TEFL Links
On this page we have collected some of our favourite websites. While this isn't a big collection of links, we believe that what lacks in quantity, we compensate for in quality. Busy teachers and teacher trainers on our staff use each of these sites regularly. With such a huge amount of stuff on the internet for English teachers, we have also included a brief description of each site and why we like it.
More links will be added to this page on an ongoing basis, so keep coming back to visit us!
At the moment, we have links in the following categories. Click on a category to see the links.
Great sites for General English teachers
Job sites for English teachers
For Business English teachers
Language Teaching Methodology
Reference (good for making your own materials)
Organisations
Teachers travelling around
For teachers and students
Sites of General interest
Slovodne - where Czech and English meet
Our tutors and graduates have also published articles and lessons in various magazines and on the web. In fact, some of them are so active that it's hard to keep up. Click here to see a small selection of what they have been up to.
OxfordTEFL Tutors and Graduates on the web
www.onestopenglish.com
While there are lots of websites with downloadable lesson plans out there, you'd be hard-pressed to find one with more than Onestopenglish. It is one of the most popular sites on the web for teachers and with good reason. It's got articles and a fun section called Diary of an English teacher. But the main draw is the sheer amount of free, quality lesson material with teaching notes.
Iona Lunan, Course Director Trinity TESOL Certificate
www.english-to-go.com
I really like this one, which is a site that uses Reuters' news stories as a basis for lesson plans. Most parts of it are paying, but there are some (good) free samples. It's categorised by level and is really easy to use.
Sarah Yandell, Director of Studies and General English teacher
www.tedpower.com
A nicely rounded site with plenty of aricles on all aspects of teaching, including some challenging the accepted dogmas of ELT which I found quite refreshing.
David Young, Course Director Trinity CertTESOL Prague
www.puzzlemaker.com
This is a really good crossword and wordsearch creator site. Just type in the words (and definitions) of words you want to work on and the site creates a puzzle for you. It's so fast and great for vocabulary consolidation amongst other things.
Sarah Yandell, Director of Studies and General English teacher
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www.tefl.com
I consult this everyday as it gives worldwide jobs listings, and lots of them. You can subscribe free of charge to receive this as well as other newsletters full of TESOL info. It's really one of the biggest out there. You can also list your CV with them, get weekly job alerts and find out about courses to get certified.
Anna Stubbs, Careers Officer and CertTESOL Teacher Trainer
www.eslemployment.com
Like tefl.com this site also gives a good listing of vacancies available around the world, broken down by area. You can subscribe to a regular email sending you details of job vacancies that arise for your chosen geographic location, which can be ideal if you are already in a job somewhere and don't want the hassle of looking for anything else, but would like to move on at some point in the future.
Sean Hayward, Careers Officer and CertTESOL Teacher Trainer
www.esljobsworld.com
Another easy to use site linking teachers around the globe and providing information on jobs available. Not the volume of jobs that are posted on tefl.com, but it might still hold that gem you are looking for.
David Young, Course Director Trinity CertTESOL Prague
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www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/business
This is a great link for up to date, real life business situations. Students can work on vocabulary, useful expressions, do listenings, add their comments to topical discussions and read the work of famous business gurus. It's good for homework as it is regularly up-dated and practical.
Jennifer Goodman, Director of Studies In-company & Business English Teacher
www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/
If you've ever spent hours preparing a class based on an article only to find the students just aren't interested, this could help keep it relevant to the students. Cesky Noviny provides an English Language version of the top stories in and affecting the Czech Republic.
David Young, Course Director Trinity CertTESOL Prague
www.entrepreneur.com
Another well-thumbed source of material for my students; articles covering every aspect of business, throws up a whole load of useful expressions and collocations, real-life case studies also make it a more authentic source of information than The Course Book.
Nick Rawlinson, Director In-company training
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www.hltmag.co.uk
This site published one of our articles so it must be good! Seriously though, Humanising Language Teaching has lots of articles, lesson ideas, jokes etc., all with a humanistic slant, which sets it apart from other sites. Edited by humanistic guru Mario Rinvolucri.
Duncan Foord, Director of Teacher Training Department
Learning Novish
An excellent simulation that teaches you an invented language: Novish. The aim of this activity is to make language teachers think about how new languages are learned and the role of mistakes. It is taken from a classic book by Julian Dakin called The Language Laboratory and Language Learning (1973). If you are doing a Diploma paper on cognitivism, this is a good experiment to undergo!
