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Talkenglish

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Listening is an important part of communication. If you do not understand what the other person is saying, then you will not know how to respond. This section was created to give students daily practice on listening.

In this English listening section, students can constantly listen to the audio files provided here. There is also question and answers to allow students to gauge how they are doing.

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English Listening - Listening lessons ESL students with audio files and fun questions

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Listening is an important part of communication. If you do not understand what the other person is saying, then you will not know how to respond. This section was created to give students daily practice on listening. In this English listening section, students can constantly listen to the audio files provided here.

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фонетические упражнения

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интонация и ритм

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Useful English: Practice for Intonation and Rhythm

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Additional phonetic exercises for practicing intonation and rhythm in simple, short sentences. Дополнительные фонетические упражнения для отработки интонации и ритма в простых, коротких предложениях.

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How good to lie a little while And look up through the tree! The Sky is like a kind big smile Bent sweetly over me. The Sunshine flickers through the lace Of leaves above my head, Abbie Farwell Brown

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A Little Poem for Poetry Month
by Jack Prelutsky

I'm glad we have a Poetry Month,
But still, I wonder why
They chose a month with thirty days -
Were months in short supply?
I wish that they'd selected
A longer month, like May.
I'm certain I'd appreciate
That extra poetry day.

Of course, if they'd picked February,
I would be aghast,
For February's very short
And passes far too fast.
But April's not as short as that,
So I don't hesitate
To say I'm glad it's Poetry Month.
Hooray! Let's celebrate.

Poetry All-Year Round

Even though poetry gets a lot of attention during Poetry Monty in April (as it should), it is fun to teach any time of year! I must admit that I am drawn to fiction, and teaching poetry seemed daunting at first; but I have discovered the joy of poetry while exploring it with my English language learners, and my students have been very enthusiastic about our poetry units. Here are some of the reasons why I've enjoyed teaching poetry so much with my ELLs:

Versatility

Poetry is so versatile, which makes it a great form to use in the ELL classroom. There are so many types of poetry and so many different forms that eventually, each student is bound to find a poem or poet he or she enjoys!

Language

Poems can be used to introduce or practice new vocabulary, language structures, and rhyming devices, and shorter poems often give ELLs a chance to explore an idea while working with a more manageable amount of text than a short story or essay.

Culture

In addition, many ELLs come from cultural backgrounds rich with poetry and folktales. From the epic poems of ancient civilizations to more modern political poems written during the 20th century, poetry opens an interesting historical and cultural window, and students may already be quite knowledgeable about the poets and poems that are an important part of their heritage.

Introducing ELLs to Poetry

Take a look at these different perspectives on reading and writing poetry from some of our favorite poets!

Poetry offers wonderful opportunities for reading, writing, speaking, and listening practice for ELLs. Poetry also gives students a chance to expand vocabulary knowledge, to play with language, and to work with different rhythms and rhyme patterns. The benefits of using poetry are not simply anecdotal, however - they have been well documented. Research by Dr. Janette Hughes at the University of Ontario, for example, demonstrates the positive effects of poetry on literacy development. As Dr. Hughes points out, "paying attention to vocabulary and rhythm develops oral language skills," (Hughes, 2007, p. 1) and the development of oral language skills has a strong correlation to proficiency in reading.

Where to begin, then, as you consider how to begin a unit on poetry? Here are some ideas to get you started:

Draw on students' background knowledge

It may be helpful to start your poetry instruction by finding out what kinds of experiences your students have had with poetry. Do students know poems in their native language? Is there a particular poem from their country or heritage that they like? Would they be willing to share a translation? Who are the famous poets from their country? Have students written poems before? Was it in English or their native language? Did student enjoy writing poetry?

Getting students to think about poems they are familiar with can help make the transition into English-language poetry smoother. You may also wish to have students look at bilingual collections of poetry in English and their native language when available, such as many of the titles in Colorín Colorado's Poems for Everyone booklist. How do the translations of the same poem compare? Are there words or phrases that don't translate well from one langue to the other?

Working with poetry from different countries and languages also is an excellent opportunity to encourage students to share their cultural heritage with the class, and to take pride in an art form that is part of their identity and may have been passed down across many generations.

For example, Carol McCarthy, a teacher in Queens, NY has capitalized on her students' poetic heritages by creating a unit called Poetry in Translation, in which students "translate the work of poets from their native country or ethnic heritage, and then write and translate their own poems" (McCarthy, Academy of American Poets website). She offers a number of ideas for guiding students in their exploration of poetry from their own cultures, which then provides a foundation for the comparisons students do of poems from different cultures later in the unit.

Using Poetry in Reading Instruction

Familiarize students with different kinds of poems

Poetry can range from simple and fun to complicated and abstract, which may be one reason it is daunting for many teachers and students alike. Start by choosing simple poems that aren't too abstract or complex - you'll get to Shakespeare eventually! Depending on the English level of the students, there are a variety of ways to start bringing poetry in the classroom.

Talk about the differences between stories and poems. Provide students with a copy of a short story they've already read and a short poem. Ask them to work in groups and make a list of the differences between the two pieces, noting characteristics such as length or style. Have students share those differences with the class.

Start with poems that are manageable. Make sure the poems you present first have simple and familiar language, images, and themes so that they are accessible to ELLs. One ESL teacher recommends using poetry with "predictable language patterns, repeated words, phrases, lines, and identifiable rhymes" so that they are easier for students to read (Alpha, 2009).

Give students a chance to illustrate poems. Have students work in pairs to discuss and illustrate a short poem, or one or two lines of a longer poem. This will encourage them to think about meaning, and then express their interpretation in their own way. Ask students to share their illustrations with the class so that everyone has a chance to think about the different meanings that their classmates discovered.

Read a variety of poems out loud. Reading a poem out loud brings it to life. Students will begin to understand and notice different rhythms, rhymes, and feelings represented, as well as understand how the language creates an image or mood. The poem should be read in a natural voice, and the teacher can highlight the fact that you do not always stop at the end of each line, but instead use the poem's punctuation as a cue to where the pauses should be.

Be sure to include some poems written for kids and young adults. Children's poetry can be so much fun, and it also gives students a chance to talk about important ideas and feelings. For younger readers, you may want to introduce them to Jack Prelutsky (the first Children's Poet Laureate), Shel Silverstein, or Nikki Giovanni. If you're looking for poets whose work that might resonate with ELLs, check out Francisco X. Alarcón, Pat Mora, Naomi Shihab Nye, Rene Saldana, Jr., and Janet Wong. Older students may appreciate the work of poets such as Nikki Grimes and Billy Collins, as well as these video interviews with poets from PBS Teachers.

