ROGER'S TESOL PAGE

activity websites | jobs | cross-cultural training |online journals | teaching resources |
distance education | creating homepages and learning sites |
Roger's Place | University of Florida Linguistics/TESL | Sunshine State TESOL

Activity Sites for Students and Teachers-An Introductory Sample

• Dave's ESL Cafe. The best place to start your exploration of Internet ESL/EFL websites. Fun things for ESL students and teachers to do on the web. Includes chat rooms, idea exchanges, e-mail connections, a job center, links for students and teachers, idiom and phrasal verb pages.
• English Club. Lots of online resources from Cambridge, England, for ESL/EFL learners to practice their English. Help for grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Also business English. Fun site to explore. Lots of hidden surprises. Be careful. I got locked in and couldn't get out of the site with the back button.
• Internet TESL Journal. This is an example of a monthly E-zine or online journal. Well worth exploring. Check activities for students and links for students, as well as links for teachers, for thousands of links in various categories. Be sure to check out the archives at the bottom of the page.
• Linguistic Funland's TESL Page. A mega-collection of resources for teachers and students of English including a job center, activities for students, culture sites, e-mail pen pals, mailing lists, lists of organizations and journals, articles and essays, teaching resources, grant information, aids for creating websites, electronic journals for students, lists of study programs and schools, TOEFL information. Go through the Search the Funland! pop up. The Linguistics Funland Page sponsors the ESLoop. If you have never tried a website loop, here is a good place to start. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "next page" or "next 5" and see what comes up
• 1-language.com. Comprehensive ESL site including forums, realtime chat, grammar, flashcards, worksheets, puzzles and games, jobs, streaming audio materials, TOEIC modules, helplines, and much more.
• The Tower of English Theme Park. An ESL guide to the Internet with more than 300 fun and useful sites for teachers and students in 34 categories, including online ESL courses and language helps for students to practice their English on their own. Could be used with both native and non-native speakers of English.

Do you want more? Go to the teaching resource section.

Jobs (The following links are for information purposes only. Please use caution when making arrangements for employment overseas.)

• World wide (see Asia below)
• American TESOL Institute. Provides TESOL Certificate training for teachers, both online and in class. Also job placement worldwide.
  
• Best Bets for Teaching Abroad. This site is maintained by the University of California, Irvine, Center for International Education, to help those with a B.A. and little training or experience find overseas teaching jobs. A good place to start looking.
• Centro Colombo Americano. A cultural center in the Andes Mountains in Medellin Colombia that for sixty years has offered English and Spanish classes as well as a film studies program. They hire English teachers from throughout the world. Find the English version button at the top to view the website in English. Get an application through the "contact us" link.
• Chile National Volunteer Center. Teach English and learn Spanish working with schools in Chile on a volunteer basis. As the website says, "surprise yourself" as you teach English as a "social contribution." You aren't completely on your own. A package of fringe benefits is included. See the website for more details.
  
• CIEE: Council on International Educational Exchange. Information on study abroad, work exchanges, and teaching in summer English language programs.
• Dave's ESL Cafe Job Center. Great source for jobs around the world maintained by Dave Sperling. You can put your name on a mailing list.
• EFL Web. Suggestions on how to find a job overseas.
• Employment Resources for Language Teachers. Lots of pre-structured internet job searches for employment in the US and abroad. Maintained by the Ohio University Computer Assisted Language Learning Center.
• English First. The world's largest language school sponsors of English language schools mainly in China, Indonesia, and Russia but also in other countries around the world. They also sponsor training programs.
  
• ESL Employment. A free listing of jobs world wide including Europe, Africa, North and South America, as well as Asia and the Middle East.
• English Job Maze. Includes postings for jobs around the world as well as information about teaching English in 50 countries under Countries @ a Glance. You can also post your CV.
• ESL Jobs World. Includes free job listings for  Asia, Latin American, North America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and online courses.
• ESLworldwide.com. This site you need to explore a bit. Lots of information on how to find jobs overseas, including resume and interviewing tips. Job seeker service. Information about teaching conditions in various countries supplied by local correspondents.
• Experiment in International Living. An international organization promoting intercultural learning through homestays, educational group travel, study abroad, language training, au pair, and cultural immersion programs. Links according to where you live. Good place to look if you don't really want to teach but want to live or study overseas.
• Fulbright Teacher and Adminstrator Exchange. Are you a K-12 teacher or adminstrator or community college teacher who would like to exchange places with a teacher overseas? This is the place to look.
• Fulbright Scholar Program. Are you a university professor who would like to teach overseas for a year? This is the Fulbright program for you. Only a few of the positions are for teaching English. Graduate students interested in research or teaching are redirected to a related site.
• Linguistic Funland Job Page. A good place to start looking for overseas jobs, especially in Asia. Lots of job listings and links to other job websites.
• Mark's ESL World. A listing for jobs available world wide.
  
