Useful ESOL and ESOL literacy websites
Below are some websites that were recommended to NALA by ESOL practitioners. If the
information on any site is inaccurate, please let Fergus Dolan in NALA know.
Email: fdolan@nala.ie
Note: In this document the term ‘ESOL practitioners’ covers those coordinating,
designing, training or teaching on ESOL programmes.
The term ‘ESOL’ also covers ESL, EFL etc.
We didn’t go into detail on levels, as they seem to be different in a lot of countries.
Activities for ESL students
a4esl.org
About the site: Students can use it without teacher supervision and monitor their
progress. It focuses on grammar, vocabulary, quizzes and proverbs. It has several levels
and students can access tests in a number of languages.
Who is it for? ESOL students
Auto English
www.autoenglish.org
About the site: Bob Wilson presents some short video lessons on some topics and on
basic grammar subjects - countable/uncountable, comparatives and so on. There are
worksheets available as reinforcement for students.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
BBC Learning English
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
About this site: This is an excellent self-study site with audio, video, lesson plans and
worksheets. It’s particularly good for pronunciation, idiomatic English and day-to-day
English for the workplace. It has up-to-date news and sports stories with reports from
around the world on a broad range of subjects. Tasks reinforce good learning strategies
for listening with good pre-task exercises.
Who is it for? ESOL students and practitioners
BBC Skillswise
www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise
About the site: This site covers reading, writing, listening, speaking, spelling and
grammar. There are lots of useful one minute videos on reading, writing and spelling tips
as well as worksheets and guides etc.
Who is it for? Adult literacy and numeracy students as well as ESOL practitioners and
students
Breaking News English
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/
About the site: There are reading exercises and breaking news stories on a large range of
subjects and themes, with good pre and post reading exercises. The site also offers
spelling exercises and tips, definitions and a dictionary etc.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
British Council – Teaching English
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/
About the site: This is a huge resource which is full of worksheets, lesson plans, resources
and tips for all aspects of ESOL. There is an automatic gap-fill exercise generator which is
easy to create and print off. There are a large range of articles on listening, speaking,
reading, writing, pronunciation, vocabulary, games and teaching resources. On the ‘Learn
English’ section of the site there’s a lot of video content with ‘real world English’ and
plenty of listening activities and exercises. There is also a mini soap opera ‘Big City, Small
World’ which gives learners a good audio experience of everyday English conversations
(UK) and scripts that can be printed off too.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
CAELA - Center for Adult English Language Acquisition (USA)
http://www.cal.org/caela/
About the site: Access to information, ESOL research, trends, promising practices and
resources. There is a newsletter which you can sign up for and users can submit
questions about teaching adult ESOL.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners
Cambridge ESOL
http://www.cambridgeesol.org/index.html
About the site: Students can go into the student zone, test their grammar and see the
corrections. A lot of the focus on this site is on Cambridge exams.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks
http://www.language.ca/display_page.asp
About the site: It has excellent resources and links for curriculum and assessment for
ESOL and ESOL literacy programmes in Canada as well as ESOL research and publications.
There are sections geared to newcomers to Canada, people thinking of moving to Canada
and people who need help with ESOL.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
ELL-U (National Adult English Language Learning Professional Development Network)
http://ell-u.org/
About the site: This site is an online portal for Adult ESOL teachers. It provides
practitioners with access to online professional development and learning opportunities.
Study circles on subjects such as working with low-literacy adults and supporting ESOL
learner persistence are also available.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners
Englisch Hilfen: Learning English Online
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/tenses/past_perfect_simple_past.htm
About the site: Online exercises with plenty of grammar explanations and exercises. You
can choose the English or German language version of this site.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
ESL Literacy Network
www.esl-literacy.com
About the site: Comprehensive website of resources from Alberta, Canada. This site has
excellent resources and toolboxes for those working with migrant learners and is strong
on ESOL literacy. One publication of interest from Val Miller describes a Reading Circle
she conducted with ESL Literacy faculty.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners
ESL PDF
http://eslpdf.com/
About the site: Free downloadable pdf exercises. Grammar and vocabulary worksheets
arranged by category.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
EU Speak
http:///www.eu-speak.org
About the site: The EU-Speak project is a partnership of universities and learning
establishments across the EU who run workshops to share best practice in second
language teaching and professional training of tutors and learners. The project is funded
by Grundtvig Lifelong Learning.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners
Island Voices - Guthan nan Eilean
http://guthan.wordpress.com/about/
About the site: Islands Voices holds over 150 online ESOL listening recordings (including
authentic speech interviews) and 75 video clips all CEFR-referenced (Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages), with transcripts and listed by theme and
language content in 4 online PDF catalogues. The documentary clips give a plain language
introduction to a topic or event and are complemented with more challenging authentic
speech interviews. The site offers plenty of interesting snapshots of island life.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
LESLLA (Low Educated Second Language and Literacy Acquisition) for Adults
http://www.leslla.org/teacher_resources.htm
About the site: LESLLA (Low Educated Second Language and Literacy Acquisition) is an
international forum of researchers who share an interest in research on the development
of second language skills by adult immigrants with little or no schooling prior to entering
a new country. This multi-target language group share best practice and results of studies
of effective methods of language acquisition and literacy instruction. See their site to find
out how to participate in the discussion groups or attend their annual conference.