Discuss the vocabulary used in different poems. Poems offer a wonderful opportunity to teach new vocabulary related to a topic or idea, as well as a chance to think about language. Why did the poet choose a certain word? How does that word make you feel? What kind of sound does the word convey? Students may want to pick a word or phrase that is meaningful from a poem and write it on a "poetic word" wall - sort of a graffiti wall of sentiments. Students can continue to add to the wall as they discover new items, or even as they write their own poems. Another idea is to use a bubble Thinking Map®. Students working in pairs take a word of interest from a poem and place it in the center bubble. They then fill in as many bubbles around the word with as they can with synonyms or related words. For example, if the word is "longing," students may write words in other bubbles such as, "missing, nostalgic, sorrow, homesick, desire, etc." Students can discuss how the poem would be different if one of the other words had been used. Pairs can share their word lists with other students and ask questions about new words they learn.

Give students a chance to read poems out loud together as a class and to each other. Reading poems out loud will improve students' confidence and oral language skills, as well as their reading fluency. See more ideas below.

Look for opportunities to include poetry in other contexts. There is a wide variety of poems that can accompany social studies, history, science, and even math lessons! Poems are also wonderful additions to a discussion on culture and holidays.

Encourage students to immerse themselves in poetry

As students' comfort level increases, it will be possible to begin more in-depth conversations about different poetry forms, meaning, and language. Here are some ideas for more advanced students:

Use graphic organizers. These tools can be helpful when talking about a poem's structure or rhyming scheme so that students can reinforce their knowledge about the poetry form and meaning.

Discuss grammatical/syntax patterns found in poems. Poems may have unusual sentence structures that students will not encounter in prose text. Analyzing such sentences can help ELLs develop a better understanding of conventional English syntax.

Continue reading poetry out loud to your students. When introducing more complex poems with increasingly difficult English vocabulary, read the poem through and ask students for an initial impression regarding the meaning of the poem. A student might say, "I think it's about someone who lost someone theylove." This can begin a discussion with questions such as, "Why do you think that? Is there a certain word or phrase that makes you think that? Does someone else have a different idea?"

Encourage students to share their personal interpretations. Students will soon see that each reader finds a different meaning in the poem, and that's ok. Students shouldn't be bogged down looking for the right and wrong answers.

Using Poetry to Develop Oral Language Skills

Give students the chance to read poems out loud

Reading poetry aloud is a great way for ELLs to practice pronunciation and fluency, as well as a chance for students to play with rhymes and language.

In order to increase confidence and fluency, have students start by reading some poems together as a class. Then have students choose a poem that they enjoy and then practice reading their poems aloud in pairs, experimenting with expression, volume, and speed. After students have had time to practice, listen in and offer some feedback on expression and pronunciation. Once students have one more round of practice, ask students to share their poems aloud with the class.

Poems can make wonderful class presentations, whether students read different poems from a collection aloud, act out a longer dramatic poem, or take turns reading a rhyming text. Here are some poetry theater ideas from PoetryTeachers.com. Andrea Spillett, an ELL teacher who blogs for Scholastic, describes a program in which students presented poems from Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak to their parents: "The book has a rhyming text about the months of the year. Students recited the poem of the month they were born. Simple costumes and a backdrop were used for the presentation" (Spillett, 2008). This demonstrates that poetry doesn't have to be complicated to be effective - even simple poems can be engaging!

There are many resources online that offer ideas for using poetry in the classroom - those listed in the Hotlinks section below are just the tip of the iceberg. I hope you enjoy your exploration of poetry as much as I have enjoyed mine. Once you get going, you'll wonder why it took you so long to get started!

Hot links
Poetry: A Powerful Medium for Literacy and Technology Development
Research article on the positive effects of poetry on literacy skill development by Dr. Janette Hughes of the University of Ontario's Institute of Technology.
Education World: Poetry Month Resources
These resources include a wide variety of lesson plans, activities, and ideas for teaching poetry.
Academy of American Poets: Tips for Teaching Poetry
Here are a number of creative and inexpensive suggestions for making poetry a more important part of school life throughout the year.
Reading Rockets: National Poetry Month Resources
Reading Rockets has gathered together activities for parents and teachers, video interviews with our favorite children's poets, recommended books and anthologies, fun online games (check out Magnetic Poetry), and a peek at the latest poetry for kids!
Academy of American Poets: Poetry in Translation
This poetry unit created by Queens teacher Carol McCarthy draws on the unique abilities of the students in her multicultural classroom.
Academy of American Poets: Great Poems to Teach
Includes links to poetry from many poets including, Maya Angelou, Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson, and William Wordsworth.
Academy of American Poets: National Poetry Month
Provides a description of National Poetry Month, answers questions about how and when it started, and includes suggestions for celebrating.
Academy of American Poets: 30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month
Includes links to creative ideas like "putting poetry in unexpected places" and "take a poem to lunch."
Poetry Portfolios: Using Poetry to Teach Reading and Writing
This lesson from ReadWriteThink supports students' exploration of language and writing skills as they read and dissect poetry. Through a weekly poem, students explore meaning, sentence structure, rhyming words, sight words, vocabulary, and print concepts. (Appropriate for elementary, but some strategies can be adapted for older ELLs.)
ReadWriteThink: World Poetry Day Activities
A wide range of lesson plans, poetry collections, and student activities.
EdSitement: Poetry Lesson Plans
Lesson plans covering a wide range of poetry units, from Langston Hughes to Haiku.
TeacherVision: Poetry Resources for Teachers
A variety of printables, lesson plans, activities, and references for you to use in your cross-curricular study of the art of poetry.
PBS Learning Media: Poetry and Poets
Poetry lesson plans, including numerous video interviews with contemporary poets from around the world.

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Introducing and Reading Poetry with English Language Learners

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A Little Poem for Poetry Month by Jack Prelutsky I'm glad we have a Poetry Month,But still, I wonder whyThey chose a month with thirty days -Were months in short supply?I wish that they'd selectedA longer month, like May.I'm certain I'd appreciateThat extra poetry day.

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Clotilde

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ESL Kids lesson plans, flashcards, worksheets, songs, classroom readers, crafts & games

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ESL kids resources for English teachers. Printable lesson plans, flashcards, worksheets, classroom readers, songs, games, clip art images, crafts and more.

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The Original and Best Mini Drywipe Boards | Show-me Boards

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Welcome to the home of Show-me boards, where you can buy, learn about and comment on Britain's most popular teaching aid. Mini whiteboards and child size drywipe pens are so simple and so effective.

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recommended by Mireille Baurens

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Jobs, Worksheets, and Flashcards for the ESL and TEFL Teacher.

