SOME WWW SITES FOR TESOL: 2006-2007
Below you will find links to a selection of TESOL / EFL-related websites.
These in turn provide links to many more.
The description refers to the link BELOW it.
New sites are added all the time, and similarly sites frequently close down or change their location, in which case the links below will not 'connect'. The page was last checked in December 2006 but it is likely that you will find some dead links. Please grit your teeth and ignore them ( and/or email and let me know).I'd also be very happy to add any other sites that you have found useful.
The sites at the top of the list in each category are those which have been added most recently. All sites are FREE.
The links are categorised as follows:
1. General websites and Organisations for TESOL teachers
2. Listening and Pronunciation
3. Reading and Literature
4. Email, Writing. Setting up pen-pal exchanges
5. Discussion groups, Speaking, Drama
6. Reference materials, Dictionaries, Grammar and Vocabulary
7. Lesson Plans and Large Classes
8. Younger learners
9. Audio, Video and Visual material
10. Concordancing , corpora and text analysis software
11. TESOL/EFL Bookshops
12. Past and Future trends: History of English, World languages and World English
13. Glossaries and Jargon
14. Country specific EFL websites
15. On-line TESOL Journals and Professional Development inputs
16. CALL
17. Language Assessment, Testing and Programme Evaluation sites
18. Online training for language teachers in the use of ICT and suggestions about /reviews of using specific ICT tools in the classroom
19. British culture and Cross cultural communication
20. ESP/EAP and any other E??Ps
21. Unclassifiable , but full of promise!
22. Teenagers
23. Language across the curriculum
24. Language resource/self access centres
25. Language Teacher Education
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1. General web sites for EFL/TESOL
Thanks toSylvia Vildosola Gianotti for alerting me to Lanternfish which has a selection of worksheets mainly for vocabulary ( at the time of year that I looked for example vocabulary to do with Halloween, Autumn and Christmas), surveys and lesson plans for role plays, together with links to interesting articles and a whole range of other sites. Geared towards the ESL rather than the EFL context, but a good starting point for investigating the huge range of materials that are available on line.
Jane and Dave Willis, who have spent years studying and publishing about Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) have a site of their own Willis ELT where you can find downloadable task based lesson plans a and links to a selection of their recent publications about or connected to TBLT
A new website to me is James Abela ELT who claims to have 'created the worlds first Google EFL co-op Search engine with IE7 and Firebox searchbars'. A range of resources for students at beginner and intermediate and (more unusual) advanced levels, with ideas for teaching across the range of skills together with more predictable grammar and vocabulary work.
A website has been created by a team of Hungarian teachers of English to offer users the quickest and easiest access to quality English learning and teaching materials from British Council and BBC sites. The site has two major sections for the two major groups of users : teachers and learners of English. Materials are structured according to Council of Europe topics and levels.
Making fun of the whole English Language teaching business, with special relevance to native speakers working in Private Language Schools, is Englishdroid . Not a site that will help you find just the materials you need in a crisis ( unless you and your learners are very unusual) , but if you need a moment to relax there is plenty to smile at here.New this year a large selection of English language games with full instructions and sometimes essential materials.
The Language Assistant site run by the British Council is designed for people with little teaching experience working overseas as language assistants, so the language of the site itself is very straightforward. It has a range of information and lesson plans ( Young Learners, UK culture, Teaching tips, and Teaching Qs and As) updated every two weeks between October and May.
English Raven has a site with a whole range of materials from help on basic syllabus and test design for teachers (under teacher tools) to suggestions for interactive classroom activities and phonics activities for young learners. Some free, others require payment
BBC World Service Learning English website has a range of constantly updated resources from News English and Business English to Grammar and Vocab sections and discussion groups and quizzes. you can find it at
Let's Learn English is a new site set up by a number of ex-teachers from the British Council, International House and by some Cambridge examiners. It claims to be an online self access centre offering 'quality input' and a wide variety of test items from a range of different tests ( eg: PET, FCE, CAE, IELTS, TOEFL) with feedback on student answers. There is free content as well as subscription based material and you can sign up free for a weekly newsletter.
