ESL Literacy Collection: Differentiated Reading,Writing & Vocabulary Activities
This is a collection of my best ESL resources.
There is a total of 450+ pages of No-Prep Activities, 149 Task Cards and 579 Bonus Clipart|Graphic Elements relevant to ESL topics.
Inside you will find a wide selection of reading resources both Fiction and Non-Fiction.
There are Short Stories, Reading Passages, Newspaper Extracts, Historical Informational Texts as well as Contemporary ones.
Each text comes with a set of questions and activities that allow students to practise and consolidate effective reading strategies such as: identifying the Main Idea, Summarising, Sequencing, Identifying Cause & Effect, drawing Conclusions and Making Inferences, distinguishing Fact from Opinion, identifying the Author’s Purpose, making Predictions and Retrieving and recording information as well as identifying key details from Fiction and Non-Fiction texts. Different sets of Task Cards and Posters are also included.
Along with the reading resources I have included a variety of writing activities covering the different writing stiles: Fictional, Narrative , Personal, Informational, Expository, Persuasive and Argumentative.
There are Writing Prompts, Picture Prompts, Story Starters and more! For a number of styles as well as activities there are Powerpoint Presentations and Lesson Plans.
The vocabulary activities are designed for students new to the English Language and are designed for your students to be able to work relatively independently. If you are an ESL specialist and find that much of the material available does not provide enough exposure to vocabulary and beginner concepts, you will find this section helpful. Use this to introduce new vocabulary, concepts, homework, fast finishers, etc.
The entire resource is also available on Google Slides making this resource perfect for DISTANCE LEARNING as well as Classroom use.
Inside the zip folders, along with the main product, you will find a pdf document with the Google Slide Access Link.
A number of resources, such as the Inference Cards and some of the Reading Passages, as well as having the standard copy on Google Slides, also come with an EDITABLE version.
Exclusive to this bundle is also a pack of 579 Professionally Illustrated Clipart|Graphic Elements relevant to ESL topics. The images are grouped by topic, so you can further customise your own version of the cards if you wish to do so . Each image has transparent background so you can easily blend it in with any resource.
This product is a Growing Bundle and I update it periodically. By purchasing it you get FREE UPDATES FOR LIFE!!!
ESL Games, Speaking & Vocabulary Activities Bundle
Looking for a fresh and engaging way of helping your students practice their Speaking skills?
SECTION 1
The first two resources included are the ESL Conversation Cards sets, created to provide teachers with the tools needed for successful speaking lessons, covering levels from complete beginners up to advanced, with questions suitable both young learners as well as adult learners.
Each set contains 160 Conversation Cards, for a total of 320 Conversation Cards each with one question that will serve as conversation starter.
Each card is professionally illustrated, questions are easily worded and imaginative, there are no repetitions and they are designed specifically to keep learners engaged. Each set is divided into 10 topics, so you can use them throughout the year as you gradually introduce each unit.The topics covered by the combined sets are:
SET 1
Introductions| About Me (Pages 3-4)
Family (Pages 5-6)
Sports & Activities (Pages 7-8)
School (Pages 9-10)
Hobbies & Interests (Pages 11-12)
Countries & Nationalities (Pages 13-14)
Body Parts (Pages 15-16)
Music,TV, Books and Cinema (Pages 17-18)
Money and Shopping (Pages 19-20)
Food (Pages 21-22)
SET 2
Being Yourself (Pages 3-4)
Health (Pages 5-6)
Friendships (Pages 7-8)
Future Plans (Pages 9-10)
Handling Stress (Pages 11-12)
The Environment (Pages 13-14)
Crime & Punishment (Pages 15-16)
Work Life (Pages 17-18)
Voting & Elections (Pages 19-20)
Heroes (Pages 21-22)
Both sets are also available on Google Slides. Inside the main product, you will find a page with the Google Slide Access Link. As well as the original card sets I have also included FULLY EDITABLE templates. Card Shape, Color-Codes and Topics are left unchanged, however now you can add your own text and customise the questions.