Find Science Worksheets and Teaching Resources at www.science-teachers.com

Halloween Flashcards

Amounts and Containers
Superhero Flashcards

The continents and oceans card game. Good content-based ESL for practising present perfect and simple past as well as geography terms.
Clothes Flashcards History Worksheets and Teaching Resources at www.littlehistorians.com.

Site Search

Glossary of ESL terms

Snowflakes are beautiful!

Phonics Resources

CVC Words

Consonant Digraphs

Long Vowels

Introduction: Young Learner Worksheets:

Basic ESL worksheets for K7 young learners . This section has been much expanded with over one hundred units of young learners' teaching materials.

Seasonal Links:

Fall Worksheets

Teach autumn vocabulary with these fall worksheets and activities. Also, check out the fall teaching resources for young learners, the fall bingo, and fall super quiz game.

Halloween Worksheets

There are a number of Halloween worksheets and activities including Halloween bingo, Halloween flashcards, Halloween videos, and the Halloween super quiz game. There is also a Halloween young learners unit.

new! Super Quiz Game

Generate quiz games for your class with the new Super Quiz Game generators.

Get your students ready to interact with coworkers in the worplace with these Workplace Interactions
workplace listening, reading, and vocabulary selections.

new! Listening Selections

Practise listening with beginner, intermediate, and advanced listening dialogues.

new! Vocabulary Video Presentations

There are a number of vocabulary video presentations on topics such as the season, cooking verbs, and places in a city.

Content Questions

Board Game

An excellent communicative activity with extensive support materials for teaching kids. In the Content Questions Board Game game kids answer content questions like What do seeds need to grow?

Word Skills Game

Rhyming Riddles

This section contains rhyming riddle worksheets that can be used as fun vocabulary review and rhyme awareness exercises. Now there are also anagram riddles, homophone riddles, and word morph riddles as well.
Proverbs Communication Activity I need a Ticket to Osaka, Japan? Frog Life Cycle Worksheets Can I Bug You for a Sec?
A solving a puzzle. A good classroom English role-play as students use language to talk role-play where students ask for help about words.
Reporting Changes Can I take a message? Telephone English
Students practice taking and leaving message with this telephone English role-play . There is also a business English version .
Giving Directions
A role-play to practice asking someone out to dinner and giving directions to the restaurant. Also, Giving directions II: directions by subway or bus route . And finally, giving directions III: directions by roadmap and suggesting somewhere to go .
Movie Lessons!
Two great activities with worksheets, role-plays, and activities for teaching ESL for movies.
I'm Calling about the Apartment? Little Letter Tracing Worksheets: A Visit to the Doctor Role-play How Much Is It? Short Conversation Resources Teaching Effective Communication Through Graded Reading Materials TEFL Grapevine Grammar Soccer: Reported Speech: Traveling Among Monsters Language Enrichment:
The Biggleborians: This worksheet combines anthropology and ESL. Useful for teaching the present progressive and the past.
Irregular Past Tense Verbs Food Chain Worksheets:

Word Skills Cloze Activties

This section contains worksheet generators for reviewing word skills such as synonyms, antonyms, categories, past tense, and naming.

Large Flashcards

We've collected all of our large flashcard sets into one section.

Job Fair: A Role-play
Easy ESL Crosswords
A collection of ESL crosswords put together by Lanternfish ESL:

English Vocabulary Games
A collection of games and vocabulary activities on a variety of themes put together by Lanternfish ESL for advanced beginner to intermediate students:

Teaching Relative Clauses with Massive Comprehensible Input
This section contains 20 crosswords made using a database of clues in the form of relative clauses. There is also a new collection with word skills crosswords.
Describing and Captioning Pictures
A great activity for sentence level speaking and writing. Students describe a picture in as many sentences as they can. There is also a section for young learners now. And now there is a spot the difference section and story questions worksheets.
Initial Sounds and Final Sounds Phonics Worksheets
Over 30 new worksheets that cover the initial sounds of words . There are also some newly added Final Sounds Worksheets . Also check out the phonics monsters .
Alphabet Worksheets
A collection of alphabet worksheets including alphabet mazes , alphabet trains , and big letter coloring worksheets and small letter tracing sheets .
Reading Puzzle Packets Juicy Baek: ESL Surveys: Telephone Language: Superlatives Communication Activity The ESL Science Center:
A with science articles geared towards monthly web magazine ESL learners. This month: Reptiles, Amphibians, Science, Scientists, and Anthropology.

Writers Workshop:

T he workshop has moved. Lessons on Weighing an Argument, Building an Argument, and Refuting an Argument.
Preposition Cards:
G hosts, trolls, and aliens are in the house.Check out the Preposition Flashcards.
Hypothetically Speaking Game: Web Guide Other Resources?
T he Dolch Sight Words teaching materials are new. As well as the Phrasal Verb Crosswords . The Harry Potter Worksheets .
ESL Business Activities: ESL Game Boards:
Dozens of Printable Game boards for communicative classes.
Holiday Worksheets Information Gap Exercises Conversation Question Prompts
Learn forest animal names and the conjunction 'and' with this Bingo Game . Now, there are many new bingo games with bingo card generators with topics such as birds, animals, kitchen objects, shapes and colors .
City Worksheets:
Activities and worksheets with a city theme .

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ESL Teacher Resources, Job Boards, and Worksheets

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Worksheets, jobs, flashcards, lesson plans, and activities for teaching ESL and EFL

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Site recommended by Tom at Ecolint

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Learn English with our Free Online Grammar Exercises, Reference

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ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 30 minutes
Here is an amusing speaking game to help students practice past simple affirmative sentences as well as past simple regular and irregular verbs. In the activity, students play a board game where they make excuses for arriving to class late. The class is divided into groups of four and each group is given a copy of the game board and a set of excuse cards. When a student lands on a square marked 'Sorry I'm late', the student picks up an excuse card and changes the sentence in to its past simple form to make an excuse for being late, e.g. 'Sorry I'm late. I missed the bus'. If the sentence is formed correctly, the student stays on the square. If it is incorrect, the student must move back to their previous square. The first student to arrive at class wins the game. Play continues until most or all of the students have arrived at class.

How was your weekend?
ESL EFL Lesson - Elementary - 50 minutes
This engaging three-page lesson teaches students how to use the past simple tense to talk about what they did at the weekend. The lesson also introduces students to small talk techniques such as expressing interest and keeping a conversation going. Students begin by putting words into the correct order to form past simple questions about weekend activities. Students then match the correct reply to each question. After that, the students focus on how to express interest in a conversation. The students read brief dialogues and choose the most suitable answer that indicates interest in the conversation. Then, the students complete a dialogue that shows them how to keep a conversation going. Finally, the students break into pairs and create their own past simple conversation about what they did at the weekend. The conversations are then presented to the class.

