Dr. Grammar is a useful grammar reference site for students of English as a second language. Maintained by the Department of Languages and Literatures, University of Northern Iowa, this website provides quick, reliable guidance on thorny grammatical areas that often bewilder the ESL writer, for example when to spell numbers out and when to write them as figures, or how to document online sources in writing.
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Site URL: http://drgrammar.org/
Dr. Grammar
Posted on Wednesday, January 01, 2014 | Filed under Grammar, Writing
Parapal-Online: Free Interactive English Language Exercises
Posted on Monday, July 15, 2013 | Filed under Business English, CAE, English for Children, FCE, Grammar, IELTS, Listening, Software, Spelling, Vocabulary, Writing
Parapal-Online is a great online source of interactive exercises for students of English as a second language. The exercises are varied in type and provide practice in general English, business English, and academic English. There are also colourful activities for children and special resources for mobile devices.
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Site URL: http://www.parapal-online.co.uk/
Story Arts
Posted on Wednesday, July 03, 2013 | Filed under Teaching English
Heather Forest's Story Arts is a website about storytelling and methods of using it to develop students' language skills. Packed with exciting resources, the site will be useful for English language teachers seeking to use stories as a teaching aid in their classroom.
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Site URL: http://www.storyarts.org/index.html
Bibliomania
Posted on Wednesday, March 20, 2013 | Filed under Dictionaries, Literature, Reading
The aptly-named Bibliomania is a wonderful stop for hearty fans of classic literature. Designed in a simple but friendly style, the site offers full texts of thousands of literary works by classic writers from different historical periods. Besides the texts, useful study guides and reference works such as Rhys' Biographical Dictionary of English Literature and Simonds' History of American Literature are also included to aid students in understanding the authors and the history of literature.
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Site URL: http://www.bibliomania.com/
English Specialist
Posted on Thursday, March 14, 2013 | Filed under Grammar, Reading, Vocabulary
English Specialist is another useful website for the independent ESL student looking for free practice materials on the Internet. Neat and simple, the site offers a rich collection of resources designed for self-study including execises, quizzes, worksheets, and games.
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Site URL: http://english.specialist.hu/
Writing for Business and Pleasure
Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2013 | Filed under Grammar, Writing
Writing for Business and Pleasure is a website about writing maintained by Stephen Wilbers, the renowned columnist and author of several acclaimed books about writing including Writing by Wilbers and Keys to Great Writing. For English language learners, this website promises exciting surprises with a great collection of quality resources designed to help them improve their writing skill.
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Site URL: http://www.wilbers.com/index.htm
The Guardian Style Guide
Posted on Wednesday, February 06, 2013 | Filed under Grammar, Spelling, Writing
The well-known Guardian Style Guide, prepared by the respected British newspaper, is a comprehensive guide to English grammar and style much loved by English learners and writers around the world. Designed for reference purposes, this Style Guide offers straightforward tips on how to use English correctly. The online version of the guide can be accessed electronically at the newspaper's official website.
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Site URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/info/series/style-guide
Online Edition of The King's English
Posted on Saturday, January 05, 2013 | Filed under Grammar
H.W. Fowler's The King's English is considered one of the classic books on English grammar and usage. Published in 1908, this monumental reference work can still be accessed online via Bartleby's website and will be a useful compass for students trying to find their way through the complexities of English grammar.
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Site URL: http://www.bartleby.com/116/
The World Atlas of Language Structures Online
Posted on Friday, November 23, 2012 | Filed under Linguistics
The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is the online version of the renowned book published in 2005 by Oxford University Press. Revised in 2011, the current version offers students and researchers a comprehensive database of structural properties of languages of the world, fully indexed and searchable via interactive tools.
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Site URL: http://wals.info/
LEO: Literacy Education Online
Posted on Thursday, November 08, 2012 | Filed under Grammar, Writing
LEO (Literacy Education Online) is a website about writing that offers a wealth of useful resources for students looking to improve this important skill. Written by Sharon Cogdill and Judith Kilborn and affiliated with the Write Place (the writing center at St. Cloud State University), LEO gives students practical writing tips and advice via a problem-based checklist that covers every aspect of academic writing from starting a writing project to revising and citing sources.
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Site URL: http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/
Garbl's Writing Center
Posted on Tuesday, October 30, 2012 | Filed under Grammar, Spelling, Vocabulary, Writing
Garbl's Writing Center by Gary B. Larson is a nice website designed to help students write effectively in English. Featuring straightforward guides to clear, concise writing and useful links to online writing resources, the site is a great companion to turn to when you need help and advice on writing.
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Site URL: http://home.comcast.net/~garbl/
The English Blog
Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2012 | Filed under Business English, Culture, GMAT, Grammar, Idioms, Linguistics, Listening, Literature, Pronunciation, Reading, Slang, Speaking, Spelling, Study Skills, Teaching English, TOEFL, TOEIC, Translation, Vocabulary, Writing
Jeffrey Hill's The English Blog is an all-in-one website where you can find virtually everything about, as the name implies, English. Nicely designed and regularly updated, it boasts a very wide range of materials for the excited English learner: lessons, guides, news, tips, links, and all sorts of trivia that will make English learning enjoyable.