Each page is reproducible, allowing you to create your own version of the cards.
As part of your download you will find zip folders containing a total of 600+ Professionally Illustrated Clipart|Graphic Elements related to a variety of ESL topics. The images are grouped into sub-folders (by topic), so you can further customise your own version of the cards if you wish to do so . Each image has transparent background so you can easily blend it in with any resource.
SECTION 2
This section contains 60 pages (approx.) of:
Conversation Starters
Energizers
Team-Building Activities
Task Cards
Indoor & Outdoor Games
Vocabulary - Building Activities
Debates
Picture Speaking Prompts
These games can be used as warmers, early-finishers or main activities. Each game comes with a set of clear instructions as well as material needed ( e.g playing cards). The activities are designed to allow flexibility and can be easily altered according to the students’ needs.
The Games & Activities included are:
Turning Tables
Detective On-Scene
Mall Thought Chain
Quick Thinking Challenge
Undercover Agent
Odd Socks
The Polygraph Game
Weekend in a Flash
It’s Not What I Say, It’s What I Mean!
Lost
Would You Rather…?
Tell Me About…. (Word Challenge)
Family Tree Research
Film Quiz
To The Moon and Back
Theme Puzzles
Card Matches
Noah’s Mini-Arc
Famous Duo Game
Flag Collectors
Fruit Salad Game
Blind Guesses
Dilemmas
A Hero’s Story
The Chain
Go Bananas
Human Bingo
Word Grab
The Toilet Roll
Name Six
Ball O’ String
Mixed Salad
Help Me!
The Paper Plane
Newspaper Sumo
There are also 8 pages of Picture Speaking Prompts with Differentiated activities. The entire section is also available on Google Slides. In the Google Slides version there are EDITABLE templates for the Speaking Picture Prompts activities, so that teachers have full flexibility as for levels and choice in questions.
SECTION 3
The last section contains 150 pages (approx.) of Vocabulary-Building Activities & Games such as:
Sentence-Building Exercises
Crosswords
Word-searches
Magic Squares
Word Matching
Spelling Quest
Secret Trails and more
Includes a FULL ANSWER BOOKLET.
Exercises can be done in groups, as a class or independently. All activities are professionally illustrated to provide visual clues which are especially important for beginner learners. All activities are also available on Google Slides.
There is also an extra Activity Pack centred around one of the most iconic contemporary British songs of all time: “Wonderwall” by Oasis. This serves a cultural activity as well as a speaking one.
The activities are differentiated and the entire resource is designed to allow flexibility in terms of teaching approach.
ESL ENGLISH Writing Prompts Mini-Pack (Pre-Intermediate)
Level: Pre-Intermediate
Writing prompt pictures are useful guides that direct learners to write about a particular topic.
Picture prompts are an effective way to stimulate ideas in ESL students of all ages. When your students are stumped for ideas in your creative writing lessons, you can simply bring out these picture prompts to help them think of new and imaginative ideas.
Alongside the picture prompts, there is also a set of questions that ask your pupils to write what they think about the picture. This is a great way for them to think of and write down their initial ideas. For higher ability student or older classes, *why not encourage them to write the full story on a separate piece of paper afterwards? *
This resource is also suitable for Grades 3 - 5 Native English-Speaking Students as well as ESL students
Along with the Writing Prompts activities you will find 14 handy posters, perfect for helping students to remember some of the skills they are learning to use in their writing.
The poster set includes many of the grammatical skills children often need reminding of, such as where to use full stops, commas, and capital letters. It also includes posters with more practical reminders, such as the correct way to hold a pencil and maintain neat handwriting, making them a great tool for keeping your students focused on all the new writing skills they are learning.
What’s Included:
11 Pages of Writing Prompts Activities with Beautiful Visuals
14 Writing Prompt Posters
10 Pages of Pre-Intermediate Vocabulary Exercises including:
Magic Squares
Matching
Word-search
Crossword
Secret Trails
Multiple Choice Questions and more.