Gone in 30 Seconds - Board Game
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 30 minutes
This entertaining board game helps students to utilize their knowledge of the past simple to talk about a variety of everyday topics. Students take it in turns to roll the dice and move their counter along the board. When a student lands on a square, they have to talk about the topic on the square in the past simple tense for 30 seconds without stopping. If a student can't think of anything to say, makes a grammar mistake, or stops talking before the 30 seconds are up, they have to move back to their previous square. The first student to reach the finish wins the game.
ESL EFL Reading and Writing Activity - Elementary - 30 minutes
In this fun worksheet activity, students create a story about a holiday romance by inventing answers to questions and writing them down. The grammar focus is on past simple affirmative sentences as well as past simple regular and irregular verbs. Students sit in a circle in groups of five or six. Each student is given a copy of the worksheet. The students answer the first question on their worksheet by inventing details and writing the answer down in the form of a past simple sentence. After that, the students fold the paper and pass it to the person on their right who answers the next question. This continues until all the questions have been completed. When everyone has finished writing, students take it in turns to read their stories to the group and the group chooses the best one. These are then read aloud to the class and the class votes for the best story.

In the Past
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 25 minutes
Here is a challenging game to help students practice past simple affirmative sentences and sentence formation. Each group of four is given a set of time expression cards and verb cards. The time expression cards are placed face down in a pile and the verb cards are dealt out equally between the players. Players take it in turns to turn over a time expression card from the pile and make a true past simple affirmative sentence using one of the verbs on their cards and the time expression. If the player constructs a believable past simple sentence, which is agreed on by the other students to be true, the player may discard the verb card. If the other students think the sentence can't be true, or if the sentence is grammatically incorrect, they challenge the player, and he or she has to keep the verb card. The aim of the game is to be the first player to get rid of all their verb cards. The game is quite easy at first because there is a choice of verbs, but it becomes more challenging to make a meaningful sentence as the game progresses.
ESL EFL Reading and Writing Activity - Elementary - 30 minutes
In this worksheet activity, students read a text about 'Mark the Jogger'. Students then complete past simple affirmative and negative sentences about the text. Each student is given a copy of the worksheet. The students read a text about Mark's typical working day. The students then pretend that yesterday was a typical day for Mark and complete past simple affirmative and negative sentences about what he did and didn't do. They do this by changing the verbs in the text into their past simple form and using them in the sentences. When the students have finished, the answers are checked with the class. Students then write a short paragraph about what they did yesterday in the past simple tense. Finally, students read their paragraphs to the class and feedback is given.

Present to Past Board Game
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 25 minutes
This enjoyable board game teaches students how to make past simple affirmative sentences with time expressions. Students also practice changing regular and irregular verbs into their past simple form. Students take it in turns to roll the dice and move their counter along the board. When a student lands on a square, they make a past simple affirmative sentence with the time expression and words in the square. If a student forms the sentence correctly, they stay on the square. If a student makes a grammar mistake, they must go back to their previous square. The first student to reach the finish wins the game.

Restart
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 25 minutes
This fun card game helps students to talk about various routine actions and activities in the past using past simple affirmative sentences. In the activity, students play a past simple card game where they talk about what they did yesterday using picture cards. The class is divided into groups of four. Each group is given a set of picture cards, which they shuffle and deal out evenly. One student goes first and lays down a picture card. The student then makes a past simple affirmative sentence about the action shown on the card, e.g. Yesterday, I went cycling. The next student must now lay down either another 'I went...' card (e.g. Yesterday, I went shopping.) or a 'Restart' card which enables the student to change the verb into something else, e.g. Yesterday, I did my homework. This process continues until one of the students has laid down all their cards. That student wins the game. Students can play several rounds to practice talking about all the actions in the past simple.

True Lies
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 30 minutes
Here is an amusing guessing game that helps students practice past simple affirmative and negative statements, past simple questions, and regular and irregular verb forms. In the activity, students take it in turns to make true or false statements about things they did or didn't do in the past. Other students must then decide whether the student is telling the truth or not by asking past simple questions. The class is divided into groups of four and each group is given a set of time expression cards and verb cards. Students take it in turns to pick up a time expression card and a verb card. The student then makes an affirmative or negative past simple statement using the words on the cards. The other students in the group ask past simple questions to help them decide whether the student is telling the truth or not. After asking a few questions, the other students say if they think the student is telling the truth or lying. The student then reveals the answer. Students who guessed correctly win a point. Then, the next student picks up two cards and so on. This continues until all the cards have been used. The student with the highest number of points at the end of the game wins.

Who did the same?
ESL EFL Writing, Listening and Speaking Activity - Elementary - 35 minutes
In this rewarding worksheet activity, students complete past simple affirmative sentences with true information about what they did in the past. The students then try to find someone who did the same as them. Each student is given a copy of the worksheet. The students begin by completing the past simple affirmative sentences on their worksheet with true information about what they did in the past. Students also write one more true past simple sentence at the end. When the students have finished writing, they stand up and move around the class and try to find someone who did the same as them, e.g. 'A: I woke up at 7 o'clock this morning. What about you?' 'B: I woke up at 7 o'clock too.' If both students' answers are the same, the two students write each other's name in the 'Name' column next to the sentence. However, if their answers are different, neither student writes anything. When everyone has finished, students tell the class what they found out.
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 30 minutes
In this speaking game, teams work together to make a story using past simple affirmative and negative sentences. The class is divided into four teams. The teacher takes three word cards and writes them on the board. One student from the first team starts the story. The student can say anything, but he/she must use the past simple tense and keep talking until he/she uses one or more of the words on the board. For every word the student uses from the board, his/her team scores one point, so in any one turn a team can gain between one and three points. When the student has completed their turn, the used words are rubbed out and replaced. A member from the next team then plays and continues the story. The team with the highest score at the end of the game wins. If you think your students will be too shy to play this game in front of the class, they can play the game in small groups.

My Memories
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 30 minutes
In this insightful speaking activity, students use past simple affirmative and negative sentences to talk about various things they remember. This activity works best with older students or adults and is good for developing fluency. Students work in groups of three or four. Each group is given a set of topic cards. Students take it in turns to pick up a card from the top of the pile. The student who picks up the card then talks about the topic on the card for one or two minutes using past simple affirmative and negative sentences. The rest of the group asks the student questions to get him or her to speak more. Then, the next student takes a card and so on.