Who is it for? ESOL literacy practitioners, researchers, linguists and psychologists
London Online
www.talent.ac.uk/londononline/welcome/home/index.htm
About the site: This has plenty of excellent virtual activities on it. Shopping at the market
is a good one for low levels. Students can operate a lift and put the right change in a
shopkeeper’s hand. The themes, such as friends, food and drink and neighbourhood are
very topical and there are virtual activities on every theme covered. There are teacher’s
notes accompanying each unit.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
MALP (Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm)
http://malpeducation.com/
About the site: Outlines the MALP, provides access to numerous publications,
powerpoint presentations, and a teacher wiki all concerning teaching students with
limited or interrupted formal schooling.
Who is it for? ESOL literacy practitioners
Memrise
www.memrise.com
About the site: Vocabulary learning site with resource for reinforcing vocabulary learning
techniques. Uses mnemonics and reminds learners to frequently review.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
Minnesota Literacy Council
http://online.themlc.org
About the site: Free online training course “Literacy Level ESL Instruction” (as well as
many others) appropriate for new teachers and volunteers.
Who is it for? Adult ESL tutors in Minnesota
Additional resources for ESL literacy practitioners and students here:
http://www.mnliteracy.org/tools/technology-mini-grant-curriculum
Multilingual Minnesota
www.multilingualminnesota.org
About the site: Click on ‘For Teachers of Low-literate Adult ESL’, then ‘Teacher
Resources’. There’s a compilation of readings for teachers, recommended books,
information about balanced literacy instruction etc.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners
NCSALL (National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy)
http://ncsall.net/?id=1176
About the site: Publications, research reports, videos and teaching and training materials
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners
One Stop English: ESOL
http://www.onestopenglish.com/esol/
About the site: This site contains a lot of tutor resources and advice. It has a
comprehensive selection of resources for all skills and all levels. There is a range of
beginner lesson plans and tips for teaching grammar as well as a comprehensive ESOL
support section with a piece on how to integrate IT into ESOL classes. Students and
practitioners need to register to use, but it’s free.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
Quick and Dirty Tips (for learning English!)
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/
About the site: Good explanations, a lot of grammar tips and a funny piece on ‘how to
speak English like the Irish’.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
SAFIR English – English and Working Life for Beginners (The Swedish Agency for Flexible
Learning)
http://www.larcentrum.org/Safir/english/index.htm
About the site: Basic English Language course which covers all aspects from listening to
grammar, phonetics and the basics including numbers and greetings. Learners can also
use this site on their own.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
Simply Cracking Good Stories
http://www.simplycrackinggoodstories.wordpress.com
About the site: This site came about from a project from Newcastle University (UK) to
create engaging and accessible stories for ESOL students with basic reading skills. They do
this through running workshops, training non-writers and publishing high quality, simple
stories.
Who is it for? ESOL students and practitioners
Skills workshop
www.skillsworkshop.org
About the site: Plenty of resources for lower levels, especially ESOL students with literacy
issues. There are practical task-based worksheets with reading, writing and speaking.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners and students
TALENT (Training adult literacy, ESOL and numeracy teachers - UK)
www.talent.ac.uk
About the site: Materials and resources for ESOL, literacy, numeracy and family learning,
as well as information on initial tutor training (ITT) in the UK.
Who is it for? ESOL practitioners
Write On (NALA, Ireland)
www.writeon.ie
About the site: Write On is a free online e-learning site that offers learning and
accreditation options in reading, writing, numeracy, ICT and personal development.
There are hundreds of free resources in the form of videos and downloadable
worksheets at resources.writeon.ie to complement the interactive content.
Who is it for? The site is for people who want to improve their basic literacy skills and
ESOL learners who want to work on their own or learners who want to combine using
Write On with other learning activities or situations such as working with a tutor.
ESOL research discussion list
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ESOL-Research
Email discussion list which is active on ESOL topics. UK interest mainly, but keen to
promote discussion of ESOL internationally. Currently there are just over 700 subscribers,
and around 10 - 20 messages a week. People can subscribe from the homepage, or can
send James Simpson (University of Leeds) an email at:
J.E.B.Simpson@education.leeds.ac.uk and James will sign you up.