Short Stories - These high-interest short stories are designed for ESL students from beginning-low to intermediate reading levels. Each story is based on an everyday problem that a character is having and includes an image. The stories are designed with lifeskill lessons in mind and should work well with the units found in a typical ESL picture dictionary. All the worksheets start with a short reading assignment and include a true/false exercise and an easy writing prompt. I"ve written all these stories myself, and I"m providing them here for free. You may reproduce these worksheets for classroom or home use. Happy reading!

ESL Worksheets eBook - These free eBooks have 10-20 printable worksheets with short stories for beginning to intermediate level ESL students. All the images are black and white so they print clearly. The books are being released under Creative Commons License 3.0, so you are free to make photocopies or even upload them to your own Web Site as long as you give credit to their creator and don"t change the content. Each story covers a life skill subject like family, transportation, health, employment, technology, etc. I hope you"ll enjoy these short ESL mini-books. BTW, it takes seven seconds for the books to download.

Crossword Puzzles - Crossword puzzles provide a fun and easy way for ESL students to improve their vocabulary and spelling skills. The intellectual stimulation provided by solving crossword puzzles keeps students focused and engaged while creating a joyful atmosphere in the classroom. If the puzzle clues prove too difficult for your students, you can always make things easier for them by writing the words from the answer key on the board. Allowing students to work in pairs will also make solving the puzzles faster and easier. I"ve written all these puzzles myself, and you are free to use them as often as you"d like.

Read Aloud Worksheets - Reading aloud helps ESL and K-12 students improve their verbal fluency and pronunciation skills. Students can read aloud in pairs, in small groups, to the whole class, or to several classes. It is best to practice these worksheets chorally with the class before putting the students in pairs or groups. A fun variation to this exercise is to divide the class into two groups and have them stand in two circles, an inside circle and an outside circle. After partners have practiced reading aloud for three minutes, the teacher can blow a whistle as a signal for the outside group to circle clockwise and read aloud to a new partner.

Vocabulary Match - ESL students can easily complete these simple vocabulary ESL worksheets by using a dictionary or an electronic translator. The lessons can be expanded by instructing students to turn their papers over and write one sentence for each of the twenty words in the first column. Most experts suggest reading the words aloud to the class before students tackle the writing part of the assignment.

Cloze Exercises - Funny pictures and interesting stories make these cloze exercises enjoyable. Students listen and write the correct vocabulary words on the blank lines as the teacher reads the stories aloud. After they have checked their worksheet, students can practice reading the story with a partner.

Life Skills Worksheets - Life Skills are basic everyday skills like reading charts, schedules, recipes, and completing forms. Most adult ESL programs assess students with life skills tests to discover what level English as a Second Language class they need. After students complete a designated amount of instruction, they are given another test to determine their progress. Funding for ESL programs is largely based on the benchmark gains that students make on these tests. The free ESL worksheets found in this section will help students improve their performance in completing life skills tasks. They can be downloaded and used in class or passed out as homework assignments. They can also be shown on interactive white boards.