One Day...
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 30 minutes
This creative speaking activity gives students practice at using past simple affirmative and negative sentences to tell stories. This activity is similar to a chain game. Each group of four or five is given a set of introductory phrase cards. The students shuffle the cards and place them face down in a pile on the desk. One student begins by picking up a card from the pile. The student reads the introductory phrase on the card and completes it with their own idea to start off the story. Then, in turn, each member of the group continues adding to the story by saying a sentence in the past simple tense. The story is about the first student's introductory sentence so all of the following sentences must be based on his or her plot. When the story hits a dead end, the next student starts over with a new introductory phrase card and so on. This continues until all the cards have been used.

Sentence Building Race
ESL EFL Reading, Matching and Writing Activity - Pre-intermediate - 20 minutes
In this sentence-building activity, students race to make past simple affirmative and negative complex sentences. The students are split into pairs and given a set of cards. Each card contains a clause. Students race to make ten past simple complex sentences by joining three cards together. Students join the second clause to the first clause using the conjunction 'and'. Students add the third clause using 'but'. The third clause is negative. Students must write 'and' and 'but' in the spaces provided and lay the cards out on the table in the correct order. The first pair of students to complete all the sentences correctly wins.

MythBusters
ESL EFL Reading, Writing and Speaking Activity - Intermediate - 45 minutes
Here is an engaging past simple worksheet activity for intermediate students. In the activity, students complete statements with past simple regular and irregular verbs. The students then guess which statements are historical facts and which are myths. The class is divided into three groups (A, B, and C) and each student is given a corresponding worksheet. The students work together with the people in their group and complete ten statements by writing the regular and irregular verbs from the box on their worksheet into the sentences in their past simple form. When they have finished, each group's answers are checked. The class is then rearranged into teams of three, comprising of a Student A, B and C. The teams are told that each student's worksheet contains six historical facts and four myths. Their task is to read the statements together, discuss them, and decide which are historical facts and which are myths. When everyone has finished, teams give their answer for each statement in turn, justifying their response when possible. Teams score one point for each correct guess. The team with the highest score at the end of the game wins.

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Past Simple Affirmative and Negative - ESL EFL Activities, Games and WorksheetsExcuses Excuses Board GameESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 30 minutesHere is an amusing speaking game to help students practice past simple affirmative sentences as well as past simple regular and irregular verbs.

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Teacher who talked about PPP

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Past continuous games, worksheets, stories and songs

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About 35 pdfs and other teaching ideas for Past Progressive (was/ were + verb+ing). If you find anything useful here, please support TEFLtastic. Updated 8 January 2018 Related pages Narrative tenses main page (for worksheets mixing Past Continuous with Past Simple and/or Past Perfect) - NEW LINK Teaching Past Continuous articles 15 fun Past Continuous activities (with...

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British Council

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Here you can find a wide range of full lesson plans to use in your business English classroom. All of our lessons are designed around functional skills for business learners and can be used to complement your course curriculum, giving students an opportunity to develop their English language and skills in motivating and enjoyable ways. Written by business English language teaching experts from around the world, our lesson plans are easy to use and aim to give your students the skills and confidence they need to enjoy learning English.

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Here you can find a wide range of full lesson plans to use in your business English classroom. All of our lessons are designed around functional skills for business learners and can be used to complement your course curriculum, giving students an opportunity to develop their English language and skills in motivating and enjoyable ways.

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Teaching adults

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You are here

Find a range of complete lesson plans of all language levels for your adult English language classes.

In this section you will find activities to use in the Adult classroom with learners aged 18 and over.

Find a range of complete lesson plans for your business English language classes.

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Here you can find a wide range of practical resources to use in your adult and business classroom.There are full lesson plans to choose from, covering different topics and themes, all organised according to the levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR), as well as shorter activities to help your learners improve their English in engaging, motivating and enjoyable ways.All of our practical materials are written by experts in English Language Teaching and are free to download.

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(flash cards etc..)

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Welcome to MES English, Resources for Teachers of Young Learners. All of the resources are designed to be versatile and useful across a broad spectrum of ages and levels. This site hosts: , and other activities all ready for printing.

Flash Cards:

There are 2,000+ words depicted in flashcards. The vocabulary are provided in 100+ sets covering 60+ themes and I'm adding to them regularly. These are flashcards not clip art. Each flashcard set is ready to print and go with matching handouts, PowerPoint flashcard presentations, game cards and bingo cards. Plenty of cards for supplementing or designing your lesson plans.

Worksheets:

There are 2 options for MES Worksheets. You can create your own custom worksheets on Tools for Educators or you can use the ready-to-print worksheets here on MES English.

Tools for Educators is an MES site that hosts free, online worksheet applications and templates that let you make and print custom materials to suit your classroom. You can make spelling, reading, writing activities, crosswords, wordsearches, mazes and other classroom games using all of the images from MES.

Ready-to-Print Materials: A growing section of MES-English. There are talking worksheets, worksheets for introduction of grammar points, a phonics workbook series, award certificates, clipart to make your own worksheets, song sheets, nursery rhymes and chants cards, and vocabulary building worksheets to match the MES Flashcards.

Classroom Games:

There are 22 versatile, communicative games for the classroom available for printing and a list of 15+ other games to play. These games were designed to be flexible and useful across a broad range of target language and great care was put into making them fun, interesting and student centered. Many are great for one-on-one. You'll find Big Town, High Town, Eigomon, Bombs Away, Treasure Island, Spiders and Candy, Get Four, the Paper Game and more. The games were designed around the principle that if the game is just a grammar game, the students will bore quickly. Thus, the goals of these games are not "perfect English wins the game," but the students must communicate in the target language to accomplish their goal and win the game. In doing so you'll be surprised how many times they use the language and hopefully perfect/internalize it through repetition.

Phonics Resources:

MES has 2 options for phonics materials, MES Phonics and Fun Fonix.

MES Phonics has flash cards and handouts for presentation. There are alphabet cards, posters and materials to get you started on the right foot with your phonics curriculum.

Fun Fonix is a 6 part workbook series. The website also has worksheet makers you can use to create custom phonics worksheets and additional activities for your classroom needs.

Additional MES Resources:

MES English has quite a few other sections with materials or resources for English language teachers and LOTE teachers as well.

The MES Speaking First Curriculum is a curriculum designed to focus on speaking and fluency while building phonemic awareness and preparing students for study in a course book. It is a guide for the order and how to use all of the materials you can find through the MES sites.

The International Project Exchange: there are classroom projects that teachers can download, print the lesson plans, and print projects already completed by students from different countries around the world. Teachers complete the projects with their classes, and then share completed projects from around the world with their students.

