60 ESL Education Resources to Elevate Your Teaching

Teaching English as a second language is about empowering new voices and expanding students’ future possibilities—work that deserves special recognition and a cape. As you continue to make your impact, explore this collection of recommended tools, each contributed by superhero educators committed to multilingual learner advancement.

There are exceptional resources for ESL teachers and students, such as ISLCollective, which offers a large library of free worksheets, slide decks, and activities for grammar, vocabulary, reading, and speaking. To build listening and speaking skills, Elllo provides hundreds of listening exercises with global accents and real-life scenarios, each including transcripts and comprehension questions. BBC Learning English features high-quality, free lessons, videos, podcasts, and interactive exercises covering grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and real-world communication skills for all levels.

So, whether you want to refresh your curriculum, engage students in new ways, or find reliable materials for language development, these educator-approved resources offer practical solutions and fresh inspiration to elevate your ESL classroom.

AMIRA LEARNING
Provides 1:1 reading tutoring, oral reading fluency assessment, and helps students build critical foundational skills. 
(Alyan S. K-5; 6-8)

American English
Resources for teachers who work with English Language Learners, including activities, games and multimedia. 
(Annelise M. K-5)

American English at State
Provides a wealth of resources for ESL educators, including lesson plans, cultural materials, language games, and professional development resources. Ideal for engaging, culturally responsive lessons and adaptable to various proficiency levels. 
(Gustavo S. 6-8)

BeAble
I assign articles to my students according to their levels; it helps them practice reading, analyzing, and locating context clues by answering questions. 
(Najat O. 6-8)

Blooket
Similar to Kahoot, Blooket utilizes competition and gaming to reinforce learning. Students compete, steal points, and answer repeated questions for mastery. 
(Anthony S. 9-12)

Boggles World ESL
Alphabet/phonics-based worksheets and activities grouped by skill and grade. Useful resource and helps me conceptualize creating worksheets and activities of my own. 
(Samuel B. K-5)

Brain POP
The site has a lot of animated short clips, which you can use in your content areas. The clips are categorized by subject and topics, so you can choose a subject-related clip without worrying about having adult content in it. It is also divided by important moments. 
(Seunghye P. K-5)

BrainPop Esp
This site is beneficial in teaching many subject areas. The videos are in Spanish for my students and are appropriate for them. The visual is essential for my multilingual students, and they love Mobi the robot. 
(Alice G. K-5)

Breaking News English
Good resource for teachers to use current events articles to target various English Proficiency Levels. 
(Betty A. 6-8)

BusyTeacher
This website has helped me by showing me how I can teach certain topics. An example of when it has helped me was when I found a guide of how to teach the present simple tense. 
(Kenneth O. 9-12)

CBS Kindness 101 with Steve Hartman
Heartwarming videos from CBS News about kindness in America. Great for practicing English listening and speaking skills, and for starting the day with positivity. 
(Nathalie W. K-5; 6-8)

Colorín Colorado
The most comprehensive site for all things related to teaching multilingual learners. It includes toolkits, research, guides, and resources for both ESL teachers and those working in the content areas with ESL students. 
(Juliane B. 6-8)

Commonlit
Offers many resources for English teachers to find stories for their students, plus premade lessons and curricula. 
(Jaime C. 9-12)

Corpusmate
Corpus benefits ELLs in many ways, enabling both students and teachers to find quality examples of target language use. (Cho H. K-5)

Cultivating Knowledge, Building Language by Nonie K. Lesaux and Julie Russ Harris
This book serves ESL and elementary levels, but its knowledge-building cycles and language production projects are effective across subjects and grades. 
(Diana K. K-5; 6-8)

Dave's ESL Café
It has suggestions for teaching ELLs and activities like grammar, idioms, and slang. 
(Ericka M. 6-8; K-5; 9-12)

Diffit
On this site, I search for, drop in texts (or links to texts), or upload texts that I want to differentiate. 
(Rakeisha W. 9-12)

Discovery Education
Has many fun interactives, especially in Math and Science, though not all content may be free. 
(Mina S. K-5; 6-8)

Doing What Works: How to Build a Positive Classroom Environment
This site shows how to reduce behavior problems in the classroom to modify and offer a positive environment. 
(Aidee A. K-5)

edpuzzle
Interactive YouTube videos with content area questions that are answered and graded throughout the video. 
(Miguel R. 9-12)

Education World
This site offers tips on how to manage classrooms, know your students, and communicate with parents. 
(Aidee A. K-5)

Education.com
Has a lot of free resources for modifying lessons for ELs. Includes high-quality worksheets, readings, and interactive modules across all grades. 
(Juliane B. 6-8)

edWeb
The benefits of the site are that you can find great professional development sources. 
(Andrea S. 6-8)

Ellii (formerly ESL Library)
Offers a lot of content for students, is easy and fast to use, and includes blogs and resources for teaching strategies. 
(Phyllis M. K-5; 6-8)

English Club
This website helps in all aspects of English. It has diverse tools to cover different aspects of English.
(Carlos L. 6-8)

English Grammar
It helps in all aspects of grammar to improve English. 
(Carlos L. 6-8)

Epic
Books tailored to reading and Lexile levels for each student. 
(Miguel R. 9-12)

Equipping ELLS
All about ELLs! 
(Ruby M. K-5)