• Peace Corps. Includes job information for those who want to teach English overseas as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
• Pueblo Ingles. They recruit native speakers of English from around the world to live in various English language camps in interesting settings in Spain and Italy to talk to businessmen and other adults who want to practice their English all day for a week at a time. You pay your way there. They pay all your expenses for the week of camp. You have to vow to use only English 24/7. In fact they won't hire you if you know Spanish or Italian. You won't make any money, but it could be a fun intro to helping English language learners.
• TEFL International. A nonprofit organization that provides teacher training programs in various places around the world as well as aids in teacher placement. Their courses fit the British Council criteria for employment at British Council accredited institutions.
  
• TEFL Professional Network. Job information for English language teachers world wide. A weekly job newsletter sent out by e-mail with the URL of employers.
• teachingenglish.ca. A Canadian website dedicated to helping you find and English teaching job in Asia, Europe, Africa, or South American, including information for Canadian and US citizens.  Includes postings of English teaching jobs around the world. Slide your cursor over the links at the top of the page for more details as to the contents.
• Teaching Jobs Overseas. Hints on how to get overseas teaching jobs--not just for English language teaching.
• US Information Agency homepage. Information about US Government sponsored exchange programs, including the Fulbright program.
• Asia
• Doug's Korean Konnection. Information about working in Korea. What can you expect? What should you bring? What are the legal problems? etc.
• EFL in Asia. A reference guide to teaching English in Asia by Hall Houston. Includes information on Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Mongolia. Includes job boards.
• English First. Largest recruiter and trainer of English teachers for their language schools in China, Indonesia, and Russia.
• ESL Dewey. Extensive listing of jobs for teaching in private or public schools in Taiwan. Especially interested in certified teachers. Includes information about traveling and living in Taiwan.
• ESL Placement Korea. They run 13 branches of English Academies in South Korea with over 80 instructors and 4000+ students.
• ESL Teachers Board. A free listing of jobs in Korea and China with a small section on jobs in other parts of the world including a place to post your resume.Also a listing of ESL international schools. Includes a discussion board where teachers exchange their experiences in teaching at different schools so you can be prepared before accepting a job.
• Good English Jobs.  A website maintained by InterGlobal Recruitment,  a recruiting agency based in the USA that hires English teachers for private English schools in South Korea.
• Japan Traveler. A monthly online magazine providing information for the foreign and bilingual community in Japan.
• Jobs in Japan. This websites calls itself the mother lode of Japan job information. Includes information on housing, visas, expenses, different kinds of schools, and information on non-English teaching jobs.
• Jon's ESL Homepage. Scroll down to the links for lots of practical advice about getting jobs in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Middle East, elsewhere. New information added all the time. Lists of places to avoid, especially blacklisted schools in Korea. How to protect yourself.
• The Japan FAQ: Know Before You Go. Robert Murphy's complete guide to working, visiting, and living in Japan. Three pages of practical information on getting there, finding a place to stay, dealing with visas, finances, transportation, health, mail, telephones, and local customs. A must read for anyone wanting to work in Japan.
• Sinoculture: China in Focus. A website from the Global Volunteer Network that helps people find English teaching jobs  in schools and universities throughout China. The positions are salaried, accommodation is provided and the teacher's airfares are refunded. Teachers typically work for 15-20 hours per week and are required to work for at least six months.
• Teach English in Asia.  Information about teaching in Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Also blogs by teachers working in the countries. Also gives "last minute" activities and games a teacher can use in class. Must register to use the site.
  
• Why South Korea? An orientation website from Canada-ESL about teaching in Korea, including information about the different kinds of opportunities.

• Get a copy of the following book from TESOL before you go (Use the search for title option in the publications section): More Than a Native Speaker: An Introduction for Volunteers Teaching Abroad by Don Snow.
• For information on various training programs you can do at home, go the distance education section below.
  
• Check out the country through one of the following: Lonely Planet Online (budget travel bible), Yahoo Regional Directory (mega list of sites for US States, regions, countries) or the DK World Desk Reference (facts about countries summarized in colorful charts and graphs) Or check other online travel guides such as Just Italy, Just Spain, or Just Egypt. (There are links to other countries at the website) or Facts about Japan.
  
• Check the The Thorn Tree, the website maintained by Lonely Planet with discussion groups for those interested in travel and life in various parts of the world. Or go to Google Groups and type in rec.travel for more discussion of travel hints for the part of the world you are interested in.
• Check travel details through Berggren's ESL Travel Center or Hotels By City Travel Guides.
  