An amazing site with more resources than you will ever be able to use. Originally set up for Modern Foreign language teachers but also lots of links that are relevant to EFL. Everything from a cliche-finder.to details of Council of Europe 'Common European Framework' specifications for different levels of language proficiency ( and that is only looking at the 'Cs')
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Everything you ever wanted to know about most aspects of ELT from the British Council's 'Search English browser. Links to ELT related articles in journals and in newspapers, Young Learners, Assessment, Distance Learning, links to discussion forums and a useful Search facility for anything that you want further information on. One great advantage is that SearchEnglish can 'learn' what sorts of things you are interested in, and so when you use the search engine it will deliver documents that are really of interest to you.Also a ?My favourite web site for ELT? section which is well worth looking at. Click ?Forums? and then ?Technology in Language teaching? to find it.
Specifically aimed at teachers and learners in China is the In2English site jointly run by China Radio and TV University and the British Council. To make full use of the site you need to download Chinese Character reading software (not difficult and free). Once you do, there are pages for teachers, for learners, for Business English and for up to date and more general cultural information about places, people, music, art etc in the UK.
Aardvark's English Forum has a mixture of language learning related links, resources and activities for students and teachers, together with information about Language Schools and ELT books and a selection of 'cool tools', a daily quote and a daily idiom.
A site from David Eastment, an ELT technowhizz, with links for teachers and students. Lesson plans, teaching ideas, links to grammar vocabulary and all four skills plus links to other resources. Well worth a look.
Linguanet Europa home page is an entry point to multilingual language teaching-learning resources. Click on the Education link and then on the 'Teaching and Learning materials' link and then on 'English' to find a huge range of links to grammar, pronunciation, listening, reading.... sites for language education.
The Internet TESL Journal site has well over 3000 links to other EFL sites, and also has lesson plans, handouts, articles, crosswords, vocabulary and grammar practice suggestions and much more.
Dave's ESL Cafe. A wide range of links under four headings. Teacher Resources, Student resources, Content based resources and Themes. Well worth looking at.
The British Council 'Learn English' site has activities and advice for teaching learners from age 8 to adult, and from elementary to advanced levels. There are songs, poems, word and grammar games and links to many other sites. .
University of Leeds Language Centre has links to a wide variety of professional websites
English learner.com is a site which will send you free English lessons via email three times a week. In addition it has a selection of grammar, vocabulary and reading exercises and tests.
Linguistic Funland, has resources for students and teachers, mostly through links to other sites.
The English club The English Club homepage, teaching ideas and resources, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and other materials for students to use on-line.
John and Sarah's TEFL pitstop. Some free and downloadable materials, games and ideas for teachers. Plus links and other pages of interest.
2.Listening and Pronunciation
Please note that to make use of some of the sites listed in this section your PC needs to have sound files.
A site with 'tongue twisters' and pronunciation tests that are of immediate use.
A very very comprehensive list of links to online listening activities (eg: telephone conversations, disco songs and their lyrics) provided by the Internet TESL Journal.
Another comprehensive list of links to online listening activities (eg: dictations, minimal pairs, reduced forms) again from the Internet TESL Journal. ESL
Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab Lots of listening quizzes at three different levels from beginner up.
The English Listening LoungeInteresting looking listening texts at three different levels from beginner up.
3. Reading and Literature
EHow is a site that has a whole range of texts on 'how to... do' a wide range of things.. from how to find a discount wedding dress, or clean an air conditioner, to how to dress like the stars or how to flirt. something for most ages and interests at intermediate level and above.
The Teachers pages on the British Council New Writing site offer lesson plans and student worksheets to use in conjunction with the annual issue of new literature in English from the UK and the Commonwealth
Finally a site that deals with contemporary literature in English from UK and the Commonwealth. Contemporary Writers has bio-data and specially written critical essays on a wide range of current authors.
The British Council's new Football Culture Page has constantly changing articles about world football, introductions to, and quizzes about, football vocabulary, football names and their meanings as well as football related 'games' to play . You can also sign up and the site will email you whenever something new is added.
CNN provides a 'story of the week' from its news broadcasts. The story is offered in full form, in an abridged version or in outline. Whichever you choose, a number of exercise options are also presented.
The Comenius English Language Centre has a selection of Fables from around the world together with matching vocabulary, grammar and comprehension exercises for each fable.
Encyclopedia Britannica site has texts about just about everything, Arts, Science, Education, Travel, the World. could be useful for texts for ESP situations.