Answer Booklet
TOTAL NO. OF PAGES: 46
MAIN IDEA & SUMMARIZING: Reading Passages with Writing Activities
(ESL/EAL/ELA)
This 1st part of this pack focuses on summarizing Non-fiction texts. Students will have to identify the main ideas, and summarize an informational text as a whole. There is a set of questions for each non-fiction piece, which will lead learners into identifying the aspects of the text, which are essential to writing a good summary.
Repeated use of this leading set of questions will naturally allow learners to develop an efficient strategy to approach informational texts, when summarizing.
One of the most frequent questions will involve choosing a name for the passage in question. This is a fun and creative way of identifying the Main Idea.
The 2nd part is more focused on Fiction and Creative Writing skills. There is a set of picture prompts with beautiful images that will certainly spark young writers’ imagination. For each picture prompt there is a set of leading questions which will help learners develop a mental structure when creating their stories.
There is also a set of story starters, where the learner is given an illustration and a starting sentence and then has to complete the story. I included this sub-section at the end as it doesn’t have a set structure as for the previous section.
The idea is that once learners have practiced with the leading questions, can then attempt a less restrained writing activity to test the techniques learnt. This sub-section can also be used for in Mixed Ability classrooms to provide Differentiated Activities for the more confident students.
Included:
27 Non-Fiction Passages with Questions and Activities
11 Picture Prompt Guided Writing Activities
8 “Complete the Story” Creative Writing Activities
The entire resource is aligned with the Common Core State Standards and is also available on Google Slides. Inside the zip folder, along with the main product, you will find a pdf document with the Google Slide Access Link.
This resource is perfect both for classroom use as well as DISTANCE LEARNING.
TOTAL NO. OF PAGES: 47
INFERENCE Question Cards & Activities Grades 3 - 4
Includes:
16 Inference Task Cards
9 pages of Inference Activity Sheets
Answer Sheets
Teach your students how to draw their own conclusions with these inference picture prompts and question cards.
Each one of the cards shows a picture with questions that prompt your child to draw their own conclusions. The PDF task cards can be used in English lessons, as well as in Home Learning environments to help children understand contextual clues, inferred information and the process of drawing conclusions.
Task cards (PDF) are printable and perfect for primary school children.
Along with the Task Cards I have included inference activity sheets encourage your learners to practise their inference skills. There are passages to read that have information your learners will need to find to solve these inference questions. There are three different passages and sets of questions for Second Level inference.
TOTAL NO. OF PAGES: 16
Sequencing|Cause & Effect: Passages with Activities (ESL)
Level: Pre-Intermediate - Intermediate
This Illustrated Reading Passages & Activities packet is a creative and engaging way for ESL learners to work and develop comprehension and fluency skills as well as building self-confidence.
The packet contains a collection of passages and texts of varying length, both FICTION and NON-FICTION. Each text comes with a set of activities for students to practice sequencing as well as identifying cause and effect.
The passages are color-coded: BLUE ones focus on sequencing and RED ones on cause & effect.
Each text is professionally illustrated offering struggling readers clues about the information presented.
Additionally there is a Powerpoint presentation with lots of practical examples relating to Cause & Effect. This is a great introductory activity which can be done as a class discussion to ensure everyone has grasped the concepts before applying them to the reading passages.
Not all Non-Fiction passages include a given title but here is a list of the Fiction passages and texts included:
Sentence Jumble
Love Spells & Potions
A Peculiar Dream
The Dusty Bowl
Fruit Ink
A Legendary Cowboy
Medical Smiles
Tricked Ya!
Cake Creations
The Skeptical Ghost
The Pianist’s Moment
Earthquakes & Earth-shakes
The Perfect Day at the Beach
The Lonely Monster
This resource is perfect both for classroom use as well as DISTANCE LEARNING.
A copy of the entire packet is also available on Google Slides. Inside the zip folder, along with the main product, you will find a pdf document with the Google Slide Access Link.