• Go to the I Love Languages page, Learn Chinese,  BBC Languages, or Free Language to get started on the local language.
• Need translation help? Try  nice translator 
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Cross-Cultural Training

• American Studies Electronic Crossroads. Sponsored by the American Studies Association to provide teachers with electronic links to lesson plans, teaching ideas, materials, interactive media, research findings. Links to international American Studies associations and graduate programs.
• Ethnologue. Start here if you don't know what language they speak where you are going. A catalogue of more than 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries. Look up where you are going and it will tell you which languages are most commonly spoken there. Then go to the I Love Languages Page to find materials for learning the language or at least a few useful phrases.
• Experiment in International Living. An international organization promoting intercultural learning through homestays, educational group travel, study abroad, language training, au pair, and cultural immersion programs. Links according to where you live.
• Web of Culture. Links promoting cross cultural communication, including wide range of topics such as currency, cuisine, consulates, embassies, gestures, jobs, headlines, languages, cross-cultural misunderstandings in the news, Email pals, consulting. The cultural bookstore has nice collection of books on cross-cultural and intercultural topics.
• Working on Common Cross-cultural Communication Challenges. A short cybertext by Marcelle DuPraw and Marya Axner which examines six fundamental patterns of cultural differences with guidelines on how to work with people of a different culture.

E-zines (Online journals for teachers)

• Asian EFL Journal. A quarterly journal with articles about research and teaching in Pacific Rim countries, in particular, those in Asia. Its stated goal is to "revitalize Asian EFL education, considered by some modern linguistic commentators as rather moribund and in need of new thinking."
• English Teaching Forum. A publication of the US Department of State in support of English teaching outside the United States. Articles focus on the theory and practice of teaching English and include discussions of methods, techniques, and ideas useful in the classroom. Thematic content varies, often focusing on an aspect of American culture or a particular language skill or teaching approach.
• Internet TESL Journal. This monthly publication could become your favorite. Well worth exploring. Check activities for students and links for students, as well as links for teachers for thousands of links in various categories. Be sure to check out the archives at the bottom of the page.
• Language Learning and Technology. A refereed journal for second and foreign language educators who are interested in using computers and the internet in the classroom. In addition to articles, book and software reviews, there is a column on emerging technologies which can be used in the language classroom.
• TESL-EJ.A scholarly journal from Japan dealing with issues concerning teaching English as a second language. Includes reviews of textbooks and other teaching resources. Mirror sites in Germany, Japan, and California for faster loading.

Teaching Resources (see also Homepages to Help Teachers I, II, and III)

• All Purpose (including Lesson Plans and Teaching Ideas)
• Aardvark's English Forum and ESL Resources. A collection of ESL related links. News, learning resources, interactive exercises, books, teaching resources, travel information.
• Amazing Environmental Organization Web Directory. Source for thousands of readings on various environmental topics such as disasters, forestry, health, pollution, recreation, recycling, transportation, weather, and wildlife.
• Boggle's World. A group of teachers in Asia and North America maintain this site. It includes lots of worksheets, lesson plans, crossword puzzles, flash cards, songs and games for elementary and middle school ESL teachers. Classroom "magic potions" for students to make.
• Boston Public Library Kid's Page. Lots of kid safe links to items of popular culture including sports, music, and TVwhich you could use in class.
• Breaking News English. Ready-to-use EFL/ESL lesson plans from Sean Banville based on current affairs. News articles, listening and communicative activities graded as easier and harder are uploaded daily.
• BlueMountain. At this website your students can send postcards with short messages to each other, some animated. Also computer games. Much of the website is free.
  
• Canada-ESL. Free printable lessons and resources for English teachers and students.  Teaching tips, how to improve your English, grammar, conversation, activities and games.  This site also has free info about studying ESL in Canada.
• DiscoverySchool.Com. Activities from the Discovery Channel. Things for kids, teachers, and parents. Lots of resources the create handon learning experiences to help students learn English through task based activities.
• Duber's Computer Assisted Language Learning. Lots of links to programs, materials, and methods, including MOOs and online fiction and non-fiction. Newsgroups, discussion groups. Online cinema, radio, museums, newspapers
• Education Place. Houghton Mifflin's resource page for pre K-8 teachers, student,s and parents including activities and games for reading, language arts, math, science, social studies. Could be useful for ESL teachers working with content teachers.
  
• Eisenhower National Clearinghouse. Good place for math and science teachers to look for lesson plans and teaching idea for content area ESL/EFL.
• English Maze. A British-Australian website for English language learners and teachers in schools in Korea and worldwide. Students can work with pronunciation, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The website is graphics intense so may not work will with older versions browers or dial up connections. Many of the activities on the website are free, as are lesson plans for teachers.
• ESLgo. James Trotta's great collection of of free materials for English learners and teachers including free English classes and lots of language practice. Be sure to explore the directory at the top to see the wide selection of student and teacher resources. There are some pleasant surprises.
  
