ESL Printables

Teaching English is fun for some and not so fun for others.

Some choose to do it in a classroom and others do it online.

But no matter how and where we do it, we can all learn something from each other, and that’s what our guest today has taught the ESL community.

Victor Gayol is the creator of ESLPrintables.com, a website that allows teachers to share their teaching resources with each other. It’s a unique site and one that requires all its members to participate. 

Let’s learn more from Victor:


1. ESLPrintables is an excellent idea and a great resource for teachers. What prompted you to build this site?

Like many other teachers, I had my little collection of worksheets, which I had prepared for my students during many years. One day I had a thought: it would be wonderful to have a website where I could share these resources with other teachers. We could benefit from each other's work, experience and ideas.


2. Tell us a little about Victor Gayol. When did your interest in teaching English begin?

I have always liked languages, but my interest in teaching came later, when I attended the ELT [English language Training] college. There I learnt to love this job


3. What are some of the successes and challenges you have experienced on this journey of teaching English?

For me, the major challenge has been to overcome my shyness. I'm a shy person, but I've managed to overcome it when I'm in the classroom. That's an important success for me.


4. I imagine you get contributions from teachers all around the world.  What are the most common topics addressed by these teachers?

Most of the contributions are designed to teach grammar or vocabulary, but there is an incredible variety of resources, because every teacher makes worksheets for his/her own group of students and his/her own lesson plan.


5. You have quite an extensive list of categories to choose from. Do you ever have to limit contributions in any particular area? What’s your criteria for contributions?

Contributions are not limited to the list of categories. There is another section called "other worksheets" which is full of original ideas and new perspectives. The only limit is that contributions must be useful for teaching English, and they have to be original creations. We have a very strict policy against copies.


6. What do you think are some of the major challenges that teachers of ESL/EFL face?  And do you have any recommendations on how to overcome them?

It depends on the age of your students, of course, but I think one of the major challenges is to get students to participate in oral interactions, involving listening and speaking. My best recommendation for this are activities that involve real use of language, with a real purpose.


7. You have two partner sites: EnglishExercises.org and MagicVocabulary.net. Could you tell our readers more about them?

Englishexercises.org is like an extension of ESLprintables.

We started sharing worksheets, but nowadays we also share powerpoints and online exercises.

These are published in www.englishexercises.org, and any student can go to this website to practice English online.

Magicvocabulary.net is an automatic generator of worksheets and online exercises. It's very useful for busy teachers.


8. I think all of your sites are great, and I particularly like the look and feel of MagicVocabulary.net.  It’s very children-friendly. Tell us a little about what we can find behind those doors.

In this website you can choose a list of words that you want students to learn, and seconds later you will have a full collection of worksheets and games for your students. They are specially designed for children, and they really like them.


9. You have a unique tool called an Exercise Generator. How does this work and how successful has it been?

The exercise generator is the free tool that members can use to create online exercises.

It's very easy to use, and you can make "fill in the gaps" exercises, multiple choice questions, quizzes, word-searches, crosswords, etc.

Another useful tool that we offer are the "online notebooks". This tool allows teachers to choose a custom list of exercises for their students (in group or individually).

Then, each student can enter the website with his/her own password and do the exercises online, at school or home. All the answers and results will be saved so that the teacher can see them later.


10. Finally, are there any additional projects on the horizon? What’s next for ESLPrintables and your partner sites?

Many teachers have asked for a website like eslprintables in other languages, and I'm working on that right now.


Victor, thank you so much for taking the time to share with us today.  It was very informative. Continue the awesome job you’re doing!