The best online resources for EFL teachers: the ultimate list!

Your TEFL course will teach you how to put together great lesson plans and activities but you might still feel a little nervous about starting your first TEFL job – it’s completely normal! Having quality resources at hand to help you put together exciting and engaging lessons is essential for newly-qualified and experienced EFL teachers alike.

There are so many great online resources for EFL teachers out there it can be hard to know where to start. The resources listed here cover a wide range of bases. Whether you’re teaching exclusively online or in the classroom, you’ll be sure to find plenty of ideas and materials to help you create and develop amazing lessons.

This list includes over 30 of our favourites, but feel free to share your own with us in the comments below!

Lesson plans

Any EFL teacher will tell you about the importance of lesson planning. They’ll also tell you that it’s important to always have a back up. Below, you can find thousands of lesson plans, worksheets, and resources to help you create lessons - you’ll never be short of material!

The TEFL Org Designed specifically for newly-qualified EFL teachers, our lesson plans packs have been created by TEFL experts and have been tried and tested.

Busy Teacher Busy Teacher boasts 17,300 completely free, printable worksheets for EFL teachers. Whatever the level, whatever the topic, you’ll very likely find what you need here.

ESL Library A large library of lesson plans and flashcards, all nicely designed. Access to ESL Library materials isn’t free but subscriptions start from as low as under £4 a month.

One Stop English Like ESL Library, One Stop English is a subscription service priced at £42 annually. It has a database of over 9000 resources, with new materials added weekly.

TEFLtastic Not the most attractive or easy to navigate website on this list, but TEFLtastic has over 2,000 printable worksheets covering a range of language points and levels.

Apps

Your students will likely be active smartphone users, so introducing them to language learning apps can be a really convenient (and fun!) way to teach certain aspects of English. There are also lots of apps out there to help keep you organised as a teacher.

Kahoot Kahoot is a learning platform centred around games. You can create your own quizzes and your students can play along using their smartphone. For educators a basic plan is free, with more features available from £3 a month.

Memrise A great aid for vocabulary learning. Memrise uses flashcards and memory techniques to help language learning.

Evernote Looking for an organisational tool? Evernote allows you to keep track of everything and is conveniently synced across devices.

Vocab Victor This is a fun app for students, allowing them to play word games teaching intermediate-level vocabulary. If you’re looking for something different from flashcards this can be a great option to introduce.

LearnEnglish Grammar The British Council’s LearnEnglish Grammar app allows students to practice their English with thousands of free questions available.

Virtual classrooms

Whether you’re teaching online or in a classroom, a virtual classroom can be a great tool for you and your students. You can create your own learning environment that allows you to share resources, issue assignments, and track your students’ progress.

Google Classroom With Google Classroom you can easily share and grade assignments you give students. If you're already using other Google services such as docs and calendar, it's all easily integrated.

Edmodo Edmodo is like a social network for teachers and their students. It’s a great way to share resources, hand out assignments and more.

WizIQ Looking to create your own online courses for students to follow? As well as being a virtual classroom, WizIQ gives teachers the ability to create their own professional online courses, which can be marketed and sold.

LearnCube LearnCube is a user-friendly virtual classroom boasting lots of useful features for language teachers to take advantage of.

Grammar

When you first qualify it’s normal to feel intimidated by grammar and worry that you’re going to get caught out when you’re teaching. You’re not going to be an immediate master of English grammar, so some great resources to help you get clued up when you’re feeling stumped is a must. These sites are useful for both you and your students.

Grammar Monster Grammar made simple and easy to understand.

Teaching English | British Council Created by the British Council, Teaching English is full of resources for teaching kids, teenagers, and adults, as well as materials and courses for professional development. For more information about professional development for EFL teachers see our blog post.

Grammar Girl Grammar Girl, run by Mignon Fogarty, is an award-winning site that will help you get your head around all aspects of English grammar.

GrammarBytes Here you can find a glossary of grammar terms as well as exercises to help you and your students.

EF English First’s English Grammar Guide A simple and accessible guide to English grammar from the world’s largest private education company.

Video

Video is a powerful and engaging educational tool and can have a wide range of uses when teaching English language learners. You can find videos to help explain particular aspects of grammar, demonstrate correct pronunciation, and use clips from film and TV in creative ways to test and learn vocabulary. There are so many options!

YouTube While there are dedicated channels on YouTube for teaching and learning English, there are endless ways other content on the platform can be incorporated into your lessons.

ESL Brains ESL Brains (formerly Ted4ESL) publish worksheets based around various videos, including many TED talks. You can browse lesson plans based on topic and level and if you’re looking for some really interesting topics to spark conversation and inspire your students this is a great site to have bookmarked!

ESLVideo.com This website takes engaging video content and creates quizzes related to them for language learners. A great way to bring pop culture into your lessons.

engVID Students can use this website directly and teachers can source inspiration and tips by watching the videos hosted on engVID. Over 1,500 videos recorded by experienced EFL teachers.

Elemental English A (sadly) now defunct YouTube channel, Elemental English produced easy-to-follow videos focused on grammar and pronunciation.

Facebook groups

An environment where you can share resources and ideas with other teachers can be invaluable, especially for those who are teaching online and don’t have colleagues. These Facebook groups are great places to get ideas, share your thoughts, and be part of a community.

The TEFL Org Join our student community over on Facebook and get tips and support from your peers throughout the course and after!

Teach with Tech This group focuses on how to incorporate tech into your lessons.

Teacher Memes Not so much a resource, but a little light relief!

ELT expertise @ Hayward Training Community

Share resources and network with other EFL teachers.

Resources for EFL/ESL teachers As the name suggests, this is a Facebook group where English language teachers can share resources with each other.

English Worksheets & - TEFL, TESOL, ESL, EFL Another handy one for EFL teachers looking to gather resources.

Tools and materials for creating your own teaching resources

Up your teaching game by creating bespoke resources and content! Even if you’re not particularly creative there are great tools out there that can help you create professional-looking materials to use with your students.

Canva Looking to create your own branded material? Canva makes it easy to create images for all sorts of purposes, from lesson materials to marketing yourself on social media.

Adobe Creative Cloud A step up from Canva - the Adobe Creative Cloud package includes powerful software for a range of content creation.

Unsplash If you’re looking for images to use in your materials need to make sure you have the rights to do so. Unsplash is a big library of royalty free, high-quality stock imagery.

Animaker Get creative and make your own animations with Animaker.

Easel.ly Infographics are a great way of presenting information and easly.ly makes it simple to create them. Pricing plans begin from as little as $2 a month.