• ESL Teachers Board. In addition to employment information for China and Korea, many links for ESL games and lessons written by teachers.
• Everything ESL. A nice website for ESL and mainstream teachers from Judie Haynes. It includes lots of lesson plans and teaching tips, including how to solve cross cultural communication problems. A resource section recommends hardcover materials that might be purchased for the classroom. Also a discussion section to share ideas.
• Great Sites. The American Library Association Parent's Page presents links to child friendly sites for arts, entertainment, literature, people, science, and technology.
• How Stuff Works. A good site for curious students who want to use their English to discover things work. For example, how does a cell phone work? How does a Home Theater work? How does SCUBA work? Short reading passages for students more interested in practical reading rather than literature..
• Jim Becker's TESOL/ESL/TESL Resources. Lots of teacher resources including games, testing, jobs, writing, teacher training.
  
• Karin's ESL PartyLand. A student side filled with quizzes, discussion groups, etc. A teacher side with ideas, lessons, and activities for using video, film, music, the Internet, e-mail, etc. for teaching various language skills.
• Interesting Things for ESL Students. Charles and Lawrence Kelly provide this megasite of activities, including quizzes and activities for vocabulary and grammar, word and sentence puzzles, a listening room and a reading room. There are listening activities based on folk songs and a section on reading English signs.
• Internet TESL Journal Lesson Plans. Lots of ESOL lesson plans organized by skill areas, including first day activities, conversation, culture, music, games, reading and writing, vocabulary, using videos and the Internet, cooperative learning, travel, and business English.
• Learn English Feel Good. This site includes video clips for listening comprehension, grammar and vocabulary exercises and tests, idioms and phrasal verbs, differences between American and British English, and listings of ESL programs around the world.
  
• Lesson Plans and Resources for ESL, Bilingual, and Foreign Language Teachers. Marty Levine's collection of links to lesson plans, teaching ideas, games, software, testing and assessment, reader's theater, folklore, and more.
• Mansion del ingles. A Spanish language website for learning English
• Ohio University ESL Teacher Resources.  Includes lots of  links to lesson plans, tips for using technology in the classroom,  websites for content based and skill based ESL, websites on language testing, listings of  internet newsletters and journals.
• One Stop English. MacMillan Publishers collection of helps for English teachers. Though much is aimed towards getting you to buy their products, there are free downloads of worksheets that you can use in your class once you have registered with their site.
• Open English World. Free English lessons for English language learners to practice conversation, vocabulary, pronunciation, business English, and idioms
• PBS Kids. Games, stories, music, and coloring activities for children from Public Broadcasting. Includes sections for parents and teachers.
  
• Search the Internet. Help from the Networked Writing Environment at the University of Florida on how to find almost anything you want on the internet, from email addresses, to images and videos, to poetry, newspapers, to literature collections, to museums and art, to whatever other humanities topic interests you.
• Search Engines in Review. Looks at the pros and cons of the different search engines you might want to use.
• SIL Linguistic Resources: Computing. From the Summer Institute of Linguistics a fairly comprehensive list of links to software tools for using the computer for language analysis, including speech , phonetic, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and text analysis. Foreign language fonts, CALL.
• Teaching with the Web. Lauren Rosen's page loaded with ideas on how to use the internet to teach German, Spanish, French, ESL/EFL, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Latin. Web activities for collaborative learning and links to learning centers around the world which support and encourage the use of technology.
• TESL/TEFL/TESOL/ESL/EFL/ESOL Links. A mega list of over 4,500 links for students and teachers put together by the Internet TESL Journal.
• Yahooligans. The kids safe search engine from Yahoo! featuring a wide range of topics.
• Speaking and Listening to English (See also the all purpose sites)
• American Accent Training. Focuses on the "big 6" (i & e), (th), (l), (r), (t), (a & uh). Also links.
• BBC World Service--Learning English. Do you want the British point of view? Access BBC online for reading and listening activities .
• Becky's Campfire Song Book. Need some action songs for your class to reinforce or even introduce vocabulary, pronunciation, or grammar? Here's a place to start looking. Links to other websites with those songs you used to sing at summer camp--or maybe learned watching Barnie on PBS.
• EAP 400 Listening Page. A page with listening links from Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, FL.
• ELLLO. A free online listening resource of over 1,000 listening activities designed especially for ESL and EFL students and teachers. Most listening activities include images, an interactive quiz, transcript of the audio and downloadable MP3. Created and maintained by Todd Beuckens, a full time English teacher based in Japan.
  
• English Pronunciation. Okanagan University's website with QuickTime movies demonstrating pronunciation, tongue twisters, minimal pairs, dictations, and other helps for difficult sounds such as th, ch, sh, r, l, i.
  
