General E.S.L.
ESL Gold
has everything you could want for learning English. There are
hundreds of lessons for speaking (including common phases for
conversation, & role play/conversation topics) grammar,
vocabulary, idioms, pronunciation, reading, writing, etc, and
most lessons include audio. There are also hundreds of quizzes,
good links to other ESL web sites, and textbook recommendations.
Real English uses
authentic videos (of interviews with ordinary English speakers
on the street) to teach basic listening, vocabulary, and grammar
skills in a meaningful context. Each interview video is
accompanied by a series of related short audio or video segments
that are used in matching, sentence completion/construction, and
other exercises. The registration process for this site is a bit
cumbersome, but the quality of the videos and exercises make it
worth the trouble.
English for All has
five exciting video stories about workplace situations. After
watching a video segment from the story, you can practice
vocabulary, grammar, listening comprehension, and "life skills"
based on the segment. There is a simple way to get a native
language translation of any word you don't understand. You can
also print out video scripts and exercises.
The ESL Resource
Center offers practice in reading, writing, vocabulary,
grammar, spelling, idioms, pronunciation, and listening (with
audio).
Web-Book's
Interactive Audio-Picture English Lesson lets you practice
simple vocabulary by matching pictures with words. It also
includes an audio component, which allows you to hear a word and
select the corresponding picture. The
internet picture
dictionary, and Learning Network's
Funbrain
game are set up in a similar fashion, but offer no audio.
Similarly,
Language Guide offers illustrations with corresponding
audio, but no interactive practice.
Homework Help's
English as 2nd Language Pages have all sorts of practice for
English students, including listening, pronunciation, grammar,
vocabulary, writing, and TOEFL. Some of the lessons include
audio recordings, featuring speakers of both British and
American English.
E-Z-slang features
recorded conversations that incorporate lots of natural-sounding
examples of slang, idioms, and �reduced� speech (�wuh-d�yuh-mean?�).
Each conversation comes with a written transcript, definitions
of the slang/idioms/reductions, additional sentence examples,
and a practice quiz.
The
Idiom Connection offers explanations of hundreds of idioms,
together with quizzes to practice them.
Interesting Things for
ESL Students has games, quizzes, exercises and lots of other
activities. Includes many audio recordings: for example, listen
to songs in the Listening Room as you try to fill in the missing
words in the text version, or work on pronunciation through
various listening exercises.
Activities for ESL Students
offers short practice activities for almost every ESL topic you
can think of, at every level. There's no audio, but many of the
activities include visuals.
English Language Listening
Lab Online offers short authentic interviews/monologues with
English speakers from a variety of countries. There are
listening comprehension quizzes, photos, and transcripts for
each conversation.
OM Personal offers more than 50 conversations on a variety
of topics, (in both American and British English), along with a
transcript, Spanish translation, photo, and completion quiz for
each conversation.
The Parlo website is intended to sell online language
courses, but they have high quality sample lessons you can use
for free. Each sample lesson includes a conversation, grammar,
pronunciation, reading, and vocabulary lessons/exercises.
The Rosetta Stone uses audio recordings and photos teach
listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This site is meant to
sell their software, but they have sample lessons that you can
download and try out for free.
MCED
Services offers easy lessons on prepositions for beginning
level students. The lessons use audio, photos, and simple text
to teach about location of objects, signs, calendar skills, and
appointments.
At
1-Language.com each grammar lesson begins with a short audio
segment, a page of text explains the grammar lesson, and then
students can practice new skill using several interactive
practice exercises.
English
Skills, by Natasha Cooper, is a commercial site, but it
offers a useful free sample lesson (with audio) on scheduling
appointments. A similar site,
English Practice,
offers a sample lesson on social introductions.
Lauri's ESL Website offers short conversations and listening
passages with interactive exercises to test comprehension.
CBC/Radio-Canada
uses radio and TV stories, (on distinctly Canadian themes), with
interactive exercises, to help students practice vocabulary and
listening comprehension.
Learning Edge, a
Canadian site, offers feature stories and practical life-skills
lessons with animated video, text and audio.
Global
English Salon: Recorded conversations and feature articles,
with explanations of vocabulary, and cultural information, but
no exercises.
Pronunciation
ESL
Pronunciation Work Page. This page has lots of audio
examples of speech elements that can help advanced ESL students
improve their pronunciation, for example: intonation, stress,
linking, etc.
The Sounds of
English site offers pronunciation help. It explains how each
sound is made and offers audio and video examples and exercises.
E.L. Easton offers the
American English
Pronuniciation site where you can learn pronunciation by
listening to audio recordings of the sounds of American English.
(Requires
RealPlayer)
At Train Your Accent,
you can listen to short recorded speeches on various topics.
Each speech comes with two transcripts. One shows the speech in
formal written English, and the other highlights all of the
instances in which the speaker uses more natural-sounding
English.
Listen & Read
English Baby offers audio recordings of fun, authentic
conversations on contemporary topics (popular culture, sports,
travel, etc.) between college-age speakers. They are challenging
because they include lots of idioms, slang, reductions, and
cultural references-just like most ordinary conversations
between native English speakers. It provides explanations of new
vocabulary and expressions, and gives you a chance to test your
comprehension of each conversation.
Randall's ESL
Cyber Listening Café offers lots of easy-to-use audio
exercises for practicing listening skills at all levels.
(Requires
RealPlayer)
At
Focus English, you can listen to audio recordings of all
sorts of conversations, then practice the vocabulary and
expressions in interactive exercises. (Requires
RealPlayer)
The English
Listening Lounge offers short audio recordings of native
English speakers telling about their experiences and ideas. You
can read see a transcript of each monolog, and you have a choice
of several different language levels and topics. If you really
like the site, you can buy a membership for $20/month and have
access to hundreds of additional recordings.
