Your search for fresh, effective activities for ESL students is over. At Top Teaching Tasks, our comprehensive collection of ESL teaching activities takes the stress out of lesson planning and puts the joy back into language teaching. From our popular inferring activities to advanced language exercises, we’ve covered every aspect of ESL learning.
Whether you’re teaching primary school newcomers or guiding advanced learners through complex language concepts, our ESL resources provide the perfect blend of educational value and engagement. Explore the collection of fun activities to teach English to second language learners below!
Practice decoding and spelling CVC words using our CVC spinners. Spin the spinners to create, write and read CVC words. Use this resource as a reading activity, with your guided reading group, or as a whole class activity to practice decoding and spelling CVC words. This resource contains: 12 spinners (a mix of consonants,…
Practice decoding and spelling CVC words, CCVC words, and CVCC words using our car park game. Use this resource as a reading activity, with your guided reading group, or as a whole class activity to practice decoding and spelling CVC words, CCVC words, and CVCC words. This resource contains: 132 CVC words across…
This resource is designed as a decodable text for older readers (year 4 – Year 8). It focuses on earthquakes and their impact on New Zealand. Focus Phonemes and Graphemes: It has a particular focus on v_e split digraph words, including a_e, e_e, i_e, and u_e split digraphs. Examples include earthquake, plate, magnitude, shake,…
Practice decoding and spelling CVC words, CCVC words, and CVCC words using our Plant or Compost? game. This is a game to practice blending sounds into words. After reading the words, students decide if they are real or nonsense (made up). They ‘plant’ the real words in the soil, and place the nonsense words…
These activities have been created to specifically support the teaching and learning of nine consonant patterns. The consonant patterns included in this set are ff, ll, ss, zz -tch, -dge, qu, wh, and x. With initial modelling and scaffolding, these activities are intended to be completed independently to build students’ skills in following…
These Phonics and Structured Literacy teaching slides have been created to specifically support the teaching and learning of six target sounds and letters: j, k, v, w, y, z. This teaching tool could be used as a warm-up at the start of a structured literacy session, as revision or as a whole class lesson. …
Our Daily Literacy Review Slides are dynamic and effective tools for enhancing memory, retention, and learning. By incorporating principles of spaced practice, interleaved practice, and retrieval practice, these daily reviews offer a comprehensive approach to reinforcing previously taught literacy content. They are a great companion to your structured literacy programme. What is included in this…
Our Daily Literacy Review Slides are dynamic and effective tools for enhancing memory, retention, and learning. By incorporating the principles of spaced practice, interleaved practice, and retrieval practice, these daily reviews offer a comprehensive approach to reinforcing previously taught literacy content. They are a great companion to your structured literacy programme. What is included in…
CVC, CCVC, CVCC Activities Bundle Practice decoding and spelling CVC words, CCVC words, and CVCC words using our six hands-on activities. Use these resources as a reading activity, with your guided reading group, or as a whole class activity to practice decoding and spelling CVC words, CCVC words, and CVCC words. This resource bundle…
Develop your students’ reading comprehension, writing, and literacy skills with this comprehensive whole-class teaching resource, centred on the events leading up to the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi—a foundational moment in Aotearoa New Zealand’s history. This resource is a perfect addition to your structured literacy program, offering both rich…
These Phonics and Structured Literacy teaching slides have been created to specifically support the teaching and learning of ten vowel teams: ai, ay, ea, ie, igh, oa, oe, ew, ow, and ue. This teaching tool could be used as a warm-up at the start of a structured literacy session, as revision or as a whole…
These Phonics and Structured Literacy teaching slides have been created to specifically support the teaching and learning of nine consonant patterns -ff, -ll, -ss, -zz, -tch, -dge, qu, wh, x. This teaching tool could be used as a warm-up at the start of a structured literacy session, as revision or as a whole class lesson….
Enhance Reading Comprehension with Science of Reading Principles Empower your students’ literacy skills with this whole class teaching structured literacy resource, tailored for teaching comprehension through The Art of Taiaha—a captivating article from the Level 4 June 2024 School Journal. This comprehensive resource integrates Science of Reading strategies, making it the perfect addition to your…
This resource is designed as a decodable text for older readers (year 4 – Year 8). It focuses on cricket and contains factual information about it and personal stories of the narrator and their love of the sport. Focus Phonemes and Graphemes: The text emphasises the following phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences: /k/ phoneme represented by -ck,…
Enhance Reading Comprehension with Science of Reading Strategies Boost your learners’ reading comprehension skills using Science of Reading principles with this detailed resource, based on the article The Stars of Matariki from Junior Journal 67. Designed to complement your Year 3 structured literacy program, this whole-class teaching tool emphasises deep comprehension strategies, vocabulary development, sentence…
Our foundation-level ESL activities create a supportive environment for new English learners. Speaking and listening exercises form the core of this level, transforming potentially daunting concepts into enjoyable learning experiences that reinforce fundamental language structures.
Our intermediate activities for ESL students build on basic foundations and focus on developing more complex language skills. Conversation practice materials include reading comprehension and interactive exercises that improve understanding and critical thinking. Guide students from basic sentence construction to confident paragraph writing and strong inference and composition skills.
Our advanced ESL activities offer sophisticated language development opportunities for learners ready to refine their English mastery. Challenge students to think critically while expressing complex ideas fluently with more complex language exercises.
If you’re looking for ESL teaching activities that deliver results, our comprehensive collection stands out in the New Zealand education landscape for all the right reasons.
Whether teaching a diverse classroom of beginners or guiding higher-level students, you'll find materials that can be easily adapted to suit your teaching style and students' needs. Our collection ranges from back-to-school activities that help students settle in, to advanced language exercises for confident learners.
Moving beyond traditional worksheet-based learning, we’ve created interactive activities that excite students about learning English—from speaking exercises that build real-world confidence to writing activities that develop academic skills. Plus, with regular updates and new additions to our collection through our membership subscription, you’ll never run out of fresh and fun activities to teach English and keep your ESL lessons dynamic and effective.
We comprehensively design our ESL teaching activities to support every stage of the English learning journey. Each resource is carefully calibrated to match specific proficiency levels, ensuring students are appropriately challenged without feeling overwhelmed.
Our activities feature built-in flexibility that makes them particularly effective when you need to adjust the difficulty level up or down to match your student"s needs. Every activity comes with extension options for quick learners and additional support materials for those who need extra practice.
We update our ESL teaching resources monthly, ensuring you always have access to current and engaging materials. When you sign up for a membership subscription, you receive automatic access to all new and updated materials, along with helpful notifications about fresh content. This means you"ll never miss out on new activities that could benefit your students.
Absolutely. Since modern language teaching happens in various settings—whether one-on-one with a student or managing a lively classroom of 30—you can easily adapt our activities for ESL students to suit your teaching environment, ensuring consistent learning outcomes regardless of the setting.
From building basic conversation skills to mastering academic English, our resources provide the perfect blend of educational value and student engagement. Transform your ESL teaching experience with our comprehensive collection of fun activities to teach English.
Join our community of successful teachers; explore fun ESL teaching activities from Top Teaching Tasks today!
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