• ESL Links for Teachers. Collected by the Canadian Association of Second Language Teaching. Includes such things as poetry, movie guides, internet radio, music, and conversation.
  
• ESL Listening. An extensive listing of listening websites collected by Internet TESL Journal. Includes downloadable podcasts, MP3 files, and  RealAudio.
• ESL Video. Learn English (ESL/EFL) with free videos from YouTube, Google Video, blip.tv, and other video hosting websites. Also quizzes for the videos and a quiz builder that teachers can use to create their own quizzes. Check the links button for other video resources for both teachers and students. Also video related lesson plans..Access the collection of videos through the quiz section. Select the desired proficiency level.
  
• Guides for Notetaking. Suggestions prepared by the Santa Fe Community College ESL Program on how to take notes in a class.
  
• Health in a Heartbeat. Two minute long passages about health issues prepared at the University of Florida Health Science Center for broadcast on PBS. Changes daily, two weeks worth of programs available at the same time. Also available on podcasts. Scripts are also available.
• History and Politics Out Loud. A searchable archive of politically significant audio materials prepared by Michigan State University and the National Endowment of the Humanities. Maintained by Jerry Goldman and Northwestern University. Browse by speaker, date, or title to find what is available.
  
• Interactive Sagitall Section. Daniel Currie Hall's website from the University of Toronto that helps learners visualize how the tongue and lips work to form the sounds represented by IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet). Must know how to specify the place and manner of articulation to get the model to work. Quite interesting. Also a link to the IPA.
• iTunes. Apple's source for music downloads. Needs special equipment.
  
• Learn English. Self pronouncing flash cards on 40 vocabulary topics with over 1,500 words and phrases. Click on the word and it is pronounced. Bilingual Spanish, French, Russian and Hebrew or English only cards. The pronunciation is always English.
  
• Listening for English Language Learners. A collection of links from the Ohio University ESL program. Includes activity links sorted by proficiency levels and links for other listening and viewing materials
• Living on Earth. Podcasts on various environmental topics. Partially funded by the National Science Foundation and broadcast on PBS.
  
• The Moonlit Road. Ghost stories and strange folktales of the American South, told by the region's most celebrated storytellers. Originally broadcast on XM Satellite Radio. A member of the story telling ring providing access to a host of similar webpages.
  
• National Public Radio. News stories from around the world with accompanying sound files. Free transcripts available.
• Odeo. Podcasts free to download. Can be used to dreate pronunciation projects.
  
• Online NewsHour. Audio and transcripts from the NewsHour on the Public Broadcast Services. Good material for reading and listening comprehension based on current topics of intellectual interest.
• Podomatic. Create, share, and find podcasts.
  
• Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab. Great site for practicing listening comprehension skills. Listening exercises and quizzes shorted by easy, medium, and difficult.
• Rob and Bob Show. Weekly English lessons from a Yankee and a Brit in the format of a radio broadcast where Rob and Bob talk about a variety of topics. Good way to listen to both accents in conversational educated English. The broadcasts are free but to receive a downloadable study guide, you need to become a member for a nominal monthly fee. MP3 downloadable.
• Science @ NASA. Listen to or read academic English in short "Headline News" articles on a variety of space related topics. Updated weekly.
  
• Sounds of English. Sharon Widmayer and Holly Gray's website with lots of links for general ESL listening practice online, including interviews, weather, radio drama, speeches, video clips, songs, poetry, commercials, and pronunciation websites. Tips for teachers and lots of pronunciation help for students. Handouts from professional presentations about teaching pronunciation online.
• Speak English. Includes YouTube videos of popular songs with word subtitles, grammar lessons, and idioms. Includes partner links to free things teachers can use.
• Starfall Learn to Read. This website is designed for teaching reading to native speaking children. Since it assumes that the child can already speak English, it does clever interactive activities to match the spoken language with the written. It should be useful too with ESOL students who need to learn how English spelling matches the spoken language. The child can have the stories read while following along or can click on words to hear what they sound like.
• VOA News. Voice of America news in various formats and various versions of English, including English to Africa, English Worldwide, and Special English. Click on "select a language" to make see the options..
  
• World Radio Network. WRN provides both audio and video feeds of news from the world's leading international news sources. Not only English speaking countries but most other European countries provide an English broadcast of local news that should interest students.
• Reading and Writing English (See also the all purpose sites)
• All You Can Read. Homesick? Want the news from home? Find your hometown newspaper here if it is online. Also a way to find English language newspapers and magazines in countries around the world that may be of interest to your students or to you.  Includes non-English language materials too. Select the newspaper tab at the top of the page to view world list of country selections.
• Bangkok Post Educational Services. Excellent source of ESL/EFL reading material based on current events. Lots of teaching materials and tips. Good section on reading tips for students as part of the program for "Improving your English with the Bangkok Post." Highly recommended.
• CNN Interactive. The online version of CNN news. Good source of short readings on current international topics. Includes sports, business, entertainment, politics, nature, technology, food, travel, and style.
• Indiana University Clearning House on Reading, English and Communication.  Includes lesson plans, research on teaching reading, and the ERIC Clearing House on Reading.
• Library of Congress Poetry 180. This website gives 180 poems that can be used in high school with teaching ideas.
  
