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Are there any good books on the theory and practice of TEFL?

How to Teach English (Jeremy Harmer) is probably the most basic general guide, and also mentions other books that you could read.

Here are some other TEFL books and resources the i-to-i team  would recommend:

Teaching Unplugged: Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings

This book explains the methodology and has a collection of lesson ideas and activities for teaching who want to live in the moment in the classroom.

Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener

This is a guide for new and old teachers. There’s some methodology and a lot of teaching ideas and activities. This book really helps the reflective teacher who wants to develop their skills.

An A-Z of ELT: Scott Thornbury

The book consists of short entries for key topics and terms in ELT, just the thing to help you remember the difference between inductive or deductive learning or which order the different stages in the PPP model come in.

700 Classroom Activities: David Seymour and Maria Popova

This book gives ideas for lessons based around grammar items or vocabulary topics. If you can’t think of an activity to get your students using the past continuous, you’ll find ideas in this book.

500 Activities for the Primary Classroom: Carol Read

Like 700 Classroom Activities, this book gives ideas for lessons based around grammar items or vocabulary topic but specifically for teaching English to primary-aged children.

Practical English Usage: Michael Swan

This book is the indispensable reference book on language problems in English for teachers and higher -level learners. It’s easy to navigate and the grammar explanations are practical and pedagogically sound. This one will help you develop the confidence to teach some fairly complex linguistic items.

5 MInute Activities: Penny Ur

A teacher’s staple for many years but still probably the best there is. You’ll never run out of warmers and coolers if you’ve got this with you.

Sound Foundations: Adrian Underhill

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about pronunciation and how to teach it, from another of the TEFL legends.

Teaching Tenses: Rosemary Aitken

English grammar and tenses are, whether you like it or not, important and this not only explains everything in manageable chunks but also gives great ideas for lessons and practice.

Young Learners: Sarah Philips

Almost wherever you teach you’re going to be faced with young learners at some stage, so why not be prepared with this excellent book providing a whole host of activities and suggestions?

Grammar Games: Mario Rinvolucri

This book provides loads of great ways to teach and explore that all important grammar, whilst having fun at the same time.

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