Teaching Resources (Websites)

ESOL Resources

Lots of videos and radio clips which can be used with your learner to improve listening skills and to promote discussion. There is also a great section on Life in the UK which uses a variety of media to engage different learners.

Excellence Gateway

This site provides all of the learning resources that accompany the Skills for Life ESOL curriculum. It is broken down unit by unit so is very user friendly.

One Stop English

As the website suggests, this is a great place where all sorts of ESOL resources are gathered. Some of the resources are free and there is some really good stuff for complete beginners.

Grammar Education Resource Guide

Very useful website if your learner wants to improve their grammar. There are explanations of common grammatical errors, podcasts on improving your grammar as well as work sheets and a whole set of online games to help improve all things grammar related!

News in Levels

A great website for more advanced learners. This site has numerous news articles and uses engaging stories, both written and videos, to teach new vocabulary, check comprehension and improve reading and writing skills. It also has links to improving grammar as well as a joke section!

If you are interested in using news and current affairs to teach, then ‘News in Slow‘ is another great site to check out.

Know Your Vegetables!

A very useful booklet to help people identify, prepare and cook vegetables that are available in the Yorkshire area. The booklet offers essential nutritional information and gives a brief guide on how to grow the vegetables. The booklet is in English, Farsi and Arabic, and is small enough to take to shops or supermarkets to help identify the English name of the vegetables and to shop more confidently and economically. There are some simple recipes that can be adapted and could be used for a more ‘practical’ lesson English lesson!

Skills Workshop

A site full of resources made by real teachers. If you look at the tabs across the top of the homepage you’ll see ESOL and Literacy sections, also Pre-Entry (Beginner).

Skills for Life teaching materials (ESOL)

Several units at each level from E1 to L2, each unit has a theme eg health, looking for a job. It’s very good if you want to plan a series of lessons on the same topic and want the lessons to be connected, or prefer to work from a coursebook. Combines listening, reading, speaking and writing skills really well. Not much good for beginners although you might get some ideas from the E1 materials.

SQA ESOL Literacies, resources for Beginner literacy

A very good series of resources for students with low or no Literacy, designed to be used as a framework or to dip in and out of.

‘SEN teacher’ literacy resources

These are aimed at Special Educational Needs teachers but useful for developing Literacy from Beginner level. You can make your own handwriting sheets, wordsearches etc. These would be great to give students as homework to reinforce what you did during a lesson.

ESL Flashcards

Sets of flashcards on eg body parts, emotions to print off. They are aimed at children but many can be used with adults. Excellent for teaching and revising vocabulary, good for any level.

British Council – ESOL Nexus

The British Council, experts in teaching English as a Foreign Language abroad for many years, recently branched into ESOL. This site has some good resources at different levels for ESOL students in this country and has been developed by practising ESOL teachers.

British Council – Learn English

This is a more ‘EFL’ (teaching abroad) type of site but might be useful, only for quite high level learners and if you have access to the internet and a computer during your lesson. Materials are organised by skills and by grammar and vocabulary.

British Council – Learn English Kids

Similarly, an “EFL” resource aimed at children, but some great multimedia resources in here

esoluk.co.uk

“For tutors by tutors, it is the aim of ESOL UK, to bring you language learning mediated by video, audio and the internet; the internet for independent learner access but with conventional worksheets for classroom use as well. These materials are suitable for both language and literacy learners. Many of these materials were developed in collaboration with ESOL tutors at Leeds City College”