Free language learning resources on the net
Professionally produced sites with lots of activities
1. Bell
There are lots of free language learning activities and games at Bell English. You will need to register and you will also need to download the Macromedia Shockwave player. Highly recommended.
2. The British Council
There is a wealth of excellent free grammar and vocabulary activities, games, songs and so on at the British Council /BBC web site. Highly recommended.
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/
3. The BBC
There are lots of multimedia resources for English language learners at the BBC. Students can learn English through the news, sports, songs and so on. The site also has message boards and communities that learners can join
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml
4.About.com
This US based web site has thousands of links to useful resources as well as its own resources
5. Quia has lots of free resources
6. Publisher sites
A. OUP
OUP teacher's club
http://www.oup.com/elt/global/teachersclub/
OUP students club
http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/students/
Activities to accompany;
I spy - Primary
Headway
Clockwise
English File
Natural English
The good grammar guide
Business vision
B. CUP
CUP teacher resources
http://uk.cambridge.org/elt/teachers/
CUP student resources
http://uk.cambridge.org/elt/students/
C. Longman
Resources index for teachers and students
http://www.longman.com/cws/index.html
D. Macmillan
Teacher produced pages for students
From Spain the excellent
From Japan
From Charles and Lawrence Kelly
Teacher produced sites for teachers
Here are a few sites run by teachers. Lots of practical ideas and links.
Links, explanations and information
Links
Listening
General
Bell English Online - Some listening activities available. Needs the Shockwave player.
Listening activities for ESL students. Needs Real Audio.
http://grove.ufl.edu/~ktrickel/activity.html#listen
Interactive listening comprehension practice. Only has four texts to date and they are all high level. Real audio required.
Takako's great adventure - a listening adventure with text and audio available
http://www.faceweb.okanagan.bc.ca/tga/
Randall’s cyber listening lab has lots of listening activities. You will need a Real Player
English listening lounge. Requires Real Audio and only some are free!
http://www.englishlistening.com/
Real player's guide to all their audio and video resources.
Lots of excellent listening links for teachers at
http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Listening/
BBC audio and video resources. The audio does not require a downloaded player but the video requires real player.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/audiovideo/
On-line news hour. Hourly news from PBS in the USA. Needs Real Audio for audio but video has the choice of Real player or Windows Media Player. Video has scrolling text.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/realaudio.html
You can listen to audio news in English (and many other languages) at this website through your Windows media player or through Real Player.
Songs
Search on Google. Copyright!
English at home has suggestions for improving your spoken English
http://www.speaking.english-at-home.com/
Pronunciation
Okanogan University College has lots of pronunciation activities and games at this Canadian site. You will need a Shockwave player.
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/pronunciation/
Tongue twister database
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8136/tonguetwisters.html
Tongue twisters from the BC
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/games/twister.asp
An amazing collection of links to pronunciation sites on the web. An excellent resource.
http://eleaston.com/pronunciation/links.html
About has lots of pronunciation links
http://esl.about.com/cs/pronunciation/
About has lots of good links to reading sites.
http://esl.about.com/cs/reading/
Bell English Online - There are some reading activities on the Bell pages
Impact On-line. Reading texts with activities for students. Not interactive.
http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/visitors/kenji/kitao/material.htm
Read a book at the Internet public library
Soon On-line magazine. Texts but no activities and all evangelical Christian stories!
http://www.soon.org.uk/content.htm
Visit
this bookshop for reviews and recommended books
www.amazon.co.uk
“This site ... is designed to help people whose first language is not English learn to read a daily English-language newspaper...”
http://www.bangkokpost.net/education/index.htm
Up-to-date articles, essays, opinions, books and news from the world of the
Arts. http://www.aldaily.com/
Features, opinions, articles, news and books from the world of science and
technology. http://www.scitechdaily.com/
A compilation of well-known fairytales, with annotated versions, similar
versions, and histories.
