Our Top 8 ESL Teacher Blogs To Follow

Sometimes we all need a little inspiration. Sometimes we need to connect with other teachers who are in the classrooms every day, like us. We need to share thoughts, ideas and classroom activities that can inject a bit of oomph back into our lessons. Luckily for us, we have the Internet, which means we don’t even have to be in the same country to be able to connect with other teachers. Here are our top 8 ESL teacher blogs to follow (in no particular order) when we need some motivation.

ESL Teacher Blogs

Sandy Millin

Sandy is a teacher, teacher trainer and writer and is currently working as a Director of Studies in Poland. She writes her ESL teacher Blogs on a personal level but has interesting thoughts on teaching and ideas for the classroom. She is a language learner herself so is able to provide insight into the learning process as well.

Sandy is super passionate about teaching english and strives to grow professionally day by day. She regularly attends conferences in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and the UK. Also, presenting at TESOL France (2011) and Innovate ELF (2016) conferences. Sandy is also a member of IATEFL. Some really interesting pieces that she has recently included; ‘Testing Times’, ‘The End of Normal Teaching’ and ‘Ideas for Adapting Group Lessons’

TEFLtastic

Alex Case is a teacher, teacher trainer, trainer and Director of Studies. TEFLtastic has experience in Turkey, Thailand, UK, Spain, Greece, Italy, Japan and Korea and has now settled in Japan. Alex has been a Cambridge Delta tutor and various other positions in the ESL teacher world for the last 23 years. This ESL teacher blog was set up in 2007 to help other people along the way and share the wisdom they have gathered over the years.

TEFLtastic is an absolute treasure trove of worksheets and activities to use in the classroom – all free!

Teacher Training Videos

Russell Stannard is an award-winning educational technologist who can usually be found speaking at conferences. His website has loads of videos and lectures on any and all topics related to technology and teaching.

Teacher Training Videos was set up at the start of 2007. The ESL teacher blog serves to offer free videos to its audience. The main focus is around helping teachers incorporate technology into their teaching and learning. Teachers often feel overwhelmed by the range of technology that is available. The moto of this ESL teacher blog is ‘Simple Tech Help for Teachers’. 

The Language Gym

Gianfranco Conti holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics and an MA in TEFL, so he is more than qualified to write a ESL teacher blog! His posts are well-researched and well thought out and he writes on a range of topics related to teaching and learning.

Gianfranco has been in the business for over 30 years, so he knows a thing or two! Some recent articles he has written include, ‘How to Design and Use Narrow Reading’, ‘Listening as Part of an Integrated Instructional Sequence’ and ‘Language Teachers and Research – Of Growth Seekers and I-Know-Best Autocrats’

How I See It Now

Hana Ticha is a teacher based in Czech Republic. She blogs about her teaching experiences as well as fun and creative ideas for the classroom. Hana has over 25 years of experience as an EFL teacher and holds a number of teaching qualifications in the field. She is extremely passionate about thought-provoking discussion on ELF topics and education. The ‘How I See It Now’ door is always open to DM’s to according to Hana. So feel free to go ahead and ask!

Anthony Teacher

Anthony Teacher writes highly entertaining posts on teaching methods, theories of learning and linguistics. This ESL teacher blog is a little on the complex side but if you ready to dive in at the deep end, go for it! Anthony has covered topics like;

• The Cost of International Education
• Big Data in Education: Piddling around with IPEDS
• The data are/is in!
• Statistics: What does the data mean?
• Statistics: Know your limits
• Playing with PlayPhrase

ELT Planning

Pete Clements has taught in South Korea, Hungary, the UK, Spain, Vietnam and is currently in Thailand. His ESL teacher blog is a mix of tips and advice, personal stories and lesson plans and ideas. The blog is self described as a collection of teaching tips, reviews, reflections and bad puns! (which we are always up for). There a tonnes of exciting topics on this blog but the following has really caught our attention of late. ‘Self-Observation of Online Teaching’ and ‘ELT Publishing Professionals – It it Worth Signing Up?’

Lessons Plans Digger

Gosia Kwiatkowska’s blog is a real gem of an ESL teacher blog. Put together with busy teachers in mind, Gosia posts lesson plans, ideas and activities for when you’ve run out of creativity or when you’re looking to supplement your course book.

Gosia has been an ESL teacher for a pretty long time, with experience in Poland, Dominican Republic, Spain, and Germany. As she says herself “What I love about my job is that it constantly keeps me on my toes, it is never boring and allows me to unleash my inner performer.” Gosia is always on the lookout for new ideas and is open to sharing interesting stories with other teachers.

Our Top ESL Teacher Blogs

To be honest, there are so many ESL teacher blogs out there dedicated to teaching English as a Foreign Language that you could follow a 1,000 and easily find 1,000 more. These are our favourite blogs at the moment because they are current and blog regularly. If you’re serious about continuous professional development you should definitely take the time to get to know these bloggers and follow their blogs.

Should finding out about the travelling aspect of teaching English interest you, there are also loads of blogs that are written by bloggers in specific countries. If you have a particular destination in mind, do some searching and find some teachers who are doing what you want to be doing and follow them to get a glimpse of what to expect.

Happy reading!

Disclaimer: The TEFL Academy has no relationship with these blogs; we believe our teachers will find them useful and informative. Ideas and opinions expressed by these bloggers are not necessarily the same as that of The TEFL Academy.