TOTAL NO. OF PAGES: 48
GUIDED READING SKILLS Task Cards
Suitable for Grades 3 - 6 learners
These task cards will help you deliver outstanding guided reading lessons to your students. Understanding a whole story at once can be tricky or even overwhelming for some students; with these cards, you can divide reading tasks into manageable parts. Talk about the author’s message, the main idea of the text, the cause and effect of events and more.
Guided reading tasks are designed to help children develop their reading skills; reading together and aloud strengthens their reading fluency, pronunciation and their ability to find meaning within a text.
Often conducted in small groups of children with similar reading ability, guided reading sessions are a fantastic way of giving children more focused support when learning to read texts.
The cards are split into different subtopics that your guided reading lessons can be centered around.
These include:
Cause and Effect
Sequencing
Author’s purpose
Fact and Opinion
Prediction
Retrieval*
Each set of task cards includes sections of text with an accompanying question that targets a specific subtopic, helping to reinforce reading skills and topic knowledge.
If you need ideas for how to use these cards in your lessons, you could:
Separate your class into groups of similar reading ability and go through this task with each group.
Use this as a starter activity, or expand on the tasks to use them for a full lesson.
Ask your students to create a storyboard of the events on the cards, or draw and label a picture of what is being described.
Use them as prompts to inspire some creative writing, using characters or settings described on the cards.
Total no. of cards: 109
ESL Reading Comprehension: Short Stories + Activities
This is a fantastic pack of fun, engaging Short Stories for Beginner ESL Students.
It features 12 Short Stories, each with a set of Comprehension questions. There are plenty of open ended questions that will develop learners’ creative writing skills. Within each text there will often be at least one vocabulary term, or specific use of language, which the students will most likely be unfamiliar with. For the texts containing such terms, there will always be one comprehension question challenging the students’ understanding of its meaning and use.
To consolidate new vocabulary there is an additional Vocabulary Skills section following the comprehension activities. In this section you will find: exercises, word-searches, crosswords, magic squares and more… These worksheets focus on the “trickier” vocabulary terms from the short stories section. Throughout the entire resource there also plenty of engaging visuals and professional illustrations.
What’s Included:
12 Short Stories
12 Sets of Comprehension Questions
10 Vocabulary Exercises & Games Worksheets
Full Answer Key
I have also included an EDITABLE version of the resource on Google Slides to give teachers the flexibility to customize the the texts or the questions as well as to facilitate DISTANCE LEARNING. You will find the Google Slides Access Link along with instructions on a pdf inside the zip folder.
TOTAL NO. OF PAGES: 43
ESL Newcomers: Vocabulary Games & Differentiated Activities (NO PREP)
This collection of Differentiated NO - PREP vocabulary activities has been created to help teachers manage the issues arising in mixed ability beginners classrooms.
It is specifically created with newcomer students in mind so that you can create an encouraging environment for them without risking a burnout.
You will find introductory visual activities that will help newcomer students introduce themselves without the need of much vocabulary knowledge as well as differentiated dialogue templates that can be used both as a written activity as well as a speaking activity.
The vocabulary exercises focus on:
Common words, Colours, Greetings and Basic Daily Routines.
The entire resource is professionally illustrated with engaging visuals that will help assimilate vocabulary knowledge quicker.
What’s Included:
Introduction Activities (Writing and Speaking)
Differentiated Dialogue Templates and Activities
Sentence-Building Exercises
Crosswords
Word-searches
Magic Squares
Word Matching
Spelling Quest
Secret Trails and more
FULL ANSWER BOOKLET INCLUDED
The entire resource is also available on Google Slides. Inside the zip folder, along with the main product, you will find a pdf document with the Google Slide Access Link.This resource is perfect both for classroom use as well as DISTANCE LEARNING.
TOTAL NO. OF PAGES: 50
ESL Games, Speaking & Vocabulary-Building Activities Vol. 2
Looking for new games and activities to get your ESL students talking?
I have put together a mini-collection of multi-use speaking games activities: Conversation Starters, Energizers, Team-Building Activities, Indoor & Outdoor Games, Vocabulary - Building Activities and Picture Speaking Prompts ( can be used as a writing activity as well as a speaking one) for Beginner - Intermediate ESL Learners.