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/
About has lots of links to writing sites.
http://esl.about.com/cs/writing/
The cyrano server
http://cgi.nando.net/toys/cyrano/version2/compose-cyrano.html
Dave’s ESL café graffiti wall
http://www.pacificnet.net/~sperling/wall.html
The electric poster
http://postcards.www.media.mit.edu/Postcards/Welcome.html
Guide to writing and grammar http://webster.commnet.edu/HP/pages/darling/grammar.htm
Paradigm On-line writing assistant http://webster.commnet.edu/HP/pages/darling/grammar.htm
Purdue On-line writing lab web server home page
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
Writing den
http://www2.actden.com/writ_den/
On-line
handout from The University Writing Center at Texas Tech University. http://english.ttu.edu/uwc/topicsen.html
Analysing
the title, gathering information, organising information, FAQs on writing http://www.efl.arts.gla.ac.uk/eee6/index.htm
Pizzaz writing project
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/pizzaz.html
Find an electronic pen pal at these sites.
Intercultural E-mail Classroom
eMail Classroom Exchange
Intercultural E-mail Classroom Connections http://www.stolaf.edu/network/iecc/index.html
International E-mail Tandem Network
http://www.slf.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/email/infen.html
Connections Buddy Project
Keypal opportunities
http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/visitors/kenji/keypal.htm
Linguistic Funland
http://www.linguistic-funland.com/penpalpostings.html
Dictionaries
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/default.asp
Longman International English Dictionary
CD. 30 day trial available from the web site.
http://www.longmanwebdict.com/
Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary
CD. Another good dictionary with sound for learners to hear words and lots of games. Visit the web site for a taster
Vocabulary
Lots of games and quizzes at
Free resources for students to use with Longman dictionaries at the address below. Thee are three levels of vocabulary activities; challenging, intermediate and easier. However, you do need to register first. http://www.longman.com/dictionaries/students/sts_resources.html
English at home has lots of free vocabulary activities
http://www.vocabulary.english-at-home.com/
Hong Polytechnic University has lots of free vocabulary exercises including crosswords
http://vlc.polyu.edu.hk/english.htm
TESL J has lots of vocabulary activities
http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/quizzes/vocabulary.html
Hong Kong Polytechnic University has lots of vocabulary exercises
http://vlc.polyu.edu.hk/VOCAB/vocabindex.htm
A collection of interesting vocabulary activities can be found at
Some very interesting activities at better-english
http://www.better-english.com/exerciselist.html
Grammar
CNN has a large number of grammar activities
http://lc.byuh.edu/CNN_N/grammar.html
Better English
http://www.better-english.com/grammar.htm
Quia
http://www.quia.com/dir/eng/grammar.html
Edunet has a good grammar guide
English forum
http://www.englishforum.com/00/interactive/
Games
Teflgames
http://www.teflgames.com/games.html
Exams
http://www.pass-english-exams.com (... pass-english-exams is a suite of multimedia software for students preparing for the Cambridge exams FCE, Advanced, Proficiency and BEC. ... free downloadable demo version)
· UCLES
For general information about the five Cambridge exams look at the UCLES web site.
· Flo-joe
Has some FCE and CAE exam papers for you to try
· TOEFL exercise
5 reading passages / one structure activity available for free. Not interactive. Might be best used by teachers as a print out.
http://members.xoom.com/u3621195/index.html
· English test Prep.
A Canadian site that has some free TOEFL material. Sample materials for reading. Listening and Structure papers are available. Plays through Shockwave so the listening material is available.
http://www.studint.net/toefl/TOEFL_JS.HTM
· Stuff Media
Some TOEFL practice materials available but not indexed. Structure and written Expression only. Playable through Shockwave.
http://www.stuff.co.uk/toefl.htm
· University of Science and Technology of China
Some free activities for Sections 1, 2 and 3 of the exam. Not at all interactive and the listening is just the tapescript on screen ( a reading test in reality ! ). A source of extra practice material for both teachers and students.
http://www.ustc.edu.cn/~hxu/other-hxu/ets/toefl/tstprpmt.html
· The Official IELTS home page
Lots of information and some free sample activities available. These are not interactive and may be best used by the teacher printing them and using them as extra practice. Copyright is an issue.
One free reading, writing, listening and speaking paper. Five other sample papers can be ordered but not viewed. The listening material requires RealPlayer to be downloaded and is therefore unusable on our network. Another set of papers are currently being prepared and should be available soon.
http://www.aapress.com.au/ielts/english/ielts.htm
· Holmesglen Institute
http://international.holmesglen.vic.edu.au/IELTS01.htm
Lots of information about the exam and question types with practice material for reading, writing, listening and speaking ( watch out for the occasional error ! ). The practice activities can only be completed on line. The listening material is limited to part of a lecture but is available through Windows Media Player.
This is an excellent resource and is recommended.