MES Games is a website with online games for students to build vocabulary, practice listening, spelling, grammar and more!

123 Listening a website with many different audio downloads and many different worksheets that can be combined to make listening tests or listening exercises for various levels.

MES Coloring Section has free printable coloring pages for holidays, alphabet activities, numbers, and other themes from the MES vocabulary flashcards.

What is MES English

MES-English.com is a site containing actual resources, made by myself to be downloaded and used today. This page is not a collection of links to resources, with links to resources, with a collection of links to resources ... (which frustrated me enormously and forced me to make everything myself.) I will try to keep it short, to the point, and help you find what you're looking for fast. You do not have to register but an e-mail letting me know something worked well, was helpful, or with suggestions would be great.

Happy teaching - Mark

If you'd like to support MES-English, please consider making a donation:

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MES English - free printable resources for teachers

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Free Printables for Teachers - Free flashcards, worksheets, handouts and game cards to match, phonics materials, projects, games, and more all ready for download and printing.

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Free Online Crossword Puzzles. These online puzzles are for all ages and ability levels. They are certain to improve vocabulary and writing skills. Come learn English online with English Maven!

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ESL warm-up activities are essential in the English classroom. Students may be tired or have other things on their minds and diving straight into a textbook or grammar explanation can be quite jarring. With a good warmer you can put your students into English mode; attentive, interested and ready to participate. A warmer can also serve to review language from a previous lesson or prime the class for a new topic.

No-preparation ESL Warm-up activities

Here is a list of warm-up activities you can use which don't require any preparation. Most of them can, of course, also be used as filler activities if you find yourself a few minutes short at the end of the lesson.

Quick questions

Write a list of two or three questions on the board which introduce the theme of the lesson. For example, if you are going to talk about books, you could write: What's your favourite book? What was the last book you read? What kind of books do you prefer? etc. Give the students 5-10 minutes to discuss the questions and then have students report back to the class.

If you're looking for ideas for conversation questions, check out our book 50 Conversation classes, which contains over 500 thought-provoking questions on 50 different topics.

Make the most words

Write a topical vocabulary item on the board. In twos or threes, students make as many new words from it as they can. Use longish seed words such as apologise, dictionary or September. Score teams a point per word and award a bonus point for the longest.

Make the longest words

Write a topical target word vertically down the board, for example, WINTER. In twos or threes, students attempt to come up with the longest word that begins with each letter. Give teams a point per word and a bonus point for the longest.

What does your name mean?

Using a dictionary, google or any other resource, students find and write down an appropriate adjective that begins with each letter of their first name. For example:

Mixed-up sentence

Write a sentence on the board but mix up the word order, then challenge students to reconstruct the original sentence. For example:
morning hadn't eaten wish that döner kebab I at this 5am
Hangman

This popular filler can also be a great way to start a lesson with beginner learners who are still unsure of the alphabet. Just put a recently learned word on the board and let the students take it in turns to guess a letter. If you don't know how to play, you can read an explanation here.

Mixed-up sentence (anagram variation)

Write a sentence on the board but this time scramble the letters of each word. For example:
hwy ddint' I dusty draher ta vieyunrsit?
Word ladders

In this activity, a word must be transformed step by step into a target word. To illustrate the idea, write the word run on the board and explain that the target word is fit. For each turn, only one letter can be changed. See if the class can find a valid sequence together. One possible sequence is:

If you want to find possible word pairs, there is a site with a handy word ladder generator.

Put students in pairs and have them create their own word ladders to test their classmates with.

What do you know about bananas?

Set a five-minute time limit and in groups have students think up and write down as many facts as they can about bananas (or cats, Belgium, David Beckham, etc.). One point should be given for each true sentence.

How many sounds can you hear?

Students sit in silence for two minutes and write down every sound that they hear. Let them compare their lists with their neighbours before seeing who has the longest list?

The A to Z game

Give students a theme, for example, jobs, things you take on holiday, food. Write the letters A to Z on the board. Teams of students must race to write an appropriate word next to each letter on the board. Read more about the A to Z game here.

Things to do with a potato

(one of many brilliantly simple ideas from this very handy book) Produce a potato (if that's not possible, introduce the concept of a potato). Ask students to come up with a list of as many unconventional uses for it as they can. For example paperweight, weapon, pen holder, smartphone dock. The longest list wins the potato.

Odd one out

Give the students a couple of examples to guess, then get students to come up with their own ideas. Here are some examples:

apple, peach, banana, tomato - a banana doesn't have seeds
strawberry, branch, bowling ball, boat, iceberg - bowling balls don't float
window, river, envelope, client, oregano - client doesn't begin and end with the same letter
comb, champagne, knife, plum - the word plum doesn't contain any silent letters

Note: There can be more than one correct answer

Name ten

Have students think of 10 items that fit particular criteria. For example:

Jobs where you have to wear a uniform

English football clubs

Sports that are played with a ball

Foods that contain egg

Animals that lay eggs

Three letter parts of the body - eye, arm, leg, hip, ear, toe jaw, rib, lip, gum

Two truths and a lie

An ESL classroom staple. Write or dictate three sentences about yourself. Two statements should be true and one false, for example:

I used to be an air steward
I can ride a unicycle
My favourite food is sushi

Now invite students to discuss in pairs which statement they think is the lie. Ask each pair which statement they think is untrue and have them explain why. Reveal your answer, and ask students to come up with three sentences about themselves. I find students need quite a lot of time (at least five minutes) to come up with three ideas. If some students are still short of a sentence or two, start the game anyway, and they can finish their statements during play. Check students' statements and then have them take it in turns to read them out to the class. In each case, the other students have to guess which is the untrue statement.

For a longer more involved version of this game, see the lying game.

Mastermind (AKA Bulls & Cows, Jotto)

Based on the code-breaking board game where players have to deduce the order of 4 coloured pegs which the other player had hidden behind a plastic guard. It's slightly complicated to grasp but fun when you get the hang of it.

Think of a four-letter word and write XXXX on the board, each X represents one of the letters of your word.

Invite the first student to guess what the word is.

Start a new line underneath your original XXXX. If the first letter in the student's word is the same as the first letter in your word put a ✓ in the first position. If the first letter is not the same as the first letter in your word but is contained somewhere in your word put a half-tick /. If the first letter of the student's word is not contained anywhere your word put an X.

In the following example, the teacher chooses the word FIRE.

A word of warning. Stick to 4 or 5 letter words. It's much more difficult to guess longer words and it can also be tricky trying to mark each guess.

When students are familiar with the game you can get them to come and put their own words on the board.