• Make Beliefs Comix. Here English Language Learners can create their own comic strips with their own characters as they practice writing English.
  
• New York Times Learning Network. Aimed at native speaker children grades 6 to 12. Great for advanced students. Activity sections for students, teachers, and parents based on the news. Special monthly features. Includes an online dictionary. Note the lesson plan archive for teachers.
• Project Gutenberg. An archive of online fiction and nonfiction. Some say this is the best online library on the web. It may take some patience to learn how to find what you want.
• Reading Sites for Primary Grades. A collection of sites designed for children to make learning how to read fun.
  
• Scholastic. Lots of games and reading acitivities with interactive animations and occasional spoken clues. More advanced ESOL students should enjoy the activities. Need to explore the website to pick out the appropriate activities. Also parent and teacher sections.
  
• Starfall Learn to Read. This free public service website from Starfall Publications is designed for helping new readers learn how phonics applies to reading English. Fun interactive animations that including such things as singing activities to help learners figure out how English reading works.  Can click on words to hear what they sound like. Teachers say this is a child favorite.
  
• USA Today. Focus on news in the USA. Sections on people, travel, business, news, money, sports, life, technology, and weather. Lots of interesting things for short readings. Links with teaching ideas. Be sure to explore this site in depth.
• Voice of the Shuttle. Unlikely name for the webpage for humanities research. A good place to start looking for material and ideas, especially if your first impression of the web is that it is nothing but a collection of games and pictures with little of intellectual value. A good source of authentic material to use in advanced ESL/EFL classes.
• Wordchamp. Teachers by cutting and pasting to wordchamp create reading passages where the learning can click on unknown words and a definition appears in a popup.
  
• Grammar (See also the all purpose sites)
• Applied English Grammar on the Web. An online ESL grammar textbook by Pat Byrd and Beverly Benson at Georgia State University. Includes an instructor's manual.
• Internet Java Quizzes for ESL Students. A large growing collection of teacher produced quizzes posted on the Internet TESL Journal's Activities for ESL Students
• OWL. Purdue University's online writing lab is designed for both native and non-native speakers. It includes an ESL section with lots of grammar guides and exercises that advanced students can study on their own.
• Vocabulary (See also the all purpose sites)
• ABC Teach. A teacher resource page that lets you create crossword puzzles, word searches, and other vocabulary exercises. Lots of forms for student activities on various subjects.
  
• CNN Newsroom & Worldnews for ESL. BYU-Hawaii's weekly grammar and vocabulary exercises based on CNN. Includes information on free teaching aids from CNN and how to get copies of the broadcasts for classroom use.
• Learn English with Pictures. Online flash cards with pictures and English words. Audio available.The site has over 400 words and photographs ranging from animals to kitchen appliances.
• Learning Vocabulary can be Fun. Has hangman, word searches, match games, and quizzes on over 70 subjects with thousands of words. Subjects covered include such things as animals, astronomy, clothing, computers, foods, furniture, geography, occupations, shapes, sports,  travel, and weather. There is an easy mode for the kids and a harder mode for teenagers and adults. Each game is randomly  generated.
• Newbury House Online Dictionary. 40,000 entries from the best selling Newbury House Dictionary of American English. Includes pronunciation, sample sentences, cultural notes, related words, and pictures.
• Webopedia. Can't figure out the vocabulary used by web designers and users? You can look up the words here.
  
• Wordchamp. Teachers create online reading passages by cutting a pasting texts onto wordchamp. Students can then automatically click on an unknown word to have it defined and pronounced in a popup. Also flashcards.
  
• WordNet. An online dictionary with English nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs organized in synonym sets. It first finds the word you submit and gives its definitions from most frequent to least. You then select the meaning you want and it gives the synonyms.

• American TESOL Institute. Has online training for a TESOL Certificate.
  
• English Online. Ruth Vilmi's Listing of ESL/EFL courses, TEFL/TESL teacher training courses, and technical writing courses offered through the internet. Links to resources for teachers creating online courses.
• VOLTERRE-FR: Distance Learning. A listing of TESL distance learning programs worldwide. URL's and email addresses given but no links.
• TESOL Direct. A British professional distance learning certificate course for teaching English to speakers of other languages. Also a certificate in teaching business English.
  

