ESL Teacher Resources for Elementary Education
Below are some of the thousands of web resources available to ESL and general education teachers. Web resources are great because the Internet is so vast, you can find virtually anything on it! In the case of ELL resources, most of these websites are unique in their own way and provide valuable assests for both students and teachers.
This website is a great resource for children to use independently or with teacher. The website offers games and other activities that can be translated into most home languages. This website also offers reading and listening comprehension in a variety of languages, as well.
My only complaint about this website is the advertisements. The site offers a paid version, which will remove the ads and offer a full screen function, but that can become expensive for schools with small budgets.
Dave’s ESL Café is a fantastic website for all learners and educators. This website offers links to jobs, teacher and student resources and other great things related to ESL.
The most useful spot for teachers is the Idea Cookbook section. This section offers tips on pretty much everything a teacher will encounter in their career! The section for kids is also a great because it offers lessons that are easy to understand and quizzes to assess your students learning. The quizzes can be done right through the website, so it offers instant feedback on your results.
Do not let the name fool you! ESL-Kids is actually designed for teachers who have ESL students! This site is a great resource tool that offers activities, games, and other resources to help students learn English. The site is easy to use and the appearance is appropriate, as well.
Unlike Childtopia, the advertisements on this site do not interfere with the content. My favorite feature about this site is the worksheets section. Unlike most sites, this website allows you to create your own worksheet. If you are in a hurry, you can also choose worksheets that have already been created.
This website is a great resource for teachers because it provides printable flashcards in almost every subject and it is free of charge. The flashcards are offered in 3 sizes, the largest size being an 8.5” x 11” sheet. The flashcards also provide great color graphics and are easy to understand.
The creator of this website also has a good sense of humor. Instead of charging to print out your flashcards, he has set up a donation section, in which you can buy him a cup of coffee or a beer.
WEB RESOURCES
Kindersay is a video website that teaches your students how to speak English. There are over 500 lessons that show you a picture of the word and a video clip of someone speaking the word. There is a section for teaching sign language, in which you see a picture of an object and a video clip with the appropriate sign.
However, the clip does not say the name of the object. There is also a family section that is unique because parents can upload pictures to help their kids identify other family members and their personal belongings. This website would be more beneficial for ELL students who are just beginning to speak English.
TeacherTube is basically the YouTube of the education world. Here you can find video clips about anything and everything education related. For an ELL word search alone, you can find over 1,400 video clips related to the topic. Such clips will give you strategies and tips for working with ELL students.
Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) is great for all types of educators. This website is a marketplace for all things education. Teachers can upload their own work and sell it to other teachers who may not have the time or creativity to produce the same thing.
TPT features resources for all grade levels, as well as all topics. From bulletin board displays to worksheets, this site has it all! All purchases come in a digital format, meaning you can download and print your item the same day you buy it. Do not be discouraged at the fact that it cost money; most items are relatively cheap (as little as $1.00) and sometimes you can find things for free!
This website is a must have in your bookmarks! Colorin Colorado is the premier source for all ESL/ELL related things. They feature up-to-date information through webcasts and blog posts on topics, like the Common Core, related to ELL education.
There are sections for parents, teachers, and administrators. The teacher section is great because it offers tips on instruction for all grade levels. It also provides lesson plans and activities for ELL students in all content areas.
Using English is a great resource for everyone who wants to learn English or teach English. The website does not offer much in visual appearance, but it is easy to use and navigate.
Unlike other websites, this site offers an English Reference section that focuses on the tricky parts of the English language, like idioms. For teachers, there is a forum section so you can communicate with other teachers and a lesson plan section, as well.
At first glance, Everything ESL is a little overwhelming. There is a lot to read on this website and the important things are too small and can be overlooked. With that said, the website does offer some pretty neat things.
Like other ESL websites, there is a lesson plans section and a tips section. However, Judie Haynes (the creator) offers different types of unit ideas that I have yet to see on other websites. I also like how there is an Ask Judie section. The creator of this site has over 34 years of experience, so if you ever have a question, I am sure she knows the answer to it!
Many Things is anything but appealing! Aside from the lack of graphics, color, and other things that help visually stimulate the mind; Many Things is a good database for ESL teachers to use with their students. There are quizzes the students can take, videos for them to watch, and sound bites for them to hear.
My favorite thing about this site is that it offers an audio version of all the text. This feature is beneficial to early ELL learners because they may not be able to understand what they are reading, but if they follow along while listening to it being read, they will have a better understanding of the piece.
The CAPL website is a great resource for teachers because it offers culturally relevant images for language learning. Since ELL students are visual learners, this site is a great resource for finding license free imaging.
This site would be beneficial for vocabulary instruction because you can show the meaning of a word in our culture and their culture. There are also a lot of options to choose from, as opposed to clip art in Microsoft Word! There is also a section for you to upload your images and help spread cultural awareness.
What this website lacks in appearance it makes up for in information! It may come across as plain and simple, but it is jam-packed with all sorts of useful things. This website is designed to help your students learn English pronunciation. This website offers its pronunciations in units.
Each unit provides a video on how to correctly pronounce the syllables and includes numerous activities to go along with the pronunciation. This site also focuses on the specific syllables and letter combinations, rather than the words themselves.
ESL Basic is a great website for your students! This video blog offers instructional videos on everything from grammar to building customer service skills. The resources section is also a valuable tool for teachers and students because it offers books and listening resources as well as a link to find a tutor in your area.
This website is a great tool for English learners and was developed by a high school student! This site offers free English texts with audio clips to help students read while learning how to pronounce the words on the page.
The organization is easy to follow and the stories are clearly labeled for beginner, intermediate and advanced readers. Not all of the stories feature audio clips, but you could read those stories out loud to your students.
ESL Gold is a teacher resource site that offers free resources for both teachers and students. The student section is vast and features everything from speaking and listening to reading and writing for all grade levels.
The teacher section offers great content like, which textbooks to buy and activities to organize. Each content area is broken up into grade levels as well, so you can find anything you need for every grade you teach!
Szoter is not necessarily a resource but more of an application or tool you can use with your students to help them understand the meanings of words through pictures. Szoter can be used directly from the web or downloaded onto your computer.
It gives you the options to upload your own pictures, screen-capture them from the web, or use a URL to display an image. Once the image is displayed, you can draw or write all over the image. This tool would be especially handy for any classroom equipped with a Smartboard.
This website is specifically for ESL instructors, but can be used by any teacher who has ELL students. This website offers lesson plans that are specifically for ELL students, as well as life-skill building lessons for adult learners. This website offers so much in the way of information that it is literally a one-stop for all!
This simplistic, easy-to-use website offers many quizzes, exercises, and practices for your ELL students. All the tests are done online so make sure your classroom has enough computers. Or you could copy the questions into a Microsoft Word document and make a printout of the test if your school does not have enough computers.
This website is a great tool for explaining those pesky phrases Americans are so accustomed to! For example, I use “kill two birds with one stone” all the time, and I confuse my ELL students! This website shows you how to explain those phrases to your students.
