Even the best teacher in the world can get a little overwhelmed at times. Lucky for us, we live in the Internet Age and there are resources available should we need a worksheet, a lesson plan, or an activity to bolster our lessons. Here are six great sites to add to your bookmarks.

When teaching English abroad, you often have one of two extremes. There’s that class you dread because they never listen unless you have the perfect activity to hold their attention or there’s that special class that outperforms anything you give them and fly through your lesson plan.

No matter which class you have, you need resources to keep both types engaged and learning. Here are some of our favourite websites to find lesson plans and activities that will help capture your student’s attention and challenge your top performers.

1. Never Run Out of Lesson Plan Ideas With ESL Library

ESLlibrary.com is an excellent online resource for teachers. The site creates beautifully designed lesson plans and flashcards across a variety of topics. It also uses current events to help your students discuss global topics such as politics and environmental issues.

Browse topics by level or topics such as grammar and writing, debates, reading, business English, and everyday English.

While membership to the site does cost $22 for three months, you get access to over 800 lesson plans and 2000 ready-to-print flashcards.

2. Get Musical With TEFL Tunes

Do you love incorporating music into your ESL lessons? TEFL Tunes is a great resource for teachers that want to engage their students with popular English music while using it as an opportunity to practice valuable skills such as reading, listening, and grammar.

TEFL Tunes has a huge bank of song-based lessons and an easy-to-use browser where you can select level, theme grammatical point or artist.

Create a listening activity around well-known pop hits such as Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive; Lep Zeppelin’s Since I’ve Been Loving You;  and Beyonce’s If I Were A Boy. Use the songs to teach a variety of grammar points like present simple, future tense and the 2nd conditional.

All those hours of listening to pop music will finally pay off when your students start improving their grammar abilities and primary language skills.

3. Find The Perfect Worksheet With Busy Teacher

Busy Teacher is a comprehensive ESL resource perfect for teachers looking to customise their worksheets and wanting to avoid paying membership fees.

You can access their entire library of 17,200+ worksheets for free and take advantage of their tools to create your own word search, word scramble, or double puzzles.

Browse worksheets by season, spice up your lesson plans with their warmers and fillers, or use one of the 600 creative writing prompts to inspire your more advanced students.

Other great resources include classroom management,  revision worksheets, flashcards and much more.

4. Improve Your Students Listening Skills With Listen Lab

ESL students need to practice listening to a variety of English speakers. It is why audio listening activities need to be a constant in your ESL repertoire.

Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab is a great resource to get your students used to listening to everyday conversations. Choose from a variety of audio lessons ranging from easy, medium or difficult. Topic examples include “Barbecue Party”, “Camping Under the Stars” and “A Great Car Deal.”

Each lesson comes with a short audio clip, a comprehension quiz, pre and post listening exercises, grammar and optional online investigations.

5. In a hurry? Grab a lesson plan with TEFL.net

Sometimes, no matter how hard we try to plan ahead, our plans can still fall through. In ESL, this is nothing new. Sometimes you find your class schedule changed or you are asked to teach a grade of students you had not prepared for.

TEFL.net has an extensive list of lesson plans, ready-made worksheets, and reading exercises that you can print when you are in a hurry.

The site also lists jobs, has an active TEFL Forum, and provides practical advice for school resources, teacher relations, teaching methods and terminology.

6. Get Creative and Create a Comic Together

If your students love getting creative, creating a comic together is an excellent way to engage them while practising their English skills.

Pick a theme that you want the comic to be about and choose how many panels you want your students to fill in. Let your students design each panel, create a character and write their story in the speech bubbles.It is a simple way to encourage creative writing and is so much fun your students won’t realise they are practising their English in the process.

It is no secret that all students learn in different ways; hopefully, these six resources will help you build lesson plans that will engage all levels and learning styles.

Add these websites to your ESL toolkit today and take your lesson planning to the next level.

Want more teaching tips? Visit Shane English School’s Teaching Tips blog.

About the Author

Lauren Melnick is a South African travel blogger and ESL teacher currently living in Ubon, Thailand. When she isn’t making lesson plans and watching nursery rhymes on YouTube, you can find her eating up a storm, taking selfies with dinosaurs, and planning her next adventure.

Follow her travels on Wanderlust Movement, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.