• "How to" Guides
• Developing Information Content for Websites. John December's helpful guidelines of what you should keep in mind in creating a user friendly website.  Take note of the links at the end for more helpful hints for website development.
• EOS Development. Lots of helps for developing nice looking websites. Backgrounds, buttons, graphics. Be sure to check out the web developer resources link.
• E-Zine Publishing Handbook. Want to have your class publish their work in a weekly or monthly magazine or newsletter format? Why not take a look at this E-Zine guide. Includes templates you can use.
• HTML Goodies. A great place by Joe Burns where you can go for help in creating a homepage on the web. Lots of things you can use to make your page more pleasing and perhaps entertaining. Tutorials, free images, JavaGoodies, frequently asked questions answered.
• HTML Colorcodes. If you are using html to create your page, here is where you can find the code for just the right color you want. There are also instructions on how to apply these colors to page backgrounds, table backgrounds, text, and links.
  
• Internet Options in the One Computer Classroom. Lewis Johnson gives his suggestions of how to include the Internet in a classroom that has only one computer and perhaps no Internet connection.
• Javascript FAQ. If you want to read more about Javascript, start out with this page to answer frequently asked questions. Includes links to tutorials.
• Language Interactive: A Trailguide to Creating Dynamic Web Pages. Bob Godwin-Jones' introduction to using internet technology including audio, video, JavaScript, and cgi. Includes tutorials.
• Roger's Guide to Creating Homepages for Classroom Management. This handout for a conference presentation should help you create a homepage using Mozilla. (See also the Mozilla Tutorial for detailed step by step instructions.)
• The Site Wizard. In depth look at how to create webpages and websites, including getting started, web design, promoting sites and making money, stylistics, and website management. Includes tutorials on using Mozilla.
• Tman's Intro to HTML Magic. An introduction to how to use HTML coding to create web pages using Notepad when you do not have a web page editor.
• W3C. World Wide Web Consortium.  A mega source for those who are interested in more than using a editor such as Mozilla to create webpages. . Tutorials in specifications, guidelines, software, and tools.
• Web 3 Schools. The best things in life are free. Web-building tutorials from basic HTML and XHTML to advanced XML, SQL, Database, Multimedia and WAP.
• Webmonkey for Kids. Hotwired's introduction to web page design for children. Includes projects and guide to tools they can use. Check the link to the planning guide for suggestions on how teachers and parents can use the page.
• Webopedia. Can't understand the jargon they use when talking about computers programs and web pages? Here is the only online dictionary and search engine you need for computer and Internet technology definitions.
• Web Site Announcing. This FAQ site from EPage tells you how to let the world know about the great homepage you just created.
• Yale Style Manual. Good layout design tips webpage developers from the Yale Medical School. Navigate through the handbook by selecting the links in the left column.
• Animations, Clip Art, Multimedia
• Animated GIFs. Free animations for you homepages or teaching materials from WebDeveloper.com. Also lots of graphics. Design tutorials.
• Animation Factory. More than 12,000 free animations you can use in your web pages.
• Barry's Clip Art and Animations. Want some animation or clip art to spice up your page or to create interesting language exercises? Barry Pase gives lots of links to animations and clip art.
• Creative Commons. An entry into various search engines to look for photos using google, yahoo, flickr,  owl, and spinxpress.
  
• Google. Do a google image search. Type in what you want a picture of. If you want clipart, type what you want and add the words "clip art." When you find a picture you want, do a right click on it and "save image" in your files, modifying the name of the file anyway you want so you can find it again. Make sure to keep the .jpg or.gif extension. In the same way you can do a video search to find short clips that might be useful for the classroom.
  
• Lycos Multimedia Search. This advanced search engine helps you find photos, audio, and video clips. You just have to tell it what to look for.
• Open Photo. A place to look for pictures of various types.
• Photoblogs.  A gateway to finding blogs that specializing in photography. Read their FAQ section for how it works.
  
• Yahoo's Clipart Collection. Lots of links to clipart, graphics, backgrounds, animations, etc.
• Yahoo Picture Gallery. Using their image search engine or their featured sections you can find picture of animals, nature, people, history, transportation, geography, entertainment, sports, culture, etc.
• Helpful Software
• Download.com. Great source for software programs you can download to make your computer more useful in the classroom--mostly freeware, shareware, or demos. Check especially the education and language or the multimedia and design links
• Freeware 95. Good source for free software you can download to make your computer more useful for teaching. e.g. chat rooms, email clients, browsers, html editors, and zip utilities so you can unzip files that you download from the internet.
• Hot Potatoes. From Half-Baked Software at the University of Victoria Language Centre for creating Web-based interactive teaching materials. For creating multiple choice, short answer, jumbled sentences, crosswords, matching and gap/fill exercises.
• Software Resources. This site is maintained by the Computer Assisted Language Learning interest section of TESOL. It includes links to free software that might be of interest to teachers who want to use computers in the classroom.
• Sounds English. Reviews Macintosh freeware and shareware for English language learners and teachers. Includes English for special purposes, grammar, listening, spelling, vocabulary, reading and writing. Links to download sites.
• TuCows. Another great source for software to make the internet more useful for language teaching. Ratings on free or lowcost programs for such things as audio, email, html editors, chatrooms, and multimedia tools.
• Wordchamp. Create online reading passages where the learner can click on an unknown word and have it defined with a popup definition and a friendly voice pronouncing the word. Also flashcards.
  
