With over thirty four million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation's foremost author illustrators of children's books. She has created a website offering 4,469 free coloring and activities pages. She offers a wealth of beautifully illustrated materials, from flash cards to place mats to animal character masks to field trip name tags to award certificates.  Her site includes games and videos on how to draw animals. She even describes how to make a rhythm band from common household items. Exploring her website is a real visual treat.

While this site is not ESL-specific, all of the materials can be used as is or easily adapted for K-3 ELLs.  Judi Haynes, a regular contributor to TESOL's Essential Teacher and author of Everything ESL, has created a learning module, culminating in students' performing a simple play, based on Brett's book Who's Inside the Mitten?
Jan Brett's website


El Futuro: Serving the Latino Community

With clinics located in Siler City and Carrboro, NC, El Futuro's mission is to help answer the growing need for culturally competent mental health and substance abuse services for the underserved Latino population. Their goals include promoting Latino behavioral health awareness, enhancing existing services in the community and developing model clinical services. El Futuro has grown into a nationally recognized organization and training site and conducts extensive outreach initiatives throughout the state.
El Futuro website


Virtual Library of ESL Lesson Plans
This website provides dozens of well-designed, detailed lesson plans, many of which include handouts and assessment tools.  Most of the materials were developed and tested in North Carolina community colleges under the sponsorship of EL/CIVICS (English Literary/Civics Education) grants from the US Department of Education. While these learning activities were developed for use with beginning to advanced students at the community college level, most of them can be easily adapted for students at the secondary school level. Topics include government, citizenship, community resources, American culture, employment, and social conventions.
A Virtual Library of Lesson Plans web site


Online Publications of the US Department of State
The Office of English Language Programs, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State, creates and implements high quality, targeted English language programs in specific regions and countries of the world. The Office offers two online publications which support its mission:

1) English Teaching Forum, a quarterly journal containing articles addressing pedagogical issues and providing teaching materials and lesson plans.

2) English Teaching Forum Electronic Journals: Language and Civil Society and Language and Life Sciences These journals contain ready-to-use lesson plans and each chapter contains background information, classroom-ready activities, and related resources and references. (Editor's note: While these journals are designated for use at the intermediate level, they seem more appropriate for advanced-level students and could be especially useful for ESL instructors in colleges and universities.)


Government Resources
US Department of Education
Office of English Language Acquisition
NC State Board of Education
NC Department of Public Instruction
NC Department of Public Instruction: North Carolina NCLB News


Organizations and Programs
National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE)
TESOL (National)
Carolina TESOL
Latin American Resource Center (LARC)
Learn NC
World View 


Web Resources for Teachers
Oral English Activities NEW
A varied range of 28 classroom activities to get students speaking

Kindergarten - 8
everythingESL
FunBrain
Houghton Mifflin Education Place
Learning Vocabulary Can Be Fun
The EFL Playhouse
The Teacher's Desk: Writing Plans

Upper Levels/General
About.com
BreakingNewsEnglish.com
Englishbaby!
ESL-Images.com
ESL Lesson Plans and Resources
ESL Blues
ESL Resource Center
Dave's ESL Cafe
Activities for ESL Students (The Internet TESL Journal)
Interesting Things for ESL Students (Charles Kelly & Lawrence Kelly)
The Idiom Connection
GoEnglish.com
PIZZAZ!
Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab
ESL Independent Study Lab: Listening
ESL Independent Study Lab
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
The Internet TESL Journal
UsingEnglish.com

Pedagogy and Content-based Instruction
Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL)

NEA Resources for English Language Learners