Useful resources, tools, and pages for teachers

As a teacher, I have a backlog of resources that I either found on the Internet or someone recommended to me. To tell you the truth, I used to have so many of them! And I saved, and saved, and saved them …And I kept saving them in documents or in tabs, “Favourites”, so I had a long list in my backlog. One day I decided to sort it out and I found out that plenty of them are similar or I didn’t need some of them at all, or some of them were useless or old, etc.  So I deleted the unnecessary pages and now I have a list of resources I keep using. Below I’ll share some of them that I use almost on an everyday basis.

• Dictionaries

My favourite ones are the Oxford Dictionary and the Cambridge Dictionary. 

I like the Oxford Dictionary because you can search in the dictionary itself, the thesaurus or the grammar section. Besides definitions, it shows pronunciation, synonyms, antonyms, examples of use, phrasal verbs, collocations, set expressions and the origin, which is always quite curious to read. On the right part of the page, there is always the word of the day, interesting articles, polls, trending words, so you can surf around.

The Cambridge Dictionary has many advantages too. You can also choose where to search for the word: British English, American English, English-Russian, Grammar, etc. There is also a blog and the word of the day section. It shows the definitions, examples of use, synonyms, phrasal verbs, idioms, set expressions and related words.

• Context search

Here are two tools you can use to look for sentences, examples and context for different words.

• SkELL — Sketch Engine for Language Learning.

I’ve recently come across this resource and it is so useful. There are 3 main sections. 

Examples. Here you can look for a word or a phrase and get example sentences for it as in corpus. 

Word sketch. This one is my favourite. Your search for a word and it gives you a list of words that go together with your word. And all the results are divided into sections by the part of speech. The Lexical Approach in action.

Similar words. Here you can see related words that are used in similar contexts. They are shown in the word cloud.

• Ludwig

Using this tool you can 

• find sentences in context; 
• translate words; 
• find definitions, synonyms and examples;
• compare the frequency of words or use of sentences;
• find the missing word;
• rephrase sentences; 
• find collocations.
  

  

• Check the level

These are the websites where you can check the difficulty of any text or words according to CEFR level. It’s quite useful when you write texts or scripts yourself or you find something on the Internet and you are not sure if it fits the level of your students.

English Profile.

Text analyzer.

• Find the words

This GSE resource helps to find grammar, vocabulary, learning objectives and coursebook recommendations according to the GSE and CEFR. Check for more information in the video below.

• Worksheets and tools

These are resources where you can either generate or use ready-made worksheets and games.

• QuickWorksheets. — here you can create Spelling Tests, Wordsearches, Matching Pair Cards, Minimal Pair Word Trees, Cloze Tests, etc. You can look for a worksheet among ready-made and shared ones. 
• Worksheetworks and Busyteacher — here you can find some ready-made worksheets and wordlists. 
• Tools for Educators is another great resource to create word searches, dices,  board games, crosswords, bingo, domino, mazes; spelling, reading, writing, listening worksheets; handouts, picture dictionaries, certificates
• TedxESL and TED talk worksheets — if you and/or your students are fans of TED lectures, these are two great resources with lesson plans and activities for TED videos.
• Learning Apps — here you can use browse games or create your own. There are various types of games: matching pairs, groups, number line and order, input, quiz,  cloze test, matching pairs of images, The Millionaire Game, puzzle, crossword, hangman, word grid, pairing game, horse race and many others.
• Kahoot makes learning and quizzes fun and engaging. It’s a tool to make quizzes interactive. You can either create your own quiz or use the one they have in their resources.
• Quizlet is a well-known resource to create or use ready-made flashcards and quizzes.

As you can see there are plenty of resources. I like them because they are easy to use and accessible, and they are practical and functional at the same time. If I need to check, find or create something, I don’t have to spend all my free time on that, they really save my time and make teaching much easier and more productive.