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Site URL: http://www.englishblog.com/
The History of English in Ten Minutes
Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 | Filed under Culture, Linguistics, Listening, Vocabulary
The History of English in Ten Minutes is a series of video podcasts produced by the Open University to chronicle the historical development of the English language from its beginnings to the present day. Consisting of ten videos, each only one minute in length, this acclaimed series provides English learners with a highly digestible overview of the history of the language, shedding light on the curious origins of words and phrases and charting the global expansion of English with amazing facts.
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Site URL: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/english-language/the-history-english-ten-minutes
Writing Tips from Study Guides and Strategies
Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2012 | Filed under Study Skills, Writing
Study Guides and Strategies is a website where students can find many guides written to help them develop their study skills. There is a section in this website that focuses on the development of academic writing skills with hundreds of practical tips and strategies useful to student writers of English.
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Site URL: http://www.studygs.net/index.htm
Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet
Posted on Monday, October 01, 2012 | Filed under Literature
Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet is a wonderful reference site for students, scholars, literature fans, and everybody who loves or wants to find out more about Shakespeare and his works. Comprehensive in scope, the site is a one-stop point that is both a catalog of links to really good Shakespearean materials available online and a collection of primary documents about Shakespeare that cannot be found anywhere else on the Internet.
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Site URL: http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/Default.htm
Academic Writing Resources from Finnish Virtual University
Posted on Friday, September 28, 2012 | Filed under Grammar, Writing
The Finnish Virtual University (FVU) has one of the best websites currently available online for students wishing to improve their academic writing skills. With a friendly interface and excellent study resources that include both theoretical instruction and exercises for practice, this site literally demystifies academic writing and will appeal even to students who find academic writing a daunting subject.
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Site URL: http://sana.tkk.fi/awe/
Free English Learning Materials from MyEnglishTeacher.net
Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2012 | Filed under Grammar, TOEFL, Writing
MyEnglishTeacher.net is a useful website for beginning and intermediate students of English, offering a rich collection of ESL self-study resources, including free English grammar lessons and a TOEFL grading service.
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Site URL: http://www.myenglishteacher.net/mainfield.html
Grammar and Usage for the Non-Expert
Posted on Thursday, May 31, 2012 | Filed under Grammar, Writing
Grammar and Usage for the Non-Expert is a website written for learners of English as a Second Language. With friendly, non-technical guides, the site explains hundreds of common problems of English grammar and usage in straightforward language, offering students easy-to-remember rules for dealing with them.
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Site URL: http://grammartips.homestead.com/index.html
Skills Workshop
Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2012 | Filed under Teaching English
Maggie Harnew's Skills Workshop is a great, non-profit making website where skills teachers can find free resources to use in their classes. Contributed by users from around the world, these classroom-tested resources are available for free download and are ideal as supporting materials for any literacy, numeracy, functional skills, or ESOL programs.
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Site URL: http://www.skillsworkshop.org/
Middle English Dictionary
Posted on Saturday, April 07, 2012 | Filed under Dictionaries
The Middle English Dictionary is an authoritative work on Middle English, covering the lexicon and usage of English from after the Norman Conquest to the beginning of the printing press (1100 to 1500). Compiled by the University of Michigan, this dictionary has been called "the greatest achievement in medieval scholarship in America" and can be freely accessed online in an electronic version that not only preserves the original contents but also gives users powerful search tools not provided by the print version.
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Site URL: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/
The Spelling Blog
Posted on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 | Filed under Listening, Spelling, Teaching English
Johanna Stirling's The Spelling Blog publishes insightful articles about English spelling, offering readers useful tips on how to learn it. The blog also provides English teachers with practical advice on how to teach spelling. Read The Spelling Blog and gain new looks at a subject that is more often than not referred to as "dry", or, to use the blog author's words, "fuddy-duddy".
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Site URL: http://thespellingblog.blogspot.com/
ELT Podcast
Posted on Saturday, March 31, 2012 | Filed under Listening, Speaking, Teaching English
ELT Podcast offers downloadable MP3 podcasts produced for students and teachers of English as a second or foreign language. The podcasts focus on developing students' listening and speaking skills as well as offer ideas and advice for solving some real-life English teaching issues. Although no longer updated, the site lists all of its past episodes in a user-friendly archive for easy download.
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Site URL: http://www.eltpodcast.com/index.html
Idiom Quest
Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 | Filed under Business English, Culture, Dictionaries, Idioms, Slang
Idiom Quest is a comprehensive, fully searchable database of American English idioms. This reliable online dictionary of idioms puts the meanings of popular and not-so-popular idioms at your fingertips and better still, it will help you find idioms that relate to a specific topic or idea, for example "happy" or "anger". This is just perfect when you are trying to express your thoughts in English or build your knowledge of idiomatic English around a given subject.
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Site URL: http://www.idiomquest.com/
Free ESL Activities from Stuff.co.uk
Posted on Thursday, February 16, 2012 | Filed under Grammar, IELTS, Literature, Pronunciation, TOEFL, Vocabulary
Stuff.co.uk offers some interactive activities for ESL students to use online. The materials include practice tests for the TOEFL and IELTS exams and other exercises covering various topics related to English grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and literature.
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Site URL: http://www.stuff.co.uk/english.htm
Bad Human Factors Designs
Posted on Sunday, February 12, 2012 | Filed under Reading
Michael J. Darnell's Bad Human Factors Designs is an interesting website that examines the designs of not-so-well-designed, at least in the author's opinion, everyday objects and provides suggestions on how to improve them. While it is oriented towards native speaker tech geeks, the site is also a useful source of reading material for ESL students.
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Site URL: http://www.baddesigns.com/index.html