I'm going on a picnic and I'm taking a ...

This is a guess the rule type game. Think of a rule which governs which items can be taken on a picnic, for example, it must be six letters long, or it must start with a vowel. In this example, the rule is that the word must be an uncountable noun.

Teacher: I'm going on a picnic and I'm taking milk.
Student A: I'm going on a picnic and I'm taking eggs.
Teacher: No, you can't take eggs.
Student B: Can I take orange juice?
Teacher: Yes, you can take orange juice.

And so on.

Continue adding items to your picnic list until a student correctly guesses the rule (the choices don't have to make sense within the picnic scenario e.g. love, information, air ). When you've finished, invite the students (alone or in pairs) to come up with their own rules and let them run the game.

Word Association

This must be one of the oldest ESL warm-up activities, but sometimes the simplest ideas turn out to be surprisingly effective and word games don't get any simpler than word association. Give an initial word, for example, banana and each student takes it in turns to say a word which they associate with the previous word. If the connection isn't obvious, challenge the student to justify their choice.
banana - monkey - zoo - tourists - hotel - bible ...
Three things in common

This is a great icebreaker, but you can also use it as a lead-in to a theme or to test your students' knowledge of a grammar point. Simply ask students to work in pairs and find three things that they have in common and then report back to the class. You can narrow the topic down to areas like t hree things we both did at the weekend, three foods we both like, three things we both don't like about this city, three things neither of us has done yet but would like to, etc.

Just a Minute Tic Tac Toe

Based on the BBC Radio show. Draw a Tic Tac Toe grid on the board and in each space write a topic that you think some of your students might be interested in or have some knowledge of. Play the game with two teams, to claim their X or O, a team member must attempt to talk about the topic in the chosen square for 45 to 60 seconds (depending on their level) without pausing or repetition. Check out this tic tac toe page for more ideas on how to use this popular ESL game.

One-upmanship

I discovered this great activity at BusinessEnglishResources.com. Start off by explaining the concept of one-upmanship, that some people always like to appear to be more interesting or superior to others in their company. Tell the students a relatively mundane story about something that happened recently and invite a student to tell a similar story but to top it in some way. Each student, in turn, tries to top the previous student's tale. For example:

You: Yesterday I overslept and was five minutes late to class.
Student: That's nothing, I overslept and was an hour late.
Student B: An hour! I once overslept a whole day!

If the students are sufficiently advanced you could have them watch and read through Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch which is a very funny skit on the subject of one-upmanship.

Spontaneous Scatter Sheet

Scatter Sheets are a great way to review vocabulary, introduce a theme and get students talking. As a warmer, have students brainstorm words connected to a theme, for example, the seaside, London, marketing, etc. Write these words on the board randomly, not in straight lines or columns but higgledy-piggledy and at jaunty angles. When you have around 20 words on the board, go around the room asking each student, in turn, to describe one of the words, when it's been successfully guessed, circle it and move on to the next student. Encourage students to let the describer produce at least two sentences before shouting out the answer.

Spin the marker

Sometimes students just want a chance to talk and express themselves in an unstructured way and it's a good idea to encourage this. Spin the marker pen and whoever it points to can dictate the conversation, ask questions, suggest the topic, etc. Spin the marker again when you feel the conversation has run its course. I find this activity works best when students are sitting in a small circle not too far apart.

Fortunately / Unfortunately

English learners often have trouble remembering and correctly pronouncing these two useful words. One way to practice it is to start a story and have learners alternately advancing the story using these adverbs.

For example:

Teacher: Yesterday my car was stolen.

Student A: Fortunately, it was insured.

Student B: Unfortunately, the insurance company went bankrupt.

Student C: Fortunately, my grandfather said he would buy me a new car.

Student D: Unfortunately, he's lost his mind and doesn't have any money.

Etc.

Organise yourselves!

Have students arrange themselves in order according to a given criterion. For example by age, alphabetical order of first name or surname, the number of shoes owned, etc.

Letter string dictation

This is a great way to lead into the topic that you want to cover in the class and also serves as a simple activity to help students recognise letters of the alphabet. Think of a couple of questions for students to discuss in pairs or groups. Write the questions down and then dictate them as a long string of letters.

For example:
whatsyourfavouritecolour? whatdidyoudoattheweekend? whatkindofbooksdoyouliketoread?
After dictating the letter strings, students should attempt to form the questions and then discuss and report back to class.

To make it more challenging, dictate the letters backwards and then have the students figure out the question. This is more challenging because students will find it more difficult to predict the next letter and therefore must focus on the letters being dictated.
?teemotekiltsomuoydluowohw
For more ideas on using dictation see the article 10 dictation activities.

Whose weekend?

Give each student a slip of paper and ask each student to write down three things they did at the weekend. Collect up the slips of paper and randomly read each one out. The students must guess whose weekend is being described.

Provocative statements

Write a provocative statement on the board and then put students into small groups to discuss their opinion of it. For example, some drugs should be legalised, Facebook should be banned, Breaking Bad is overrated, one child is enough, organic food is a waste of money, etc. Have students report back to the class. You could make a list of arguments for and against the thesis.

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ESL warm-up activities and five minute fillers - 28 fun ways to start a class -

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ESL warm-up activities are essential in the English classroom. Students may be tired or have other things on their minds and diving straight into a textbook or grammar explanation can be quite jarring. With a good warmer you can put your students into English mode; attentive, interested and ready to participate.

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A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer words and phrases are placed in the grid from left to right and from top to bottom. The shaded squares are used to separate the words or phrases. Squares in which answers begin are usually numbered. The clues are then referred to by these numbers and a direction, for example, "4-Across" or "20-Down". At the end of the clue the total number of letters is sometimes given, depending on the style of puzzle and country of publication. Some crosswords will also indicate the number of words in a given answer, should there be more than one. The horizontal and vertical lines of white cells into which answers are written are commonly called entries or answers.

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A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers.

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by Tara Arntsen 79,123 views

Adult ESL learners may not have a lot of time outside of class to devote to their English studies but assigning homework once in a while can be beneficial. Having students complete exercises at home allows them to maximize their speaking time during class periods. Since adults are often very busy, it is important to assign homework only when you feel it is necessary.

Try These Homework Assignment Ideas

1. Reading Texts As Homework? Why Not?
For discussion lessons, send students home with the reading assignment instead of setting aside time for them to read it silently in class. You should introduce key vocabulary beforehand and give students some topics or questions to think about during their reading so that they will know what to focus on. You can then do some pronunciation practice and comprehension checks in the next lesson. A discussion could also be based on the material students read. This type of homework activity really makes the most of the time you have with students and gives them an opportunity to think about the material before having to discuss it.

