Ellii Review (formerly ESL Library): Premium Lesson Plans for ESL Teachers

Ellii is a premium ESL lesson-plan platform run by Red River Press. Until 2022 it was called ESL Library, and many long-time users still know it by that name. Today it lives at ellii.com with the same editorial team and the same library of materials.

The library has four main content buckets:

• Lessons — 2,000+ ready-to-use plans, many built around current events, global issues, and trending topics (e.g. AI-generated content, space tourism, surrogacy, distracted driving). Lessons come with reading, listening, vocabulary, discussion prompts, and answer keys.
• Flashcards — 4,500+ illustrated, editable flashcards with an in-browser player and editor.
• Videos — 400+ short clips designed for classroom elicitation and discussion.
• Courses & Study Packs — bundled sequences for specific ages and levels (young learners, teens, adults, literacy).

Around the content, Ellii layers classroom tools: a Kanban-style Lesson Planner where you drag materials into a "Teaching" lane and assign them, a Grade Feed inbox for written/audio feedback, a Classroom Manager for student accounts, and a Media Gallery of images and videos for vocabulary elicitation.

Ellii shines when you have recurring classes and need a steady stream of fresh material. Common teacher workflows:

• Weekly planning: open the Lesson Planner on Sunday, drag 5 lessons into the "Teaching" lane, assign them, and you're done. No more hunting PDFs across Google Drive.
• Current-events classes: the current-events library is one of Ellii's biggest strengths. Topics cycle in monthly, so teen and adult classes never run dry of conversation fodder.
• Young learner blocks: dedicated YL section with flashcards and visuals matched to lower-level learners — useful for primary EFL teachers who need age-appropriate content fast.
• Homework and accountability: create a class, add free student accounts, assign a lesson, track completion in the report tab. Beats handing out worksheets and hoping.
• Feedback at scale: Grade Feed collects open-ended student submissions in one inbox, with audio and written feedback options — useful for writing classes with 20+ students.

For one-off handouts, Ellii is overkill. For recurring classes across a term, the time savings compound quickly.

Yes — for teachers who run recurring classes and want a deep, organized, frequently updated library, Ellii is the strongest paid option on the market. The library is broad (YL through advanced), the tools are thoughtfully built, and the content keeps cycling in monthly.

The main caveat is the price. At ~$14/month billed monthly, it's not cheap. Many individual teachers find it pays for itself in saved prep time once they're using it for two or three classes per week; teachers who only need the occasional handout may not get full value.

Honest recommendation: if you teach 3+ recurring classes and you're tired of stitching together free PDFs, take advantage of the 14-day money-back guarantee and try Ellii for a full planning cycle. If you only need printable worksheets once in a while, a cheaper resource like Teach-This will do the job.