ESLFast
Provides texts for lessons. 
(Cho H. K-5)

ESL Games
Ready-to-go games and worksheets for ELL students. 
(Ericka M. 6-8; K-5; 9-12)

Esol Courses
This site has various activities and materials for ELLs. For example, Vocabulary building, Grammar, also hundreds of topics covered. I especially like the songs and lyrics. There are gap exercises where during listening to a song, students must write in words. 
(Dovile F. 9-12)

Fluentize
Creates interactive lesson plans for ESL students. 
(Alma P. K-5)

Games4esl
Amazingly FREE. Tons of resources including worksheets, videos, games, and more. 
(Phyllis M. K-5; 6-8)

Genially Education 
Interactive videos, games, and materials useful for ESL students. 
(Jeannie P. K-5)

Get Ready - Vista Higher Learning
Digital version of "Get Ready" books for teachers and students, including assignments, quizzes, videos, and audios. Teachers can monitor student progress and assign online work. 
(Rui An. 9-12)

IXL
Has a lot of practice options for LA, Math, Social Studies, Science, and Spanish for students of different levels. Useful for assessment and skill practice. 
(Indira G. K-5; 6-8)

Khan Academy
Provides a high-quality English Language Arts program and personalized learning across subjects. Free, trusted content for teachers and students. 
(Safa A. K-5; 6-8)

K5 Learning
Resources for teachers of grades K-5, including worksheets. 
(Annelise M. K-5)

Key Topics in Second Language Acquisition by Vivian Cook and David Singleton
Presents principles of second and world language acquisition theories for teachers to inform their practice. 
(Diana K. K-5; 6-8)

Live Worksheets
This website has helped with getting students more engaged since it is not a regular worksheet that you just fill in an answer. They can drag and drop word answers to questions, and sometimes those answers are pictures. 
(Kenneth O. 9-12)

National Geographic "Life" or "Lift"
We have just got samples of digital material- great for ESL students, reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities are included. A lot of benefits are transferring to ELA with text analysis. 
(Dovile F. 9-12)

Newsela
Newsela allows the user to choose articles or stories and adapt them to different reading levels. This is important in an ESL class because my students all have quite different capabilities, and this site allows me to meet their needs while challenging them at the same time. 
(Matthew W. 9-12)

Quizizz
This site aids in reviewing materials and serves as a great way to assess the students. The platform allows you to create different types of online assessments that provide instant feedback on how well your students understand a topic. This is especially useful for me when I get over vocabulary or grammar topics. 
(Matthew W. 9-12)

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab
It has great listening activities, including idioms, gap-fill exercises, quizzes, games, and mixed-up sentence exercises. 
(Rachel K. 9-12)

Read works / Readworks
Find reading materials worldwide, helpful for articles at various Lexile levels and unit-aligned content for ELLs. 
(Supti B. 9-12)

Reading A - Z
The sites contain so many printable resources by literacy curriculum, leveled texts, foundational skills, etc. It has very useful tools for both ELA and English Learners. 
(Seunghye P. 9-12)

Scholastic
Has kid-friendly magazines for students in science, reading, and social studies. 
(Chelsea A. K-5)

Splash Learn
Extensive choice of activities that students enjoy, great for encouraging critical thinking in a fun way. 
(Renee Fladger. K-5; Clint Campbell, K-5)

StudySync
This website gives readings, videos, and assignments to students. I use this for the ELL and ELA lessons. 
(Kenneth O. 9-12)

Teachers Pay Teachers
A platform where teachers can share class materials such as lesson plans, worksheets, assignments, slides, and posters. Anything you may need as a teacher that another teacher has already done and is willing to share or sell. 
(Karol N. 6-8)

The ESL Educator
This site is particularly a favorite of mine because I receive emails. I especially love their “Two-Tip Tuesday” emails with tips and tricks for my ML students. It gives me ideas for introducing certain topics. 
(Alice G. K-5)

The Literacy Cookbook
It has a lot of resources to help my students prepare for standardized testing and strengthen their reading and writing skills. 
(Rakeisha W. 9-12)

twinkl
Great resources for students, used frequently for lesson planning and activities. 
(Sancia S. K-5)

Using English
Tools for teachers and students alike looking for grammar and vocabulary practice. 
(Betty A. 6-8)

Vocaroo
Allows students to create and share recordings for reading assignments, pronunciation practice, and presentations. 
(Stephen C. 9-12)

Vooks
Contains animated audiobooks for English learners, especially appealing to visual learners. 
(Sharon L. K-5)

Wida
Provides many tips and strategies for preparing students for the ACCESS exam. 
(Aziz Bey. 6-8)

Wiser.Me
Easy-to-use site offering many online interactive worksheets for English, Math, History, and more. Can be used for classwork or quizzes, with options to create or use pre-made resources. 
(Sheisa T. 9-12)

Word Mint
A word search generator, helpful for practicing vocabulary and spelling. 
(Nathalie W. K-5; 6-8)

YouTube
YouTube is an amazing resource that I was afraid to use at first because I wasn't sure if it was too informal for the classroom. But the truth is, there are amazing educators on YouTube who share amazing content that is very useful and entertaining for students. One of my favorites is the Jack Hartmann channel. He makes fun educational videos with music. I used one to review sight words last week, and my students are still singing it! 
(Karol N. 6-8)

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