2. Use Their Imagination!
This activity is especially good for students of Business English but could also be used in other lessons to focus on giving advice, voicing an opinion, or politely agreeing or disagreeing. Give students a dialogue to read and ask them to think about the different characters. These dialogues could be based on work, school, or personal interactions. In the next class, discuss students' opinions of the characters from the dialogue and give students some options for what the next part of the dialogue could be. Ask students to defend their choices. For instance, give students a conversation in which two colleagues are discussing Employee C and end the material you give them for homework with one person complaining that Employee C did not deserve to get a promotion. In the next class you can talk about the appropriateness of this conversation, what students think of the two characters, and what the other character should say next.

3. 'Interview Your Granny About ...'
Simple interview activities can be done with students of all ages. For this activity, ask students to interview family members or friends. This is especially good practice for using reported speech but can be used to talk about other topics too. You can provide students with some basic questions to give their interview some structure and have them build on it using their own questions. In the next lesson, students can report their findings and discuss the material with the rest of the class.

4. Role Plays For Homework Are Fun, Too
Adult learners are generally more reluctant than younger students to do role plays but if you think your class would be willing to give it a try, sections of the activity can be assigned as homework. Students will have to work together in class if you want them to develop their own scripts but they can practice and memorize their lines as homework. Since students may not be able to meet one another outside of class, be sure to give students some time to practice together in their groups before the final presentation. You must allow enough time for students to prepare for the role play so spread it out over several weeks. Remember that you do not have to make it the focus of all your lessons from the time it was introduced until its completion. Introduce the activity in one lesson, check to see if students have any questions about it in each class period after that, give them time to practice, and finally have students present their role plays.

5. Worksheets Work Wonders
Some worksheets may also be appropriate for homework. If there is an exam coming up, students may appreciate optional study material for further practice. While crosswords are not a great use of class time for adult learners, providing students with an occasional crossword for homework may be fine. They are enjoyable and do not take long periods of undivided attention to complete; in fact, crosswords can be done gradually in free time such as during the commute to work. They are good practice material because they focus on checking vocabulary comprehension or expanding vocabulary; both of which are very important to adults.

While adult learners may have less time than younger students for homework, it is important that they devote time to their studies in order to make progress.

Talk to students at the beginning of the course about what they expect in regards to homework and ensure that you always give students plenty of time to complete exercises.

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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Adult ESL Learners: Homework Assignments That Work

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by Tara Arntsen 79,123 views Adult ESL learners may not have a lot of time outside of class to devote to their English studies but assigning homework once in a while can be beneficial. Having students complete exercises at home allows them to maximize their speaking time during class periods.

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Index

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by Claudia Pesce 159,808 views

If you're an ESL teacher like me, you feel the CD that comes with the coursebook is not enough to really boost students' listening comprehension. If you're an ESL teacher like me, you're gonna love these seven websites. They offer audio and video that you can use in the classroom or recommend to students so they can work on improving listening comprehension in their own study time.

7 Great Places to Look for ESL Listening Material

1. ESL Cyber Listening Lab

ESL teacher Randall Davis put together a very impressive site, filled with listening quizzes. One of the things you'll notice about the ESL Cyber Listening Lab at first glance is that the quizzes are divided into Easy, Medium and Difficult. Each quiz comes with a pre-listening activity, a multiple-choice quiz based on the listening and post-listening activities that include vocabulary exercises. These are wonderful ready-to-use listening activities for any level.

2. Newsy

Newsy features short news segments across a variety of topics from business to entertainment, international to US news. One of the best things about Newsy is that each video is posted with a transcript of the news report, giving ESL students the choice of just listening, or listening and reading. It's a great site for students who need something a bit more challenging. The added bonus? The site offers an app for iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry - perfect for students on the go!

3. Voice of America

Voice of America is a multimedia platform that delivers news to English learners across the globe. The site features MP3 audio and video that are public domain, which means you may not only use the files in the classroom but also download them through VOA Direct. Each video is less than three minutes long and comes with subtitles. They may be downloaded in video format or as MP3 files students can listen to anywhere. VOA also has a handy little app for iPhone and Android, a Mobile Wordbook that teaches students how to say and use a word in a sentence.

4. Talk English

Talk English has listening lessons for Basic, Intermediate and Advanced students. Students have the possibility to listen to a conversation, complete a multiple choice quiz and read a script of the audio. Teachers and students can use the website online free of charge or pay a small one-time fee for unlimited downloads - we're talking hundreds of dialogues in different levels. Additionally, there is an app for iPhone and Android.

5. ESL Fast

ESL Fast offers 365 short stories with audio and text for intermediate students. The best thing about this site is the sheer number of stories available. At the bottom of the page, you'll see a vocabulary list for each listening, plus a variety of exercises, including dictations. The site also offers easy conversations for beginner ESL students who have the unique opportunity to listen to short conversations on a variety of topics and speak to Mike, a "robot" that replies to questions and statements students type in a dialogue box, thus creating an actual, virtual "dialogue".

6. Easy Listening for Kids

This website has short and easy listening audio tracks that are tailored to young learners. Each audio track comes with the text for reading, a vocabulary list, and exercises your young learners won't have any trouble completing. There's a second website with additional listening exercises for children.
Special Note: While the listening exercises are great, the sites are filled with ads, so be sure to monitor browsing for content that may be inappropriate for children.

7. Elllo.org

Elllo provides a wealth of listening exercises in video or audio format. You can sort search results by level, topic, country or media; the last option allows you choose from games, audio or video. All of the exercises come with vocabulary lists, additional exercises or quizzes, as well as download links. Unlike the other websites, this one includes audio with English speakers of different nationalities, thus effectively exposing students to a variety of English accents like Australian, Scottish, South African, and others.

No matter which site you choose, you'll be giving your students ample opportunity to fine tune their listening and hone those skills that may be a little rusty.

Don't forget to encourage them to try as many listening activities as they can in their free time. The awesome thing about these sites is that they offer scripts, vocabulary lists and plenty of other resources that won't leave your students navigating alone in a sea of English listening exercises. Most of these sites are tailored specifically to English learners and the audio is high quality, with conversations spoken by native speakers. What more can you ask for?
Have you ever tried any of these websites for listening practice? Which of these are completely new to you? Any others to recommend? Share below!
P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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7 Great Places to Look for ESL Listening Material

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by Claudia Pesce 159,808 views If you're an ESL teacher like me, you feel the CD that comes with the coursebook is not enough to really boost students' listening comprehension. If you're an ESL teacher like me, you're gonna love these seven websites.