA: This website has a long list of materials available to work specifically with adult ESOL literacy learners.

• Atlas ABE: Activities for tutoring a preliterate student are described.

• Voice of America has English articles for students to read and study.

• All Nursery Rhymes - with nursery rhymes, riddles, and poems

• CommonLit: free collection of literature and articles for use with students, as well as questions. Free for educators and students to use. Not geared for English learners specifically, but contains a lot of classic American literature.

• This collection of resources from the Center for Adult English Language Acquisition is geared towards teachers working with preliterate and nonliterate adults.

• Sharifian Conversations: short (one paragraph) stories with activities and discussion questions following each

• This annotated bibliography suggests other articles to read about working with adult ESOL literacy learners. Many can be found through a simple google search.

Websites with Leveled News Articles

• One Stop English

• The Times in Plain English

• Breaking News English

• NewsELA (subscription required)

• Reader’s Digest website (not in different levels, but with many different types of articles about American culture, true stories, and more)

• Voice of America has English articles for students to read and study.

• Learning English - Voice of America has simplified versions of the English articles for lower levels of students, as well as an audio player so students can listen and follow along. Key words are defined at the end of the article.

• News for You Online (subscription required after free trial)

• What's Going on in this Graph? (New York Times) is a freely-accessible page with news graphs posted each week for classes to view, analyze, and discuss. This could be great for conversations about cause and effect (and correlation vs. causation), current events, and graph-reading skills.

Brain Breaks - short activities to help learners reset and refresh

• Three-minute brain breaks

• Brain Breaks blog

• Go Noodle (children's brain breaks)