
English teaching online
(for General Teaching sites go to this page instead).
Geoff Barton has moved on to other things, but his roots are in English teaching, and there is a wealth of excellent material on his website.
fivebooks.com. Outstanding site with great riches. A simple idea: experts choose the 5 books you should read on their area of expertise. A great one for teachers to direct their pupils to: no better place for deeper reading on almost any subject.
haggardhawks.com. Haggard Hawks is fabulous for word-lovers (as all English teachers should be). Several books now, too.
inote.ie. Irish National Organisation for Teachers of English.
Jamie Clark’s Dropbox is full of well-designed templates for literature and language teaching.
kellygallagher.org. The American teacher and writer (author of Readicide, 180 Days and more, and originator of the Article of the Week idea - my list is here).
learningfrommymistakesenglish.blogspot.com. Blog by Chris Curtis, author of How to Teach English.
leavingcertenglish.net. Evelyn O’Connor’s now dormant site has lots of good material for the Irish Leaving Certificate English course.
litdrive.org.uk. A community of English teachers (UK) with lots of resources to download and amend for a tiny annual subscription.
poetryarchive.org. 2000+ recordings of poems read by their authors.
poetryfoundation.org. Superb resources from this Chicago organisation.
sccenglish.ie. Since 2006.
shanahanonliteracy.com. Professor Timothy Shanahan of the University of Illinois is one of the world’s top experts on literacy.
Stuart Pryke generously shares a huge array of inventive resources via Dropbox. Lots of formats to amend for your own content.
theconfidentteacher.com/resources. Alex Quigley’s site has resources associated with his outstanding book Closing the Vocabulary Gap.
John Warner’s More Than Words: how to think about writing in the age of AI is an early and eloquent response to a technology which is particularly challenging for English teachers.
On Tuesday 18th November 2025 I am giving a webinar on how teachers can help students revise Macbeth in the months leading up to the Leaving Certificate.
Repeat webinar on teaching Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These for those who missed it in 2024.
A webinar introduction to teaching Othello, especially in the Leaving Certificate, on Wednesday 10th September 2025.
All English teachers in Ireland should read the response of the Irish National Organisation for Teachers of English to the recent draft curriculum specification for Leaving Certificate English.
Artificial Intelligence: real literacy is a short book by Paul Matthews and Jason Gulya that is blessedly free from nonsensical hype, and gives some practical and sensible suggestions for classroom teachers.
Initial thoughts on the Draft Curriculum Specification for Leaving Certificate English (February 2025).
Emma Smith’s introduction to the Macbeth volume in The New Oxford Shakespeare series is excellent.
Thoughts on the first Advice Paper on Education in Ireland, from the AI Advisory Council, February 2025.
A talk through a presentation on teaching Claire Keegan’s novel Small Things Like These.
Harriet Walter’s She Speaks! What Shakespeare’s women might have said is an entertaining and insightful account of many of the plays’ female roles.
The fourth English Meet for English teachers in the Dublin area will be on the evening of Thursday 8th May 2025.
A report on another excellent and uplifting ‘English Meet’, with six teachers sharing enthusiasms and good practice.