ESL Resources
If you're interested in becoming a Language Partner or ESL Tutor for Bridge clients, please contact a volunteer coordinator or look for a posting on the "Opportunities" page.
If any of these links are broken, please let Bridge staff know. Also, if you come across other resources that would be useful to add to this list, let us know!
Free ELL Ebooks
Here is a collection of free ELL ebooks for students and teachers. We will continue to add to this collection as we discover new resources.
Free Phonics Stories
Here is a collection of Free ELL phonics books to help readers with pronunciation and comprehension. Each pdf includes a breakdown of instructions, Youtube videos, and flashcards.
English Club
English Club is a free and
comprehensive online resource that offers a very wide range of material to teach or learn from. Including
Vocabulary, Grammar, Pronunciation Lessons, Speaking Lessons, Listening Lessons, Reading,
Writing, Games, Quizzes, etc. English Club also has forums so that, if the family is able to
access the internet on a device, people will be able to ask questions of other learners and
teachers even when they are not with you.
ThoughtCo.
A good site for ELL vocabulary, conversation starters, American idioms, grammar, and business English. There are also additional resources for tutoring subjects like math, sciences, and foreign languages.
The Literacy Center
This site links to multiple ELL resources. On the main page, go to Volunteer > Tutoring Resources > Additional Teaching Resources.
Varsity Tutors
This site has ENL (English as a New Language) lesson plans, as well as lesson plans for vocabulary, grammar, idioms, writing, and literature. It also offers grade-appropriate materials for tutoring subjects like math, science, humanities, and foreign languages in addition to multiple test-prep resources.
ESL Gold
This site has leveled lesson plans for speaking, grammar, vocabulary, and business English. It also includes an audio dictionary of common English words so learners can hear the word pronounced and practice their pronunciation.
ESL Lounge
This site is divided up into two parts, Student and Teacher, with helpful ELL resources for both. Included are leveled grammar, reading, listening, and vocabulary exercises. There are also test prep resources and language games.
ESL Friend
This site has over 1,000 free English learning and teaching handouts, materials, and lesson plans. ELL lesson plans are divided up into five levels.
English Club
This site provides a lot of activities and lessons on vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and listening. It also includes ELL handouts, worksheets, games & quizzes, jokes, and links to other resources.
Learning Chocolate
Learning Chocolate is a vocabulary learning resource that also offers a picture dictionary with audio.
Masters In ESL
Masters in ESL is a great resource for teachers trying to best discern how to help their learner. This website offers many tips and lesson plans for how to best approach teaching English as a second language.
Busy Teacher
Busy Teacher offers a variety of categorized worksheets as well as lots of resources and articles for teachers. Click here to view an article on how to plan out the first lesson and match the learning style to the person. It also gives you questions to ask so that you know the areas in which you should focus their English growth the most.
Using English
Using English has over 1000 free printable worksheets for you to choose from and also has a variety of helpful resources for both ESL teachers and learners.
ESL Home
ESL Home offers interactive and themed lessons based on what an ESL learner will need to survive and thrive in an English speaking country.
ESL Flashcards
ESL flashcards offers lots of vocabulary building printable flashcard sets to help enhance the visual component of the learning experience
ESL Flow
ESL Flow is a great resource for vocabulary and grammar. It not only offers countless worksheets in an easily navigable platform but also has lots of resources for teachers. This site is also excellent for someone who may be farther along in their English learning as well as for beginners.
English Page
English Page is a comprehensive resource for both learning and supporting previously learned material. It has lots of tutorials about grammar and word usage as well as an online reading library. This resource is great for finding free online reading material for students to challenge and work on their reading skills.
LearnEnglish Kids
This is an awesome resource for teaching English to young kids.
ESL Fast
This site includes over 1,000 conversations and scripts for beginning, intermediate and advanced English Language Learners.
ESL LAB
ESL Lab offers vocabulary lessons, listening quizzes, and study guides for English Language Learners.
ITESLJ.org
This site lists lots of questions to ask relative to many different topics of discussion so that the teacher can best assess whether or not the ESL learner fully understands the topic they are learning.
TEFL Tunes
TEFL Tunes is an awesome ESL resource for teachers because it categorizes songs to help you teach certain grammatical concepts. The site also classifies songs according to learning level, theme, task, and artist. Although there are some free lesson plans, to access all the site’s resources, you have to subscribe.
Memrise
If your students are finding it hard to remember tough vocabulary words or grammatical concepts, introduce them to Memrise. If your students are feeling more adventurous, they can also make their own flashcards to focus on their individual weak points and compete with their friends online! Memrise is really effective because it uses technology that adapts to each learner’s personal learning style and performance. Memrise also encourages students to learn on the go because it can be downloaded on any iOS or Android smartphone, tablet, or other mobile devices.
Adult ELL Pathway to Literacy
This website is a collection of resources for teachers and volunteers who seek to develop the language and literacy skills of adult English Language Learners (ELLs) who are emergent readers. On this website, we hope you find what you need to identify, teach, and assess the English language and literacy skills of adult learners!
The Elder Literacy Initiative
The Preliteracy Curriculum includes 13 thematic units, organized around English for Daily Life, with sequential scaffolded lesson plans with lots of great vocabulary and images. Each unit has guidelines for non-literacy to emerging literacy with 15-20 lesson plans in each. Specifically created for refugee learners 65 and over. Includes phonics instruction but is not a structured literacy approach.
