WEBSITES TO PRACTICE AND IMPROVE YOUR COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN ENGLISH
LISTENING
*Please let your teacher know if you come across a helpful website that isn’t on this list or if any site's link is no longer active or has changed.
www.elllo.org/ [2] English Language Listening Lab Online: Free online listening resource of over 1,000 listening interview activities designed especially for ESL and EFL students and teachers. There are updates, interviews listening games, mixers, a news center and songs. Most listening activities include images, an interactive quiz, transcript of the audio and downloadable MP3. There are interviews for *every day* from 2004 and 2005, with more being added regularly. These interviews are organized by date, subject, and level of difficulty. There are also many interactive language activities created with Flash, which makes them load quickly even if your internet connection isn't super fast. These activities are also freely downloadable to be used on your local computer-great if you have slow connection speed or have to pay a lot to be online. Quickly becoming the premier listening site on the Web ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!
http://esl.about.com/ [3] About.com - English listening skills for ESL EFL learners and teachers. Comprehension quizzes for listening skill improvement for beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Includes quizzes, podcasts, tongue twisters, intonation and stress exercises, plus much more. Definitely worth bookmarking! Go to the link and click on “Listening Activities” on the menu “Topics” on the left-hand side of the page. This is also a comprehensive site with a wealth of information and activities.
www.esl-lab.com [4] Randall’s Cyber Listening Lab. Free online short listening exercises, general listening quizzes, listening quizzes for academic purposes, and long conversations. All are labeled according to to length and difficulty. Has pre-and post-listening activities as well as useful vocabulary and grammar explanations. Sometimes cultural dos and don’ts. Wide choice of everyday conversational topics with adult and children’s voices. Includes tape scripts. There is also a Basic Skills Study Guide which organizes the listenings by subject.
https://ed.ted.com/ [5] Video-based lessons organised by topic an age!
www.youtube.com/ [6] You name it, they’ve got it!
NEWSBROADCASTS AND RADIO
https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/features/6-minute-english [7] Our long-running series of topical discussion and new vocabulary, brought to you by your favourite BBC Learning English presenters.
www.voa.gov [8] Voice of America: News in Special English - A multimedia international news broadcasting service in over 44 languages funded by the US government. Broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week. This world news is read more slowly than usual. Try this out if the "regular" news broadcasts are too difficult for you to follow.
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/index.shtml [9] BBC World Service - Listen to World News as well as audio broadcasts on business, sports, education, science, youth, arts & drama, features, music and religion. There is also a special section on English language learning (www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml [10] )which has audio clips and listening comprehension exercises. Topics include News, Study Skills, Science and Technology, Speaking English, Business, Society and Culture, and English for Beginners.
www.npr.org [11] National Public Radio (AmE). Listen to the NPR News on the Hour or choose from a variety of news stories of the day. This is a great way to keep up with what's going on in the world while practicing your listening skills! Most audio clips go along with a related news article which you can read.
www.rte.ie [12] RTE is a Public Service Broadcaster, a non-profit making organisation owned by the Irish people. RTÉ is Ireland's cross-media leader, providing comprehensive and cost-effective free-to-air television, radio and online services, which are of the highest quality and are impartial, in accordance with RTÉ's statutory obligations. Excellent for podcasts in both television and radio.
SPEAKING
*Please let your teacher know if you come across a helpful website that isn’t on this list or if any site´s link is no longer active or has changed.
PRONUNCIATON
www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/ [13]“Pronunciation tip of the Day”, Quizzes and answers on many topics including stress in compounds, the pronunciation of difficult words and the pronunciation of word-final endings.
https://howjsay.com/ [14] On-line pronunciation practice, dictionaries, English accents, songs, spoken texts, etc.
www.lyricstraining.org [15] Mejora tu comprensión auditiva y practica diferentes acentos con los mejores vídeos musicales, rellenando la letra de las canciones y con el Karaoke
https://youglish.com/ [16] Another issue with English is that the spelling doesn’t always correspond with the pronunciation. So how can you be sure that you’ve got it right? YouGlish is a great tool for this! You type in a word and it will search Youtube to give you hundreds of examples of people saying that word. You can also select US, UK or AUS to hear how these varieties of English differ.
https://ororo.tv/en/channels [17] Accurate pronunciation is not just about individual sounds and words. If you’re going to make yourself understood you also need to focus on how you put words together. In English, we emphasise some words more than others; this is what we call stress. With Ororo.tv a range of short videos with subtitles for you to watch. Find a show that you like, listen carefully for a few minutes and try to identify the stressed words. Listen again, pause between scenes and repeat the sentences using the same stress.
READING
*Please let your teacher know if you come across a helpful website that isn’t on this list or if any site´s link is no longer active or has changed.
NEWSPAPAERS AND PERIODICALS
www.nytimes.com [18] New York Times (an American daily)
www.washingtonpost.com [19] The Washington Post (an American daily)
www.ireland.com/ [20] The Irish Times (an Irish daily broadsheet)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk [21] Guardian Unlimited (a British daily)
www.independent.co.uk [22] The Independent (a British daily)
https://www.thebigproject.co.uk/news/ [23]News from all over the world, selected by continent and country.
https://www.thetimesinplainenglish.com/ [24] The title says it all... accesible English for beginners!