• Websearching/social bookmarking.
• Buddymarks. A place to store your bookmarks online. Can be closed so only the class can use. Good way to store websites on group research projects.
  
• Delicious. A social bookmarking site.A place where you can bookmark interesting websites independent of your own computer. This you can access the bookmarks anywhere and can share them with others interested in the same topic.
• Digg. Popular news, videos, podcasts according to the web. Includes social bookmarking.
• Furl. A place to bookmark your finds independently of your computer.
  
• Magnolia. A social bookmarking site. A place where you can bookmark interesting websites independent of your own computer. This you can access the bookmarks anywhere and can share them with others interested in the same topic.
• Reddit. A source for what is new or popular online.
• Scuttle. Allows all the class to store bookmarks together. Filtered so appropriate for K-12.
  
• Website Caveates
• Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design. Jakob Nielsen's alertbox. Note especially #8.
  
• Webpages That Suck. Vincent Flander's look at what he considers to be the 10 worst webpages of the year with lots of suggestions on how to improve your own website.
  
• Web Hosting/Two Way Communication (see also social bookmarking above)
  
• A Free Guestbook. Create a guestbook where students can register comments.
• Blogger. A free host for blogging.
• Blogmeister.  A classroom blog from the Landmark Project that allows the teacher to have control over the content. You have to register your class and the students.
  
• Blogsource. Another free host for blogging.
  
• Class Homework. A place where students and parents can go to access a teacher's webpage and find out about homework assignments.
• Classroom Wikis. Have the class collaborate on a project together. How to use and examples.
  
• EBLOGGY. A free host for class blogs (web logs) where students can share their thoughts and feelings with each other on a topic you might assign. You can use it somewhat in the same way you would use a dialog journal.
• Edublogs. The largest educational blog. Safe and secure. Allows video and podcasts. Lots of hints, tips, and ideas.
  
• GEOCITIES. If you don't have a server for your homepage, Geocities offers free homepages in exchange for carrying advertisements. Also free email. Of course, the price for being "free" is you have to carry advertisements.
• Google Page Creator. Free for anyone to create a webpage. Create your own website hosted by Google (http://yoursitename.googlepages.com).
• Google Video. Not only a source for homemade videos that might apply to the topics your are teaching but also a host for the videos that your class might make to share with the world.
  
• Hotmail. The place to go to get free web based email accounts for your students. Handy for schools with internet access but no student email. Handy too because the email can be accessed on any computer with an internet connection anywhere in the world, i.e. at home, in the library, at a business, etc.
• iBlog. Another free host for blogs.
  
• Inspiring Teachers. Free webpage hosting for teachers. Up to 20 MB of space. Can post projects, links for students and teachers, forms, counters, email, student work.
• iVideochat. Free for those 18 and over. No nudity.
  
• Juno. Free but limited internet access and email.
• Live Journal. Can be used for blogging, social networking.
  
• Microsoft Netmeeting. Go here if you want to include video chatting in your website.
• Nicenet's Internet Classroom Assistant. This is a free classroom management website that you can use for a "closed" classroom that allows admission only from those who have registered for your class.
• Mypodcast. Create your own free "radio show" to broadcast on the internet. Podcasting is also useful for creating activities where students practice their speaking skills, including improving their pronunciation.
  
• Odeo. Another place to host your pronunciation and listening comprehension activities where students can report back to you.
  
• Podbean. Another place to create your own podcast.
• Pod Cast People. Your online podcasting studio. Some free, some paid.
  
• Quicktopic. Create an instant bulletin board for a class discussion.
  
• School and Teacher. Free the first year. $19.95 thereafter.
  
• Schoolnotes. Free webpages for teachers so they can communicate with students and parents.
  
• Teacher Web. For $27 a year, they not only will host your website but have templates to help you create websites for your class.
• Teacher Website. Tools and helps for teachers who want to create their own class websites.
  
• Yahoo Messenger. Do you want to have real time interaction with others in distant locations. This site tells you have to set up various types of instant message systems to your website: typed, audio, and visual.
• Yahoo Podcasts. Use your email account to create and host or to download podcasts.
  
• YouTube. Video hosting. Place to host your class creations or to find creations of others on a variety of topics that might be related to what you are doing in class.
  
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