16 Resources ESL Teachers Use to Help Students Learn

Schools nationwide have experienced rapid growth in English Language Learners (ELL)  in recent years. The National Education Association (NEA) projects that by the year 2025, one out of every four children in classrooms across the nation will be an English Language Learner student. 

Consequently, teachers must ensure their preparedness for helping English Language Learners thrive in their classrooms. While ESL teachers specialize in supporting English Language Learners, teachers of all content areas share the responsibility for the success of ELLs. That's why New Jersey ESL teachers enrolled with Rutgers Alternate Route are sharing their go-to resources to plan great lessons and enhance their teaching for ELLs.


BrainPop ELL 
Brainpop created an entire curriculum for ESL students! It's amazing and full of so many useful free resources -- videos, vocab, writing prompts, etc. (Margaret S., K-5)

Cambridge English  
Cambridge English is the most essential company for English Language Learning and Examinations. This website is useful not only for teacher development options, but also for free activities, lesson plans, and leveled materials for ESL teachers. (Gul C., 6-8)

Colorin Colorado!  
Colorín Colorado is the national website serving educators and families of English language learners (ELLs) in Grades PreK-12. (Marekhi S., K-5) Brittany W. agrees this site is an invaluable resource for bilingual teachers and teachers of emergent bilingual students.  According to her, there are amazing articles, strategies, printables, research-based information and a multimedia resource library for educators and families.   

Google Docs  
This isn't a teaching resource, per se. But I've found it invaluable as a tool for teaching writing. Students are able to have control over their documents, but are then able to collaborate (also on presentations). I've found it helps with classroom management, because I see exactly what a student is working on from my own computer, and offer suggestions within the document. (Edward F., 6-8)

ISL COLLECTIVE
In this site the ESL teachers can obtain English ESL worksheets, activities, and video lessons. They can print, students can learn online or in class learning. (Thelma H., K-5)

IXL 
Its a site that aligns with the State Standards, it includes text books and activities that can be assessed later to check students knowledge acquired so far, here the students can learn in a personalized way, there is immerse learning, the activities are from Pre-K up to 12th grade. Teachers can introduce the parents to this site also, because they can use it help their child to improve and receive the support in the target language.   (Thelma H., K-5)

This site provides hundreds of skills for your students to practice. You are able to keep track of their progress. It is personalized for each student and links students to the skills that will help them remediate any gaps in understanding. (Mayra Z., K-5)

Leading ELLs  
Leading ELLs was created for ELL teachers to ask questions, share ideas, and be inspired by other fellow educators. It is nice to see other ELL teachers, just like you, sharing successful teaching practices or issues they might face. This is one of the spaces where everyone tries to help each other out. (Brittany W., K-5)

Quill 
Quill is a great resource to measure that provides you with assessments, lesson plans and interactive ELA activities (even ELL lessons). (Mayra Z., K-5)

Reading A-Z 
Leveled books and quizzes - great for independent reading and progress. Also, various lesson plans can be utilized for teachers. (Gul C., 6-8)

ReWordify 
Rewordify helps you to simplify documents for your ELL students. (Lilia M., K-5, 6-8)

TeachersPayTeachers 
Teachers Pay Teachers has so many great resources from decorations to worksheets and entire lesson plans! It is amazing how much people will put on there. There are lots of things that require money, but still tons of free resources! Even if you do find something that costs money, it goes back to the teachers for their hard work! (Margaret S., K-5)

This website has been a lifesaver for me.  There are endless amounts of resources created by educators and resources for specific populations as well (i.e. ESL, Special Ed., Socio-emotional learning).  I can also find book companion activities and materials that target specific academic skills. (Margaret S., K-5)

Twinkl
This site is good for finding things like worksheets and handouts on specific things I want to reinforce with students.  I've used it for compound/complex sentence writing, getting started with 5 paragraph essays.  (Edward F., 6-8)

Valentina's ESL  
I found a multitude of different ELL topics addressed on this website. As well as multiple graphics and resources that I use frequently. (Lilia M., K-5, 6-8)

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