19 Best ESL Websites for Teachers (Free and Paid)

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ESL websites are a great way for teachers to find resources and connect with other professionals in their field. While there are many paid ESL websites available, there are also plenty of free ones that offer good value.

Need to find the best resources to make teaching English a breeze? Teaching ESL has never been easier with the internet’s readily available lessons, worksheets, and slides. By the end of this article, you will know the best websites to find material for English language learners.

First and foremost, most teachers would like to know where to get lesson material they can use on a commercial basis for their classes. For private tutoring, I use Abridge Academy to teach young learners. They also have a great course for finding high-paying private students in China.

Our Pick

Best Courses For ESL Teachers: Abridge Academy

Abridge Academy offers digital lesson slides for kids and a Teaching in China course to help find private students overseas. With teachers reportedly earning $50 per hour or more tutoring English to Chinese students online, you can charge the rate you deserve! Read our interview with the cofounder, or click the button below to dive right in.

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The best part about their courses? You can immediately begin finding students with their proven roadmap! You won’t need to rely on teaching jobs and can work independently on your own schedule!

Ready to learn about other excellent resources available to teachers? There are so many websites to choose from, and you may find one suitable for your learners’ needs and goals.

Best ESL Websites

These ESL websites for teachers are useful for homework, lesson, and game ideas. It will cut your teaching preparation in half!

1.  ISL Collective (islcollective.com)

ISL Collective is stocked with free English ESL worksheets, activities, and video lessons, making it one of the best ESL websites for teachers. You can search their bank of resources for virtually any topic.

You can even make your own video quiz from a YouTube video. Enter the Youtube Video URL, and ISL Collective will automatically pull up questions for every learner level.

ISL Collective is one you should check out. When I worked at Dada, I had to assign homework for each student. I find a lot of my homework worksheets from ISL Collective. However, some of these worksheets contain mistakes, so you must double-check everything before handing them out to your students.

2. ESL Printables (eslprintables.com)

ESL Printables operates on a “quid pro quo” arrangement. You upload and share your own materials, and in return, you can download other teachers’ materials. You can easily sort through content according to your needs. Sort by level, age, and type of material.

They have every kind of teacher resource, from articles to activity cards to flip charts. ESL Printables are a fantastic resource for sharing and contributing your work.

3. Crystal Clear English (esl-curriculum.com)

If you find the other websites are incomplete, Crystal Clear English is a new website that may be right up your alley. Crystal Clear English is new and innovatively designed for freelance online teachers. Each curriculum costs about $10 per month to access and comes with a 14-day free trial.

Crystal Clear English takes out all of the guesswork when it comes to lesson planning by building a well-laid-out curriculum. While this is a new website, they continually add material and build the curriculum. They currently have lessons for kids (up to CEFR B1), Business English Curriculum, Speak Like a Native Curriculum, IELTS Preparation Curriculum, and more.

4. Elllo (ELLLO.ORG)

Elllo is an ESL website with a variety of audio material, scripts, vocabulary, and speaking exercises for both teachers and students. It filters by ESL level, student country, topic, games, and news to help find the right content quickly. Elllo also provides a “Teacher Tips” page, which explains different ways to use it in class or assign it as homework. A special section dedicated to beginner students can be used by teachers looking for new materials.

You may also be interested in: Excellent ESL Icebreaker Activities

5. Breaking News English (breakingnewsenglish.com)

This site is perfect for just that– news. The difference between this and looking up regular news sites is that you can find news stories according to the level you are teaching. There are seven levels, from elementary to advanced. News stories have audio and reading versions.

They even provide printable exercises, comprehension questions, and more. You can find up-to-date and relevant news on the site as they are constantly adding more stories.

For English Language Teachers or Those Looking to Get Started…

Teacher tips, new teacher checklist, teacher planner, and notes. Subscribe for ESL News, jobs, and more!

Learn more here

6. Learner’s Dictionary (learnersdictionary.com)

The online dictionary will provide clear and concise definitions for ESL learners. Simply type in a word, and you will see a definition of how to say it and an example sentence. No more hemming and hawing when you are trying to explain something! 

7. ESL Games Plus (eslgamesplus.com)

These are fun, educational games designed for kids and teenagers. It teaches a variety of topics, such as specific grammar points, sentence structures, phonics, and more. This is a good way to reinforce learning points or help students learn in a fun way. 

Games are an arguably important part of lessons as it keeps students engaged.

If you are looking for more games to play online, I suggest checking out our post: 27 Free and Fun Online ESL Games.

8. ESL Video (eslvideo.com)

ESL Video is a site that has interesting and popular videos from YouTube, TV shows and movies. The videos are a couple of minutes long each. They also come with a transcript, quiz, exercises and notes.

