Useful Websites for English Teachers

The more cool sites and platforms a teacher knows, the more competitive he is among his colleagues. And with such a teacher, the lessons are always more exciting, the rate per hour of private lessons is higher and there are an order of magnitude more interested students.

The times of monotonous textbooks are over - now you can and should approach each topic of the lesson creatively and use the maximum of useful online resources for original and vivid teaching of English. Let's look at the most entertaining web resources that will definitely come in handy in your lessons.

Sites with ideas and ready-made lessons

Planning a lesson will be more pleasant and easier for you with such sites:

• EFL Magazine is an online magazine that has a section with articles on methods, lesson ideas, reviews of books for educators and experiences of experts from around the world. A distinctive feature of this edition is a calendar with upcoming professional events: webinars, conferences, competitions for teachers.
• Visual English School is a site created by a teacher that is helpful with great video ideas. They will help to learn with the help of films. In addition, here you can find silent videos, advertisements, entertaining short films and all the necessary vocabulary.
• TEFL.net is a portal with a huge number of ready-made plans for conducting classes and materials on the methodology. There is a forum where, if you wish, you can chat with colleagues from all over the world.
• ESL Library - A variety of themed cards and ready-to-print scenarios.
• Englishhobby is a resource in Russian. The site has ideas for classes, as well as the opportunity to buy interesting manuals and textbooks.
• Onestopenglish is a platform where plans for CLIL training are available. A good resource for those who want to use best practices and are interested in the Western model of teaching.
• Lessonstream - great lesson plans for all age groups.
• Thoughtco - various options for lessons, as well as exercises for the general and business areas.

To save time, we recommend creating a file with a table where you will enter your impressions of a particular resource.

Thus, you will not get confused in finding the right material and will immediately go to the right site. Marks can be done in the format: Lessonstream - good plans, Thoughtco - good Past Perfect exercises, etc.

Sites with developments and didactic data

Once the plan or outline of the lesson is roughly drawn up, you can start preparing the teaching materials. Today, ideal training data meets the following requirements:

1. Relevance - the more modern the article, text, video, podcast, the more interesting it will be for students.
2. Authenticity - training should be carried out on original, not adapted books, games.
3. Relationship with other subjects - you should take into account topics studied in other subjects or areas of interest for children in order to hit the target as accurately as possible and arouse interest.
4. Presentation should be age-appropriate and understandable to everyone in the class.
5. Originality - the success of the lesson depends on the degree of involvement of children, who will definitely appreciate unusual exercises.

Sites that will become your favorite sources of quality pedagogical content include:

• Super Teacher Tools - here you can compose games for the lesson, which then it will not be a shame to even put in a portfolio .
• British Council - 100% quality didactic materials from British experts.
• Busyteacher - handouts on any topic, and a lot of useful printouts for distribution.
• BBC is the latest information from the news, which will definitely give you the image of a teacher on trend.
• ESL Flashcards are great flashcards for learning a language.
• native-english - a large number of songs, topics, idioms, tests. There is a forum for like-minded people.
• Elllo is a great selection of audio and video lessons with all the vocabulary used, as well as tasks after listening. This format will refresh ordinary classes and pump the skill of listening to speech.
• Lit2go - books by levels - what you need for lessons on reading and working out the text. Classics, both English and translated from other languages, are a good option for improving reading and vocabulary.
• esl-lab - audio recordings by knowledge levels. Suitable for both distance learning and classroom listening.
• eslconversationquestions - here you will find several dozen topics that are used for discussions.
• agendaweb - professionally selected grammar exercises, as well as worksheet, songs, fairy tales, reading, listening. Even using this site alone will help you prepare for several dozen lessons.
• esl-lounge is a good web resource that can be a source of content for beginners.

Each of these sites can even be used on school computers in the classroom, if possible. They have a clear interface and up-to-date data.

Learning Resources

To improve the pedagogical level and borrow information, you can visit the following platforms:

• Englishclub - an impressive number of grammar quizzes, a lot of theoretical material, as well as tasks for pumping all areas: listening, pronunciation, conversation, competent writing.
• Tweentribune - a variety of texts to expand horizons and replenish vocabulary.
• Iteslj - Hundreds of questions to ask students during discussions and speaking practice.
• Esldiscussions - Read and come prepared for any lesson.
• Writeandimprove is a modern resource that allows you to improve the writing of English texts without errors.
• Perfect-english-grammar is a great platform where you can choose exercises to work with the class or on your own, as well as hone your skills in the most difficult topics like Conditionals, Passive voice, Verb Tenses.
• English GrammarOnline is an entertaining site where you can find games in English, take a test for knowledge of the language at all existing levels , and also print all the information of interest in several formats.
• world-english is an impressive resource with tests, texts for reading, puzzles and quizzes, as well as vocabulary in various areas. It will be useful for enriching vocabulary and as a source of test tasks.

