Downloadable PDFs of the Useful Websites and Advanced Google Search Terms by Mike Turner
FREE LESSON PLANS, RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES
- British Council English Teaching Resources for teenagers: www.teachingenglish.org.uk/resources/secondary
- British Council English Teaching Resources for primary: www.teachingenglish.org.uk/resources/primary
- British Council English Teaching Resources for adults (including English for Business): www.teachingenglish.org.uk/resources/adults
- British Council Online English Teaching Resources for younger learners: www.learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org
- Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org/gb/cambridgeenglish/resources
- ESL base www.eslbase.com/teaching/
- ESL Flow www.eslflow.com
- BBC Bitesize www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize
Although not designed for EFL or ESOL students, the site contains a wealth of subject-based resources and activities in English. A great way to supplement CLIL- based lessons.
CHOOSING APPROPRIATE COURSE CONTENT
- EAQUALS/British Council CEFR core inventory for General English
www.eaquals.org/resources/the-core-inventory-for-general-english/
Appendix E is particularly useful, as it contains a list of functional language by level.
INFORMATION ABOUT BRITAIN
- Official tourist site www.visitbritain.com
Lots of useful information about visiting Britain, it’s regions, towns and cities.
- Office for National statistics www.ons.gov.uk
A collection of current and historical data about life in Britain, its society and economy, plus surveys on the views, values and attitudes of its people.
- Government Departments and public bodies www.gov.uk
Contains a huge amount of information about UK laws and public policy.
- Britain and British Life www.projectbritain.com, www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk
These two websites form a wonderful project developed over many years by Mandy Barrow. It started when she was working as a teacher at Woodlands Primary School in Kent and contains facts and information about practically every aspect of life in Britain.
Working google advanced search operators: based on a 2018 list but updated by removing deprecated operators listed Jan 2021
“search term”
Force an exact-match search. Use this to refine results for ambiguous searches, or to exclude synonyms when searching for single words.
Example: “steve jobs”
OR
Search for X or Y. This will return results related to X or Y, or both. Note: The pipe (|) operator can also be used in place of “OR.”
Examples: jobs OR gates / jobs | gates
AND
Search for X and Y. This will return only results related to both X and Y. Note: It doesn’t really make much difference for regular searches, as Google defaults to “AND” anyway. But it’s very useful when paired with other operators.
Example: jobs AND gates
-
Exclude a term or phrase. In our example, any pages returned will be related to jobs but not Apple (the company).
Example: jobs -apple
*
Acts as a wildcard and will match any word or phrase.
Example: steve * apple
( )
Group multiple terms or search operators to control how the search is executed.
Example: (ipad OR iphone) apple
$
Search for prices. Also works for Euro (€), but not GBP (£)
Example: ipad $329
define:
A dictionary built into Google, basically. This will display the meaning of a word in a card-like result in the SERPs.
Example: define:entrepreneur
cache:
Returns the most recent cached version of a web page (providing the page is indexed, of course).
Example: cache:apple.com
filetype:
Restrict results to those of a certain filetype. E.g., PDF, DOCX, TXT, PPT, etc. Note: The “ext:” operator can also be used—the results are identical.
Example: apple filetype:pdf / apple ext:pdf
site:
Limit results to those from a specific website.
Example: site:apple.com
related:
Find sites related to a given domain.
Example: related:apple.com
intitle:
Find pages with a certain word (or words) in the title. In our example, any results containing the word “apple” in the title tag will be returned.
Example: intitle:apple
allintitle:
Similar to “intitle,” but only results containing all of the specified words in the title tag will be returned.
Example: allintitle:apple iphone
inurl:
Find pages with a certain word (or words) in the URL. For this example, any results containing the word “apple” in the URL will be returned.
Example: inurl:apple
allinurl:
Similar to “inurl,” but only results containing all of the specified words in the URL will be returned.
Example: allinurl:apple iphone
intext:
Find pages containing a certain word (or words) somewhere in the content. For this example, any results containing the word “apple” in the page content will be returned.
Example: intext:apple
allintext:
Similar to “intext,” but only results containing all of the specified words somewhere on the page will be returned.
Example: allintext:apple iphone
AROUND(X)
Proximity search. Find pages containing two words or phrases within X words of each other. For this example, the words “apple” and “iphone” must be present in the content and no further than four words apart.
Example: apple AROUND(4) iphone
in
Convert one unit to another. Works with currencies, weights, temperatures, etc.
Example: $329 in GBP
source:
Find news results from a certain source in Google News.
Example: apple source:the_verge
_
Not exactly a search operator, but acts as a wildcard for Google Autocomplete.
#..#
Search for a range of numbers. In the example below, searches related to “WWDC videos” are returned for the years 2010–2014, but not for 2015 and beyond.
Example: wwdc video 2010..2014