Lindsay Clandfield, Diploma Tutor and General English Teacher
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www.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia is a free Internet encyclopaedia; the difference here is that people from all over the place contribute articles and information to help build the site. Plus all the content is free. They have entries on almost anything, from the general to the truly bizarre. I like to use it to create reading activities.
Lindsay Clandfield, Diploma Tutor and General English Teacher
www.statistics.gov.uk
Ok, Ok, statistics aren't necessarily the most exciting things in the world, but this has so much information on life in the UK, from eating habits, to drinking habits (!), to gender pay gap, to how the UK has changed over the past few years. It's proved to be a very useful source of hard data for my business students to practise talking about statistics, which is something that most of them have to do at work, and is much more authentic than those dull graphs we find in course books.
Nick Rawlinson, Director In-company training
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www.education.guardian.co.uk
For anyone who thinks that a bit of grammar and a Tefl course makes you an
expert, or anyone thinking they know all there is to know about the job,
think again and read some of the interesting articles by respected TEFL pros
in addition to plenty of comment from people in the field on the highs and
lows of the industry.
David Young, Course Director Trinity CertTESOL Prague
www.iatefl.org
IATEFL is the International Association of English teachers. The website contains general information about the organisation, but if you check out the SIG (special interest group) websites you are sure to find something that will interest you, or be helpful in class.
Lindsay Clandfield, Diploma Tutor and General English Teacher
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Budget flights to Prague
Budget airlines seem to come and go all the time and open and close routes. This site is great for finding which airlines fly from where to where. The link is for flights coming into Prague, but it covers all of Europe and does a reasonably good job of keeping up to date.
Sean Hayward, Careers Officer and tutor, Trinity CertTESOL Prague
Travel in Czech
Online information for integrated transport system in Czech Republic and beyond. Just type in where you want to leave from, get to, what time and what date and it tells you your options.
David Young, Course Director Trinity CertTESOL Prague
Travel in Prague
Part of the same webpage as above covering city transport in Prague. Essential for setting the alarm clock so you get maximum rest before that early morning class.
David Young, Course Director Trinity CertTESOL Prague
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www.its-online.com
Most sites have printable and downloadable material for class, but little or no interactive stuff. The its-online network is a big exception. Loads of stuff for both teachers and students. I don't have room to do it justice here – just go and take a look! Some parts of the site are free, others are paying. It's not expensive though, especially if your school gets on board.
Lindsay Clandfield, Diploma Tutor and General English Teacher
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www.humanmetrics.com
You can do a free Myers Briggs personality test on this site by answering 50 questions. A lot of the staff at Oxford Tefl did it and most thought it very accurate! The test gives you a print out describing your personality type and consequent strengths and weaknesses. Very useful in helping you to understand yourself as a teacher and team member. You could also get your intermediate or advanced learners to do it and discuss the results.
Duncan Foord, Director of Teacher Training Department
The Hunger Site
Just one click and we can do some good; for every click, sponsors "donate" food, medical help etc to the more needy.
Nick Rawlinson, Director In-company training
Teaching mixed ability classes
By Lindsay Clandfield
http://www.onestopenglish.com
Essential UK – Material on aspects of life in UK, at the British Council Language Assistant website
By Jo Budden
http://www.britishcouncil.org/languageassistant-arc-essuk.htm
Using L1 in the classroom – Methodology article and activities
By Lindsay Clandfield and Duncan Foord
http://www.hltmag.co.uk/jan03/mart2.htm
Motivating Teenagers – Article and activities
By Jo Budden
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/motivate_teens.shtml
sing the phonetic chart with young learners – Article and activities
By Nicola Meldrum
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/pron/young_phonemic.shtml
Teaching without a coursebook - Article and ideas
By Jennifer Goodman
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/resources/no_book.shtml
Using Pictures in the Classroom - Article and ideas
By Jennifer Goodman
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/resources/picture_story.shtml
Slovodne - an enjoyable fusion of Czech and English. It focuses on the regularities, irregularities and downright craziness of Czech. Lively discussion and if you sign up, they send you a word each day. Sometimes it's informative and sometimes amusingly misinformative - is that a word?
By Fred and his mates
http://www.slovodne.cz/
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