You can also watch movies and series without translation into Russian, subscribe to famous foreign performers or actors. Instagram has profiles for NASA, Discovery, National Geographic and many more.

Platforms for English teachers

Teachers need to know all the latest news. The following portals will help you with this:

• Breaking News English - world news with exercises for them, broken down by difficulty levels. Discussion of news is one of the activities that is used in the communicative methology.
• brainyquote.com - wise quotes for the creed teacher .
• Exam English is a set of practice exercises to prepare for BEC, TOEFL, IELTS and Cambridge exams. Such activities will be useful not only for children and students, but also for a teacher who is seriously thinking about professional development.
• On the Learnenglishfeelgood you can borrow vocabulary exercises, download all kinds of printed materials, get acquainted with the differences in British and American dialects.
• writingcenter - a selection of tips for any kind of written work: grammar analysis, punctuation, style, context.
• puzzlemaker is a great tool for creating all kinds of crossword puzzles.
• school-collection - guidelines for any age.
• englishteachers is an information portal for English teachers: an online store, advanced training courses, free webinars.
• splcenter is a great source of up-to-date authentic information.
• educationworld - suitable for those who are interested in foreign teaching practice.
• britannica - bright insights for the most creative lessons.
• learningenglish.voanews - language learning on trending topics.

However, in addition to useful information, everyone sometimes just needs to ask for an opinion from the outside. To do this, there is a portal for communication with colleagues and exchange of experience. But this platform combines not only one of the largest open forums, but also a lot of valuable data necessary for work.

You can improve professional skills not only in courses, but on special sites like metodisty: video lessons, electives, electives, articles, presentations will be useful for teachers with any work experience.

Online resources that will definitely come in handy

Sometimes everything does not go according to plan, then such entertaining options can come to the rescue:

• eslarticle - read cool texts on serious topics and replenish your vocabulary.
• en.islcollective is a real treasure for those who forgot the lesson plan at home or didn't prepare.
• grammarly - get into the habit of writing your document right away with this awesome app that fixes mistakes, shows synonyms, and generally improves your literacy.
• deepl is one of the most accurate and correct translators.

You can also ask your students what they use and ask them to describe the benefits of a particular program. You can even have a conversation on this topic, during which everyone will talk about their favorite services.

Help for an English teacher

We have compiled a list of sites of various content, each of which can become your favorite:

• pedsovet is a Russian-language site where you can read about the hottest topics in modern Russian pedagogy.
• Online lessons on distance learning, teacher time management, soft skills, digital literacy, adolescent psychology.
• media.prosv is a really huge database of textbooks, manuals, work programs and even courses for educators .
• fipi is a platform for training OGE and USE in English.
• Urok.rf is a community for teachers that, without exaggeration, has everything: announcements of competitions, webinars, a forum, methodological developments, news, professional tests, etc.
• interneturok - video lessons in all subjects and for all classes, as well as psychological advice teachers.
• hemingwayapp is a cool service where you can check material written in English. It helps to correct mistakes and make the text easier.
• csgenerator - this thing will help, on the contrary, make the text more complicated and interesting.
• Vocabulary.com and Quizlet handle word listing, word definitions, and context of use.
• Youglish you can listen to the context of the phrases spoken by the heroes of films and TV shows, as well as politicians and other media people.
• Rachel'sEnglish is the channel's accent in correct American pronunciation, but there are also helpful vocabulary videos.
• Mindmeister will create mind maps for you. Don't know what it is? An extremely useful thing for planning not only a lesson, but also writing annual pedagogical and personal plans.
• Pixton is an opportunity to diversify your English with naughty comics. Try to submit difficult grammar in this format. Who knows, suddenly it will become your know-how.
• dictionary.cambridge - A dictionary for checking the spelling and usage of words.
• 1sept - News from the education sector, as well as a selection of professional events.

As a conclusion

A good specialist always has professional life hacks: someone subscribes to a wise teacher from Harvard, someone reviews all the news using the #teacher2021 hashtag, someone takes additional courses for teachers or reads a fascinating blog.

One way or another, the dogma of continuing education is our reality, in which one can remain competitive only by being curious, attentive and understanding the rapid flow of information updated every minute. Only such knowledge-hungry teachers will be able to raise smart, intelligent and highly qualified doctors, programmers, tutors, and politicians.

Share your sources of ideas and information in the comments - we will gladly add them to our list.