Introducing our Partnership with Twinkl | Over 750,000 Educational Resources for your TEFL Classroom
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One important TEFL skill is learning when you need to use the class textbook, and when to say those words that all students love: ‘close your textbook, and put it away!’
Having a few ‘lifesaver’ resources that are adaptable for different levels and ages is also invaluable - they will come in handy time and time again when you have just a few minutes before class to plan - and trust me - that will happen!
You’ll be able to find over 750,000 resources on the Twinkl website to help you have a great time teaching English - from eBooks and interactive games to educational apps and phonics schemes. With such a wide range of resources available, when your student says ‘I love spaceships / unicorns / dinosaurs / the Vikings / Ed Sheeran’ you’ll be able to grab a bunch of educational resources on their favourite topic. Making a lesson about what a student loves can be so motivating, and shows them, their parents and your employer that you really care about their needs.
Over 100,0000 of Twinkl’s resources are available for free, and we’ve got you special access to some of their essentials right here. We’ve chosen these ones because they’ll help you throughout your career.
Our top rated sections of their website include:
- www.twinkl.co.uk/create A shortcut way of making your own resources: The Twinkl Create tool enables you to make professional quality resources in a fraction of the time using premade illustrations and templates. This is most useful if you’re looking to build a self-made lesson around a particular theme, or if you’re looking to build a personalised vocab book around a particular student or class.
- www.twinkl.co.uk/newsroom Daily news stories made for kids released every single day and up to date, so you can chat to your students about what’s been in the news that week. The articles include vocabulary support and discussion starter questions, and two levels of difficulty are available. This can be really valuable if your textbook is a little out of date (they often are!) and you’d like something ‘real world’ to use with students. These can also be used as a platform for a research project - use the news article to launch into a new topic and then ask students to research and present their findings.
- www.twinkl.co.uk/originals If you’re teaching online, or teaching in a place where books in English aren’t readily available, ebooks can give your students the experience of reading. The Twinkl Original eBooks come with tons of supporting material, so that you can build activities around the theme of the book. Going back to the story multiple times and reviewing the phrases in the book will also help students gain reading confidence.
- www.twinkl.co.uk/apps Twinkl often has free apps in the trial stage (at the time of writing, augmented reality and symbols apps are free). Access to these are great if your doing private lessons, or if you’d like to recommend practice that students can do at home with their parents.
- https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resources/twinkl-partnerships This is where many of Twinkl’s free resources can be found, many of which are made in collaboration with names that your students will recognise and love -such as Harry Potter, Peppa Pig and The Champions League. Again, this is a great way to personalise your lessons and make it obvious that you’re listening to their needs.
Throughout your career, you’ll also want to be in contact with experienced teachers who have ‘been there, done that’. Twinkl’s ESL facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/TwinklTEFLGroup offers support free of charge, so you can ask your teaching questions and get advice any time.