We have made every effort to ensure that all links leaving this site are appropriate.
Jordan School District cannot be held responsible for information found on other web sites.

Lesson Plans, Skills and WebQuests

This list has been updated and modified from a list which was received in a workshop at the Pre-Conference Institutes for TESOL 2002.  Thank you very much to Leslie Opp-Beckman, leslieob@oregon.uoregon.edu for her expertise and willingness to share.

Lesson Plan Repositories
  • The Educator's Reference Desk
    http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/index.shtml
    This searchable collection contains more than 2000 unique lesson plans which have been written and submitted by teachers from all over the United States and the world.
  • Discovery
    http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans
    Adaptable lesson plans in many topic areas for elementary and secondary learners.
    Also see:
  • Teach-Nology
    http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/work_sheets/
    The generators allow you to make worksheets by filling out a simple form. The materials are made instantly and can be printed directly from your computer. Your creations are exclusive to you. If you would like to keep your creations, save them when you make them.
  • Education Place
    http://www.eduplace.com/
    From Houghton Mifflin, Resources for elementary-school teachers, students, and parents. Includes Reading/Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies Centers, Intervention, Professional Development, searchable activity database, educational games, and textbook support.
  • Everything ESL
    http://www.everythingesl.net/lessons
    Content-based lesson plans for ESL/EFL.
  • I-TESL-J, Lesson Plans
    http://iteslj.org/Lessons/
    Lesson plans for ESOL from Internet TESL Journal, organized by skill area.
  • NY Times, Lesson Plan Archive
    http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/archive.html
    Teaching ideas based on news items from the NY Times.
  • TeacherLink
    http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/
    Teaching resources in English from NASA that can be adapted to ESL/EFL settings.
  • Web English Teacher
    http://www.webenglishteacher.com/
    A large collection of resources for ESL instruction. Check out the ESL resources.
Skills: Grammar and Vocabulary
  • Dictionary: Merriam-Webster
    http://www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm
    Another resource from a dictionary company with Word of the Day, Word Games, and Word for the Wise.
  • ESL Quiz Center
    http://www.eslcafe.com    /
    Dave Sperling's web site with quizzes from other EFL and ESL instructors for Geography, Grammar, History, Idioms, Slang, & Words, People, Reading Comprehension, Science, World Culture, and Writing.
  • English Language Centre Study Zone http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/grammar.htm
    Includes grammar presentations, interactive practice exercises, and help pages for basic writing skills.
  • Grammar Bytes, Interactive Grammar Review
    http://www.chompchomp.com/
    Click on the green monster to get started. Inside you will find an Index of Grammar Terms, Interactive Exercises, Handouts for Students and Teachers, and a section on Grammar Rules.
    For another compilation of grammar rules, see:
    http://www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/grammarmenu.htm
  • Grammar and Multi-Skill Sites
    http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/grammar.html
    Michael Krauss has gathered together many web sites and ranked them beginner through advanced. Do you agree with his rankings? Is there anything you would change?
  • Homophones Quiz
    http://hobbes.ucsd.edu/quiz.html
    A 111-question quiz for advanced speakers of English on pairs of homophones and near-homophones in American English (e.g. patted ~ padded).
  • Karin's ESL Partyland Quiz Center
    http://www.eslpartyland.com/
    Quizzes for Grammar, Idioms, Slang & Phrasal Verbs, Reading, TOEFL, Trivia, Useful Expressions and Vocabulary.
  • Interesting Things for ESL students
    http://www.manythings.org/
    Activities and quizzes for students.
  • Word a Day
    http://www.wordsmith.org/awad
    The music and magic of words -- that's what A.Word.A.Day (AWAD) is about. They are a community of more than 500,000 linguaphiles in 210 countries. You too can subscribe and be a linguaphile. The subscription is free.

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Skills: Listening and Speaking

  • BBC World English, Learning English http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml
    Language study modules based on news events from radio. Support is available in many languages.
  • English Listening Room
    http://www.manythings.org/el/
    Listen to songs and fill in the blanks
  • History Channel Speeches
    http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/
    Hear the words that changed the world. From Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech to Lou Gehrig's farewell to baseball, this collection is drawn from some of the most famous broadcasts and recordings of the twentieth century. To listen to these files, you must have RealPlayer installed.
    For more speeches, see:
  • Gift of Speech, Women's Speeches from around the World
    http://gos.sbc.edu/
    Women's speeches from around the word.
  • PBS Online News Hour
    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/
    Offers news stories, news summaries, video footage, discussion forums and essays. Elementary and high school teachers may also want to check out "PBS Teacher Source, Technology and Teaching" http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/teachtech.htm for tutorials and subject-specific topics.
  • Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab
    http://www.esl-lab.com/
    Mostly conversational-style dialogues. Especially good for beginning ESL/EFL students.
  • National Public Radio (NPR)
    http://www.npr.org/
    Current and archived news stories from around the world with accompanying sound files. You can search for specific news topics, too.

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Skills: Reading

  • English Club: Reading
    http://www.englishclub.net/reading/index.htm
    Reading activities for ESL and EFL learners: Classics, Short Stories, Jokes and Proverbs.
  • I-TESL-J, Reading
    http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/links/ESL/Reading/
    Articles and lesson plans for teaching Reading from educators worldwide.
  • Online Books
    http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
  • This Day in History
    http://www.historychannel.com/thisday/
    A daily look at events from history.
  • Travelers' Tales
    http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/traveltales.html
Skills: Reading -- Mystery Stories
  • Candlelight Stories
    http://www.candlelightstories.com/
    Check out "Online Storybooks" in the free section of this web site.
  • Ongoing Tales Mystery E-Magazine
    http://www.ongoing-tales.com/SERIALS/mystery/
    Mystery stories in serial format. A detailed Table of Contents is available at http://www.ongoing-tales.com/contents.html.
  • Web Companion to Agatha Christie
    http://www.nd.edu/~rwoodbur/christie/christie.htm
    A complete listing of novels and publication dates in which it gives the information for each novel: A complete list of major and minor characters, a brief synopsis of the plot, a spoiler (for those who want to know "whodunit" and how).

Skills: Writing

  • I-TESL-J, Writing
    http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/links/ESL/Writing/
    Articles and lesson plans from English language educators around the world on the topic of writing.
  • National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE)
    http://www.ncte.org/
    Many reports on the integration of various computer-based tools and resources in writing and reading-related activities. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to open these PDF reports.
  • Online Writing Lab (OWL), Purdue, ESL Resources
    http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslstudent.html
    Handouts and tutorials for teaching writing.
    For other OWL resources, see:
  • PIZZAZ, Creative Writing Activities
    http://www.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/pizzaz.html
    A web site for educators with ideas and step-by-step instructions for incorporating creative writing ideas in the English classroom.

Web Quests
  • WebQuest Page at San Diego State University
    http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquest.html
    Start with the Overview and FAQ link. Then, visit training materials and Examples.
    Also see: 
  • WebQuests from Discovery
    http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/webquest/webquest.html
    More examples of webquests. See, in particular, the template link for webquests.
    You can find another very simple template for offline or online use at 

This list has been updated and modified from a list which was received in a workshop at the Pre-Conference Institutes for TESOL 2002.  Thank you very much to Leslie Opp-Beckman, leslieob@oregon.uoregon.edu for her expertise and willingness to share.

We have made every effort to ensure that all links leaving this site are appropriate.
Jordan School District cannot be held responsible for information found on other web sites.