These games can be used as warmers, early-finishers or main activities. Each game comes with a set of clear instructions as well as material needed ( e.g playing cards). The activities are designed to allow flexibility and can be easily altered according to the students’ needs.
The Games | Activities included are:
Family Tree Research
Film Quiz
To The Moon and Back
Theme Puzzles
Card Matches
Noah’s Mini-Arc
Famous Duo Game
Flag Collectors
Fruit Salad Game
Blind Guesses
Dilemmas
A Hero’s Story
Additionally, there are 3 Picture Speaking Prompts with Differentiated activities. The first two are designed for Elementary - Pre-Intermediate learners whilst the 3rd one for more advanced students.
The entire resource is also available on Google Slides. Inside the main product, you will find a page with the Google Slide Access Link. In the Google Slides version there are EDITABLE templates for the Speaking Picture Prompts activities, so that teachers have full flexibility as for levels and choice in questions|prompts.
The last section contains 17 pages of Vocabulary-Building Activities and Games with FULL ANSWER BOOKLET. These Activities can be done in groups, as a class or independently. The entire resource is professionally illustrated to provide visual clues that are especially important for beginner learners.
TOTAL NO. OF PAGES: 50
ESL Games, Speaking & Vocabulary-Building Activities Vol.1
Looking for new games and activities to get your ESL students talking?
This is the first of 2 volumes of multi-use speaking games activities: Conversation Starters, Energizers, Team-Building Games, Vocabulary - Building Activities and Picture Speaking Prompts ( can be used as a writing activity as well as a speaking one) for Beginner - Pre-Intermediate ESL Learners.
These games can be used as warmers, early-finishers or main activities.
Each game comes with a set of clear instructions as well as material needed.
The activities are designed to allow flexibility and can be easily altered according to the students’ needs.
The Games |& Activities included are:
Turning Tables
Detective On-Scene
Mall Thought Chain
Quick Thinking Challenge
Undercover Agent
Odd Socks
The Polygraph Game
Weekend in a Flash
It’s Not What I Say, It’s What I Mean!
Lost
Would You Rather…?
Tell Me About…. (Word Challenge)
The “Would You Rather…” is played using 24 Flashcards, which you fill find inside the download folder (laminate for long-term use). As the name suggests the game is completely based on Would You Rather type questions. The questions have been designed to ensure the maximum amount of fun and engagement. Some of them will really have the students think hard!
The “Tell Me About…” is played using 8 Larger Task Cards, each containing a series of questions. These are fantastic for ice-breakers, as they will allow newcomers to discover more about each other.
The following section contains 5 pages of Picture Speaking Prompts. Each page contains an image and a series of boxes with questions, which provide an initial structure template for students to begin developing Descriptive Speaking Skills.
The last section contains 20 pages of Vocabulary-Building Activities and Games including a FULL ANSWER BOOKLET. These Activities can be done in groups, as a class or independently.
All activities are professionally illustrated to provide visual clues which are especially important for beginner learners.
The entire resource is also available on Google Slides. Inside the main product, you will find a page with the Google Slide Access Link.
TOTAL NO. OF PAGES: 40
ESL ENGLISH Conversation Cards 2 (Fully Editable|Google Slides)
Level: Intermediate - Advanced
If you are looking for a fun and engaging way to get your Intermediate and above ESL Learners to practice their speaking skills, here is a fantastic set of conversation task cards full of very eye-catching visuals that are sure to get your students talking.
This set contains 160 Conversation Cards each containing 1 question that will serve as conversation starter. Questions are easily worded and imaginative, there are no repetitions and they are designed specifically to keep learners engaged. The cards are divided into 10 different topics, so you can use them throughout the year as you gradually introduce each unit. The first topics are aimed at confident intermediate learners, gradually moving onto more advanced topics towards the end. Questions are appropriate both for young and adult learners and work perfectly both in classroom settings as well as for DISTANCE LEARNING.
