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!
This resource is designed to give students extra fluency practice. Project the slides on your classroom projector or TV, and you are ready to go! A full teacher script is built into the slides to help guide you through the resource. The words used in this fluency resource are aligned to the scope and…
Practice blending and reading CVC words, CCVC words, and CVCC words using our Snakes and Ladders game. Children roll the dice and move their counter around the board. They read the word they land on (and can practice writing it down on a whiteboard as well). If they land on the red ladder, they…
Enhance Your Students’ Reading Comprehension with the Science of Reading Principles. This comprehensive resource, focused on the article “Tupaia: Master Navigator“ from the Level 3 August 2019 School Journal, will help you develop your students’ reading comprehension. It is a great addition to your structured literacy program and perfect for an Aotearoa History and migration…
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 activities have been created to specifically support the teaching and learning of ten vowel teams. The vowel teams included in this set are: ai, ay, ea, ie, igh, oa, o_e, ew, ow, and ue. With initial modelling and scaffolding, these activities are intended to be completed independently to build students’ skills in…
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…
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…
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. …
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 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,…
Elevate your persuasive writing instruction with our comprehensive Writing to Persuade Activities. This all-inclusive resource pack equips educators with the essential tools for teaching persuasive writing. This writing resource is designed to support teachers to teach Writing to Persuade from Phase 2 (Year 4-6) and Phase 3 (Year 7-8) of Te Mātaiaho: English in…
This activity focuses on the use of capital letters and end-of-sentence punctuation in your learners’ writing. In this sentence writing task for students working at phase one: year 2 and year 3, we have included: 5 sentence writing activities to practice using capital letters and full stops/exclamation marks/question marks 1 demonstration sheet 1 answer…
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…
Supercharge your reading programme with this engaging five-pack Reading Skills Check Mega Bundle! Designed for Year 3 learners, this resource uses high-interest themes – Big Cats, Cryptids, Ocean Creatures, Weather, and Space – to build comprehension, vocabulary, inference, and analytical skills in a structured, easy-to-implement format. Five weeks included! Each pack offers a week…
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…
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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