While you can surf YouTube to find videos yourself, the videos at ESL Video are broken down into different levels, from beginner (A1) to advanced (C1). It is a perfect way to find the appropriate video for your student. There are many interesting subjects to discuss.

The site also features some PowerPoint lessons, songs, and other free worksheets.

9. Google Images (google.com)

Harnessing the power of search, Google Images is great for quickly exploring a range of worksheets across the web.

If you type in the topic here and add ESL at the end of your search, for example, “the beach + ESL”  you will find lots of potential worksheets or lessons to use. You can use Google Images to sort through the available worksheets from various sites quickly.

10. Free English Lesson Plans (freeenglishlessonplans.com)

Tim, a British English teacher living in Spain, created Free English Lesson Plans. He created this website to give back to the community by providing free lesson plans and activities.

He asks you to share a link to his website in return for using his lesson materials.

11. Onestopenglish (onestopenglish.com)

Onestopenglish claims to be the number one resource site for English language teachers.

It deserves mention, with over 9000 resources and more than 700000 registered users. This site includes flashcards, workshops, worksheets, audio and video. You can sort material by children, teenagers, and adults. It covers business, exams, and more. The yearly subscription is $28.

12. Oxford Owl (home.oxfordowl.co.uk)

Oxford Owl has many free, high-quality e-book resources for kids. Enjoy reading the Biff, Chip and Kipper series or their leveled phonic books. You might also enjoy their writing section or their other printable activities.

You may also be interested in: Best Free ESL Worksheets for Kids

13. Twinkl (twinkl.co.uk)

Twinkl Education Publishing supports the global teaching community with teacher-created resources ranging from entire schemes of work, lesson planning, and assessment to educational games, augmented reality, and much more. With over 525,000 resources available to download, new content is added every day.

14. ESL Pals (eslpals.com)

ESL Pals is a new website with a range of lessons for all learners, from kids to adults. I got to try some of their free lessons with my older students, and I was happy with the quality. I liked the style of the lessons and there was a lot to learn in each lesson!

ESL Pals has many lessons to browse through. You could start with their free lessons first to see if they interest you!

15. Learnaling (teach.learnaling.com)

I heard about Learnaling through a teacher’s Facebook group, and it seems like it is gaining some popularity. Learnaling is a curriculum-based site for online teachers with lessons for aged 5-12. The lessons are interactive and 20-30 minutes long. They are loosely based on the CEFR scale. This is quite a new site. There are currently 200 lessons, and 4-6 new lessons are being created each week. Get the first month free, and it’s $16 thereafter.

16. ESL Library (ellii.com)

I used ESL Library for a short time and found it was good for supplemental material. You can search the ESL library for lesson resources, flashcards or blog posts. They have more than 1000 lessons, 3000 flashcards, and 200 other resources.

You can save lessons and plan ahead of time with the ESL lesson plan calendar. You can access most of the learning material for $11 per month.

17. Teachers Pay Teachers (teacherspayteachers.com)

Teachers Pay Teachers is a great site to find educational resources produced by other teachers. You can find resources on any subject, from language learning to music to seasonal holidays.

You can find all kinds of resources and lesson plans on Teachers Pay Teachers. Everything is pretty affordable, and you can sort by reviews. 

18. ESL Expat (eslexpat.com)

ESL Expat is perfect for the traveling teacher. It features jobs, activities, and blogs for teachers.

Their site has lots of materials suitable for teaching abroad, including fun games and activities.

They have a blog dedicated to teachers. Read teachers’ stories about teaching English in different countries, help, tips, and advice. You can also find a job teaching abroad.

19. Boggles World ESL (bogglesworldesl.com)

Boggles World ESL is suitable for both adults and children. You can find entire lesson plans, games, and activities.

It has an “Ask Thomas” section discussing answers to common English questions and rules. It provides instructions to show you how to teach tricky lessons such as grammar. 

While the website looks old and overwhelming to get around at first, it has some high-quality worksheets. I particularly like their phonics resources section, such as the digraphs. I think the resources are pretty good, considering they are free.

Conclusion

That’s it! Hope you enjoyed these best ESL websites for teachers. These websites are great resources for your teaching career. Teach English with an online company! Check out our jobs here. 

Looking for Even more Resources?

• Free Games to Play with ESL Students
• Best Websites for Teaching Grammar

Caitriona Maria

Education writer at TPR Teaching | https://www.tprteaching.com

Caitriona Maria is an education writer and founder of TPR Teaching, crafting inspiring pieces that promote the importance of developing new skills. For 7 years, she has been committed to providing students with the best learning opportunities possible, both domestically and abroad. Dedicated to unlocking students' potential, Caitriona has taught English in several countries and continues to explore new cultures through her travels.