Zoom Dinosaurs is a comprehensive on-line hypertext book about dinosaurs. It is designed for students of all ages and levels of comprehension. It has an easy-to-use structure that allows readers to start at a basic level on each topic, and then to progress to much more advanced information as desired, simply by clicking on links. There are a huge number of links, and information sheets on every known monster that ever staggered, swum or flew the planet
Access to newspapers from every state in the USA and also from ALL over the world, many written in English
Biographies of more (and less) famous people. Somebody Famous born 'on this day', a list of the week's top 10 biographies, lots of film stars plus historically important people. click on the link and you get a chunky quite detailed biography.
A similar idea re: biographies is at the History Channel website. This also has a 'site of the day' and a search engine to take you through many centuries.
This is an interesting British Council site providing an A-W list of African women writers who write in English. The writers are also categorised by the type of book they write, (ie: children's books, fiction, non fiction) and by their region.
If you're a reader and/or teacher of modern fiction in English, you might like to look at this new site. It contains extracts from newly published novels, information about the authors and some on-screen exercises relating to each.
A personal newspaper on the web. you can decide what you would like to read about and Crayon will send you an updated version every day.
Project Gutenburg - fine literature digitally re-published. Light literature, heavy literature, reference books. They have completed over 2000 e-texts as of January 2001. Permits searches by title, subject and author.
A search engine with links to over 10,000 online books. You can access a book, sometimes all the way down to selecting individual pages from it. An excellent source for texts
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"A celebration of Women Writers"- Browse by author, country or century.
"Just So Stories" by Rudyard Kipling includes "How the camel got his hump" , " how the leopard got his spots" and many more
A very comprehensive list of links to works by Jane Austen - almost all of them in "e-text" - hyperlinks to word definitions and language usage found in her writing.
SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages. Annotated favorite tales, information about their histories, similarities with various tales, and other interesting titbits.
Nobel and Pullitzer Prize winning books on-line.
Over 300 approaches designed to make "book reports" interesting for students.
EnglishCLUB.net A selection of jokes in English again at three levels from beginners upwards.
A wonderful site devoted to Treasure Island - rich in resources including maps and a chapter by chapter e-text of the story.
6 Nasreddin Stories (well known in the Middle East) complete with comprehension questions, online "recreating story" and "sumarizing" exercises and links to other Nasreddin stories / links,
A selection of song lyrics from Disney films ( eg: the Lion King) in a number of different European languages
A wide selection of lyrics for English folksongs
4. E-Mail, Writing, setting up Keypal Projects
A Creative Writing site from Switzerland..
We have been on-line for well over a year now, time perhaps, to restate what this site is trying to achieve. It is committed to give people who like writing a starting point or perhaps some ideas what to write about or how to go about writing texts creatively.
Even if it is true that most writing is creative (including the shopping list I usually take with me on Saturday mornings) what we mean in this context is texts like poems, short stories, dialogues, perhaps even prose vignettes and essayistic writing.
A site with full instructions about how to get your students writing stories on the WWW.
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant for advanced English classes. Over one million visitors can't be wrong!
For Primary schools, a good site for finding project partners
5. Newsgroups, Discussion Lists, Speaking, Drama
Word Power offers a free survival guide for all who would like to perfect their spoken English language. It says ' here provide the simplest and most frequently used expressions, by mastering them you should not be at a loss for words. Practise these common English expressions and you will feel more confident in your private and business dealings. Expressions listed thematically from accommodation to work and play.
A site devoted to the use of drama in ELT can be found at DramainELTorg A selection of lesson plans using drama, a list of drama in ELT resources and of teachers groups who use drama at
The Lonely Planet Travellers?' website has a section called Speaking in Tongues where you can post any questions in English about an aspect of any language to be answered by speakers of that language. Today the top four items are about how one feels when one no longer is comfortable speaking ones L1, synonyms for the word 'bullring', the meaning of the word 'oxymoron' and the correct use of quotation marks. These will doubtless have changed by the time you look, but a very interesting collection of language learners and users questions..
For anyone wishing to make a link with a school in the UKGlobal gateway has details of 3000 institutions that would like to make international links
Over 300 English Tongue Twisters, as well as further TTs in many other languages at:
A discussion forum for teachers interested in using the WWW for language teaching. Teachers are encouraged to share successes and ideas.