ONLINE MAGAZINES
https://www.flowmagazine.com/category/read/blog [25]At FlowMagazine you can read about mindfulness, find quotes, DIY crafts & of course everything about Flow.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/ [26] Perfect if you like: interesting trivia and facts. What you’ll find inside: What does outer space smell like? Why isn’t cat food mouse-flavored? If you’re the kind of person who asks yourself these questions, you’ll love Mental Floss.
https://www.fastcompany.com [27]/ Perfect if you like: business and learning how successful companies work. What you’ll find inside: Fast Company is one of the more approachable (easy-to-read) magazines about business and companies. It has many interviews and features of successful people, as well as general news about interesting new companies. It does use a higher level of writing than is usual for magazines, so give it a try first to make sure you can understand the articles.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ [28]National Geographic gets you closer to the stories that matter and past the edge of what's possible through groundbreaking storytelling.
LITERATURE
www.penguinreaders.com [29] Read and listen to dossiers of books with reading comprehension quizzes
http://books.guardian.co.uk/ [30] Review of new books; articles organized according to genre, authors, critics; you can read the first chapter of recently published and critically acclaimed books
https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/ [31] Stories adapted to your level. Beginner to upper-intermediate
https://www.oxfordreadingclub.com/ [32] Read your way to better English. Anytime. Anywhere.
WRITING
*Please let your teacher know if you come across a helpful website that isn’t on this list or if any site´s link is no longer active or has changed.
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/writing [33]Here you can find activities to practise your writing skills. You can improve your writing by understanding model texts and how they're structured.
https://www.listen-and-write.com/ [34] The world's largest online dictation
https://www.grammarly.com/ [35]? Great writing, simplified. A tool to learn! Not to write your EOI's essays with!
REFERENCE
Comprehensive ESL websites for ESL learners (& teachers) :
At the following ESL + EFL sites you can find just about anything and everything to practice your English: reading, listening, writing, and speaking activities; pronunciation; games, grammar explanations and activities; vocabulary; quizzes; reference materials; history; literature; forums; chat rooms; lesson plans, jobs & much more valuable information. Everyone should have at least one of these sites as an active bookmark!
www.englishclub.com [36] English Club.com – “because people speak English”. A definite bookmark!
www.daveseslcafe.com/ [37] Dave´s ESL café – Self-proclaimed as “The Internet’s meeting place for ESL + EFL students and teachers from around the world!” Perhaps one of the most well-known and respected ESL site’s out there today.
www.onestopenglish.com [38] One stop English - Macmillan publisher’s ESL site.
www.world-english.org/ [39] World English - Self-proclaimed as “The one-stop resource for the English language and more…”
DICTIONARIES
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ [40] Free Cambridge dictionaries online
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/es/ [41] Collins dictionary
www.yourdictionary.com [42] Comprehensive index of on-line dictionaries in more than 200 different languages. Grammars, thesaurus, word of the day, specialized dictionaries
GRAMMAR
www.englishpage.com [43] Interactive site with exercises for upper-intermediate/advanced students to practise grammar and vocabulary
https://www.englishgrammar.org/ [44] your guide to error-free writing
PUBLISHERS’ HOME PAGES AND INTERACTIVE SITES
www.macmillan.es [45] Macmillan Heinemann
www.insideout.net [46] Macmillan’s companion website to the Inside Out textbook.
www.oup.com [47] Oxford University Press
www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/ [48] Oxford’s companion website to the New English File textbook
www.pearsonlongman.com [49] Pearson Educación-Longman
www.longman.com/totalenglish [50] Longman’s companion website to the Total English textbook.
www.longman.com/cuttingedge [51] Longman’s companion website to the Cutting Edge textbook.
VOCABULARY
www.phrases.org.uk [52] The Phrase Finder. Phrase dictionary: meanings and origins of phrases, sayings, and idioms.
https://quizlet.com/es [53] Create your glossaries or study some else's
https://www.yourdictionary.com/ [54] Your Dictionary bills itself as providing simple, straightforward definitions and the easiest-to-use online dictionary. That’s about right. Sometimes simple is good. In addition to providing a definition, Your Dictionary also includes a thesaurus and places the word in varied sentence examples.
https://www.thinglink.com/ [55]ThingLink is a tool for making images interactive. To use, simply upload an image, identify hot spots on specific parts of the image, and add text or web links to the image. In the classroom, teachers could use ThingLink to launch a unit by introducing students to key vocabulary or students could design interactive images as they become more familiar with vocabulary. There are many possibilities; I’d love to know how you use ThingLink to extend and deepen student learning.
OTHER AREAS OF INTEREST
FILM
www.moviesounds.com [56] A collection of short (sometimes very short) excerpts from a variety of films. SOUND ONLY (no images)
http://filmunlimited.co.uk/ [57] The film section of the Guardian newspaper has latest news, reviews, trailers, interviews.
MUSIC
www.lyrics.com [58] Music lyrics to all your favourite songs and artists
www.lyrics007.com [59] “We do better than James Bond”
COMEDY
www.comedyspeak.com [60] Raw stand-up comedy: MP3 comedy, comedy news and comedian interviews.
www.comedycentral.com [61] It is an American television channel that carries predominantly comedy programming.
www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/abfab/ [62] The official site for the BBC show, Absolutely Fabulous.
