English language resources for teachers

Teaching materials and ideas for English teachers

When you're trying to find some useful materials to use for an impending lesson you don't want to spend hours looking around for what you want. Our teacher resources section was created specifically for busy teachers and contains a filterable selection of handpicked websites which we think might be useful. Click any of the resources listed below to read more.


OER Commons
OER Commons
Teachers or higher level students can use OER Commons to find free-to-use English language teaching or learning materials and courses from all around the world.
Jorum
Jorum
Search, find and share thousands of free English language learning and teaching resources, shared by the UK Further and Higher Education community.
english attack
English Attack
The English Attack! Entertainment English Blog explains and discusses various approaches in teaching English, in particular to teens and young adults.
Lanternfish
Lanternfish
Maintained by ESL English teachers, Lanternfish provides printable English resources for both teachers and students on a wide range of categorised topics.
Josies Poems
Josie's Poems
Josie's poems are a valuable teaching resource. As a child, a teenager or adult, Josie's poems are a delight to read, written to charm children into a love of poetry.
ABCTeach
ABC Teach
Materials and activities for students and educators. Over 5,000 free documents available, including printable worksheets, interactive activities and theme units.
grammarguide.copydesk.org
grammarguide.copydesk.org
This superb blog contains a wealth of material, including grammar quizzes plus articles on grammar and common errors, a great asset for every English teachers.
mencap spellathon
Spellathon
Aimed at improving literacy and raising funds for your school and Mencap, Spellathon is presented by 'The Professor', an amazing 3D bee voiced by Stephen Fry.
The Purdue OWL online writing lab
Purdue Online Writing Lab
The Purdue Online Writing Lab is one of the best free online resources for teachers and students wanting to improve their written English, as a first or second language.
one stop english
One Stop English
Onestopenglish is a teachers' resource site published by Macmillan English Campus, part of the Macmillan Group, publishers of English language teaching materials.
Higher English Academy
English Subject Centre - Heacadamy
The site, run by the Council for College and University English, supports teaching in English literature, English language and creative writing across UK Higher Ed.
The Internet TESL Journal
The Internet TESL Journal
The Internet TESL Journal for Teachers of English as a Second Language, includes articles, research papers, lessons plans, class handouts and lots of teaching ideas.
using english
Using English
Teacher resources including free ESL handouts and quizzes, PDF lesson plans, teacher articles and a directory of teaching and reference resources.
New York Times Learning Network
New York Times Learning Network
Part of the NYT website, the learning network provides a lot of news-related resources for teachers, ideal for higher level students and conversation lessons.
Breaking News English
Breaking News English
Ready-made lesson plans based around news items, various levels, all free and extending back several years. Over 1500 ESL lesson plans to test your students with.
BBC Learn English for teachers
BBC Learning English
The BBC Learning English teacher section, like the student area, includes a wide range of resources for ESL teachers including lesson plans and other material.
Milano Inglese - Teaching English in Milan
Milano Inglese English Teachers
Milanoinglese.it the english teacher directory for Milan and the surrounding areas, helping independent ESL English teachers find private students in Milan.
Views from the Whiteboard
Views from the Whiteboard
A great site for EFL teachers to pick up ideas and activities to use in their classroom, run by Teresa, an English teacher based in San Fernando, Spain.
Michael Rosen's website
Michael Rosen
Michael Rosen is a broadcaster, writer and former Children's Laureate. His writing and poetry can be useful to English teachers of all types, as well as being a good read!
Wired for Books
Wired for Books
If you like books you'll love this site, featuring audio and video presentations of book and poetry readings, children's stories and interviews with authors.
English Listening Library Online
English Listening Library Online
Listed as a student resource, this site also provides great material for ESL teachers, with free audio lessons for ESL students from high-elementary level upwards.
Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab
Randall's ESL Lab
Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab was created for ESL students, but it's also a great teaching resource, including tips on using the audio lessons in class.
Edsitement
Edsitement
EDSITEment offers a huge range of resources for teachers who are looking for high-quality advanced level material in the areas of literature and language arts.
Busy English Teacher
Busy Teacher
If you need a lesson plan at short notice, or fancy spending an evening in front of the TV instead of preparing a lesson, this site, busyteacher.org, is the ESL website for you!
Storynory free audio stories
Storynory
This great site offers a treasure trove of free audio stories for kids that you'll love! Storynory has published a new audio story every week for 6 years.
englishbanana.com
English Banana
A popular teaching resource, with tons of free material for teachers, from audio lessons to lesson plans, printable worksheets to free downloadable books.
Strivney English
Strivney English
Teach your Child to Read with Strivney English - English Exercises Online. Strivney is a free, interactive, English program for teaching children to read using phonics.
The Poetry Archive
The Poetry Archive
The Poetry Archive exists to help make poetry accessible, relevant and enjoyable. The teacher section is designed to help you to get the most out of the Poetry Archive.
Poetry for Children
Poetry for Children
The Poetry Foundation's children's section provides resources for parents and teachers to cultivate in children a lifelong love of poetry with poems and videos.
International Children's Digital Library
Children's Digital Library
The International Children's Digital Library is heaven for children who are bookworms, and also a fantastic resource for English language teachers.
Lessonstream.org
Lessonstream.org
Lessonstream.org currently offers 75 free English lessons, divided by ability levels, listed according to topic, language aim, learner type and lesson time.
The Shakespeare Quartos
The Shakespeare Quartos
The Shakespeare Quartos Archive is a digital collection of pre-1642 editions of William Shakespeare's plays including 32 copies of the 5 earliest editions of Hamlet.
tirfonline.org
T.I.R.F.
The mission of The International Research Foundation for English Language Education is to generate new knowledge about English language teaching and learning.
Educating her world
Educating her world
Educating Her World includes over 10 years of materials developed for use in a variety of learning environments, appropriate for young learners and young adults.
Roma Inglese - Teaching English in Rome
Roma Inglese English Teachers
Romainglese.it the english teacher directory for Rome and the surrounding areas, helping independent ESL English teachers find private students in Italy.
ELT Global Blog
ELT Global Blog
ELT Global Blog is the English Language Teaching blog run Oxford University Press. The blog is aimed at ELT teachers and trainers, or anyone else interested in ELT.
Folger Shakespeare Library
Folger Shakespeare Library
Shakespeare's plays from Folger Digital Texts. The Folger Shakespeare Library provides Free, high-quality digital texts of most of Shakespeare’s best-known plays.
Access English
Access English
Created by a former Head of English with experience as an examiner and PGCE trainer, Access English provides Secondary English resources and consultancy services.
Matt Bury
Matt Bury
Matt's blog, dedicated to topics related to Second Language Acquisition, learning and teaching theory, elearning, elearning software and systems development.
ELT Training
ELT Training
If you're thinking of training to be an English teacher, doing a CELTA or Cert TESOL course or if you have just started teaching, this blog is ideal for you!
Knowble Articles
Knowble
Use Knowble Articles to improve your English vocabulary by reading interesting newspaper articles for your language level, at home and at your own pace.
TED Talks
TED Talks
Not an obvious resource, but TED Talks contains presentations on a huge range of topics ideal for higher-level lessons, listening and comprehension practice.

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