Topics covered:
Being Yourself (Pages 3-4)
Health (Pages 5-6)
Friendships (Pages 7-8)
Future Plans (Pages 9-10)
Handling Stress (Pages 11-12)
The Environment (Pages 13-14)
Crime & Punishment (Pages 15-16)
Work Life (Pages 17-18)
Voting & Elections (Pages 19-20)
Heroes (Pages 21-22)
Along with the printable version I have also provided 2 additional Google Slides versions. (Google Slide Access Link included with download). The first version is simply the printable version uploaded onto Google Slides. The second version contains the card templates. These are just blank versions of the cards in the set .
Card Shape, Colour-Codes and Topics are left unchanged, however now you can add your own text and customise the questions. Each page is reproducible, allowing you to create your own version of the cards. Inside the zip folder you will find a sub-folder called ESL Cards Clipart Graphic Elements containing 252 Professionally Illustrated Clipart|Graphic Elements related the topics in question. The images are grouped by topic, so you can further customise your own version of the cards if you wish to do so . Each image has transparent background so you can easily blend it in with any resource.
Check out the Video Preview for a short tutorial on how to create custom cards.
Along with the set of cards there is a section on Activity Ideas as well as instructions on what to do with the cards.
This product is an ongoing project and I update it periodically. By purchasing it you get FREE UPDATES FOR LIFE!!!
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS Spelling Activities for Grade 2
11 pages of Illustrated Spelling Skills Activities including:
- Crosswords
- Wordsearches
- Spelling exercises
- Word soups
- Multiple choice questions
- Word Mazes
- Word Shapes
- Hidden Letters
- Word Trails
ALIGNED with COMMON CORE ELA Standards
Total Pages 20 pages
Answer Key Included
GRADE 1 Writing Skills GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
Includes 10 activities designed according to Graphic Organizer concept, providing unlimited opportunities for students to develop their writing skills and a life long tool for the teacher.
Total Pages 11
COMMON CORE Writing activities for Grade 2
Includes:
12 illustrated Writing Activities covering the following skills areas:
- Writing descriptive sentences
- Building sentences
- Editing and correcting sentences
- Identifying story parts and more
Total Pages 13
Includes:
- 15 illustrated short passages for reading
- a set of comprehension questions for each passage
The passages are designed to strengthen Grade 3 students' skills in the following areas:
Main Idea and Details
Inference
Context Clues
Compare and Contrast
Predict
Fact and Opinion
Total Pages 16
ESL ENGLISH Games| Warmers | Ice-Breakers
A fun way for your English Language Learners to practice their conversational skills and become familiar with Elementary ESL vocabulary!
It will help students to recognize, repeat and read basic vocabulary words and short sentences, as well as put their english skills in action in a real life social setting. The activities allow students to actively participate while remaining within their English comfort level and they can be a great warm-up at the start the lesson as well as a finisher.
The activity set works great in a classroom setting as well as for Distance Learning which is why I have made the entire product available on
Google Slides ( Access link and instructions can be found in document inside the folder) as well as in standard pdf Print & Go format.
Materials Needed:
A4 paper
Printer
Toilet roll ( no need to panic, it’s just for one of the games)
Ball of string
Newspaper
These games were created in such a way as to allow flexibility, making it easy for the teacher to customize and adapt each activity to the level of the students in the classroom. Many of the games involve choosing words or sentences and using them in a specific context. The teacher can take advantage of this by choosing vocabulary and elements from the topic currently being studied and including it in the game. This can be done for a variety of grammar-based topics such as: Present Simple, Past Simple, Present Continuous, Prepositions etc… as well as for vocabulary-based topics such as: Routines, Hobbies, Holidays, Sports, Music etc…
Includes **62 Premium Graphics Food Flashcards **( required for one of the activities)
Includes:
- Lesson Plan (Elementary level)
- Gap Filling Exercise
- High Resolution Graphics for drilling exercises
- All the material needed to carry out the exercises outlined in the lesson plan