The California Distance
Learning Project has news stories (some recent, some not),
and information about voting, safety, and jobs that you can hear
on audio, and sometimes see as video recordings, while you read
along. After you listen to/read each story you can try a variety
of listening comprehension and vocabulary exercises. Almost all
of the print at this site is also available on audio, so it's a
great study site for students who have limited reading skills.
The Voice of
America Radio Service has news and feature stories on a wide
variety of topics. The language level of normal broadcasts is
fairly difficult, but you can read a transcript while you listen
to the audio recording. Or you can listen to news in "simple
English" (spoken at a somewhat slower pace) with a transcript to
follow along with.
The Learning
Resources site uses video or audio clips of CNN news
broadcasts along with the written story (you can choose to read
the original story or a simpler, "abridged" version) to teach
reading and listening comprehension. Each news story has
vocabulary and comprehension exercises to go along with it. You
can also write down your thoughts on the issue and send them in
to share with other readers online. (Recommended for advanced
levels.)
At ComAudio you can
listen to songs, stories, poems, and speeches and read the texts
at the same time. A ”wave form” feature allows you to start,
stop, and repeat any part of the audio you like. Another feature
allows you to click on a word to look up its meaning, and the
“cloze” exercise mode challenges you to fill in missing words in
the text as you listen.
US Citizenship
For general info on citizenship applications,
visit the Jones Library's
Citizenship Page.
USCIS (formerly "INS") offers official
study questions for the citizenship test. The USCIS study
questions are listed in random order, though, and don't include
the dictation sentences used in the writing test, so instead we
suggest using this list of the same
100 questions arranged by topic.
USCIS offers an online multiple choice
practice test. A similar one is available at the
Herald Sun newspaper, and also at the excellent
eCitizenhip site.
Preparing for the US Citizenship Interview puts the
information from the "100 questions" list into 28 topic
categories. There are practice questions and background
information (with graphics) provided for each catagory, as well
as several practice tests, and a dictation practice test (with
audio).
Lynne Weintraub's
Quia Games page
offers free online flashcard practice for history & government
questions from the INS study guide. There are
more
Quia games designed to practice vocabulary and civics facts
from the first three chapters from the textbook "Citizenship:
Passing the Test."
Ben's Guide
is meant to help children learn about US Government. But it can
also be useful for adults studying for the citizenship test. For
fun, try the
easy
picture matching game, or the
vocabulary puzzle.
US Culture
The creator of the
Life in the USA
site, Elliot Essman, has put together information (from his own
point of view) on many different aspects of US culture for
immigrants and visitors to the US.
Valuing our
Differences: Celebrating Diversity is a web site that offers
information on a wide range of US holidays.
The US State Department's
Portrait of the USA offers information on U.S. history,
government, geography, education, the arts, etc.
EduPASS offers
information on American "social customs and cultural
differences." The information is aimed mainly at international
college students, but immigrants (and their tutors) can also
find some interesting discussion/reading topics here.
City Family is an
easy-to-read online magazine for adult immigrants who are
learning to read English. It has short, attractive articles
about life-skills topics like health, jobs, money, children, &
housing. It also covers life-styles topics like fashion, home &
garden, cooking, and relationships. Click on the "translation"
link, and you can see the whole web page in another language.
New to America
offers information (at a fairly high reading level) about topics
of concern to new immigrants such as: social security, health
insurance, taxes, medicine, immigration forms, etc.
TOEFL
The following sites offer TOEFL practice tests
and or instruction. They're free, but some of them require you
to register:
-
ETS, the makers of TOEFL, offers a free official practice
test.
-
Free English offers high quality, authentic practice with
the new TOEFL iBT test format, with full reading, writing,
listening and speaking sections.
- TestDEN offers a
similar practice test.
-
Kaplan offers a free mini-iBT practice test and TOEFL
vocabulary flashcards (registration required).
-
MBA Center offers a full iBT practice test (registration
required).
-
Princeton Review offers a sample iBT lecture with
questions.
- TOEFLPod offers
a variety of 10-20 minute lectures and conversation podcasts.
Each one is presented at a slow speed, followed by
explanations of various terms used in the
lecture/conversation. Next, the same lecture/conversation is
read at a rapid speed (similar to real TOEFL listening items),
followed by practice comprehension questions. Scripts of the
podcasts are available on the website, but, unfortunately, the
vocabulary explanations and practice questions are only on the
audio.
For help with writing essays:
G.E.D.
The official web site of the
G.E.D. Testing Service has useful information about the
test.
PBS's
G.E.D. Connection is an online course for G.E.D. students.
You have to register in order to use it, but it's free, and you
can even get your own teacher who will check your work and give
you feedback. Each lesson will send you to a different web site
to gather information on a topic. Then you go back to the G.E.D.
Connection to practice. You can also take a practice G.E.D. test
when you're ready.
4test.com and Steck-Vaughn
also have on online G.E.D. practice tests. They're free but you
have to register.
The Five
Paragraph Essay Wizard offers help on writing effective
essays.
The
Writing Den uses short but interesting text and audio
feature stories, on a variety of topics, to teach English
listening/reading comprehension, vocabulary, sentence and
paragraph structure. You can read, listen to, and then take a
test on: individual vocabulary words, whole sentences, or whole
paragraphs.
12110
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Grandview, MO 64030
Office: (816) 765-5551
Fax: (816)
765-1777
Toll Free: 888-567-6621
E-mail:
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Website:
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