Internet Links for Independent Study

Study English on the Web

General E.S.L.

Sites suitable for beginners are marked with a .

• USA Learns is a project of the U.S. Department of Education. It offers free instruction at beginning and intermediate levels in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in a simple and engaging format. Lessons focus on practical skills related to everyday life, family, health, and the workplace. There are classroom videos, story videos, news feature stories, and many interactive practice activities.
• The first lesson of the ESL video series, Inglés ¡Ya! (for Spanish speakers) can be viewed on-line free through New Readers Press. Sample workbook pages are also available.
• English Central offers a clever way to practice pronunciation skills in a meaningful context. Choose a short video clip from a TV show, movie, or informational topic, and repeat the phrases you hear into your computer's microphone. English Central's speech recognition feature records it and rates it in comparison to the original phrase. You can also get definitions and hear phrases spoken at a slower rate.
• Voice of America's GoEnglish.me has English lessons at various levels geared at young adult speakers of Chinese, Russian, Indonesian, and Farsi. Lessons use voice recognition software, virtual characters, and video to help students improve their informal conversation skills and become more familiar with American culture.
• Literacy Center offers simple activities for learning alphabet letters, numbers, colors, and shapes. Although the site is designed for children, it is suitable for adult literacy learners as well.
• 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. Learning Chocolate, a similar site, offers a variety of picture-matching games with audio.
• 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. No audio.
• 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.
• Live Mocha lets you view a photo, hear corresponding audio, see the word/sentence in English, and see a translation. There are various quiz modes for listening, reading, and sentence construction based on each series of photos. Registration is required but it's free.
• MCED Services offers easy lessons on prepostions for beginning level students. The lessons use audio, photos, and simple text to teach prepositions (location of objects, signs, calendar skills, and appointments), functional literacy (writing checks, filling out time sheets/forms, reading maps), basic health literacy (reading prescription labels/warnings, understanding nutrition labels), and basic math vocabulary.
• English Skills, by Natasha Cooper, is a commercial site, but it offers a useful free sample lesson (with audio) on scheduling appointments.
• 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.
• Ventures, Touchstone, Interchange, and Connect are textbooks produced by Cambridge University Press. The publisher offers additional on-line practice for each chapter of these textbooks. [You can use the practice activities whether or not you have the textbooks.] The activities are well-designed, fun to use, and cover a broad range of levels and skill areas, including listening, grammar, sentence construction, and vocabulary.
• English for Your Health, from Queens Library, is a health literacy curriculum for beginning level students. Students listen to a short audio clip (and read along if they choose), then click on the answers to questions about what they have heard. Activities feature topics such as following instructions for taking medications, describing symptoms, and emergency vocabulary.
• At Language Guide you can wave the mouse over a picture and hear the word pronounced. Bilingual support is available in 17 languages.
• Communicating at Work is a project of the Asian American Civic Association of Boston. It features audio dialogs and videos of common workplace scenarios, such as communicating with co-workers, customers, and supervisors, asking for clarification, cultural differences, reporting problems/progress, etc. The language level is fairly advanced. Lessons are quite detailed and include practice quizzes.
• English Club features a wide range of lessons and quizzes at various levels. Not all of the lessons include audio, but many do.
• Getting Started With Superpages shows students how to apply literacy and computer skills while learning to use Superpages.com (an expanded on-line phone book featuring information about businesses and people across the country). In the five self-paced lessons, students listen to audio of on-screen text, learn about browser navigation, keyword searches, and other computer skills, and practice new skills in real-life contexts.
• Merriam Webster’s Visual Online Dictionary presents very detailed images/audio related to 15 (mostly academic) themes, such as science, the arts, and society, enabling students to see and hear the pronunciations of more than 6,000 words. For advanced level students. (Includes somewhat intrusive advertisements.)
• At English Listening Lounge, students select an English “domain” (American, international, academic, or narrative), select a level and topic, and are given a choice of listening passages (monologues), spoken in authentic English by ordinary people. In a box at the bottom of the screen, students can click on “transcript” and read along, or click on “questions” to see a list of comprehension questions. (Answers are accessed by clicking on “Q/A”).
• REEP World offers short stories about immigrants’ experiences with healthcare, work, and life in the US. You can listen and read the stories, then check your understanding. (Note: The stories are narrated by immigrants who speak English with an accent. It may be easier for beginners to skip the first section, which offers audio only, and go to the next section where you can read along with each sentence in the audio.)
• Net Grammar offers ten comprehensive study units that are organized around a series of grammar objectives, but that include listening, reading, and writing practice too.
• TalkEnglish has audio clips of many useful words, phrases, and dialogs. The listening section includes comprehension quizzes, and the dialogs allow you to practice along with one speaker or the other.

Page Menu

Pronunciation

• E.L. Easton offers the Authentic 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.

Page Menu

Listen & Read

• Ello, EViews, and English Baby offer 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. These sites provide explanations of new vocabulary and expressions, and give students a chance to test their comprehension.
• Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Café and Daily ESL offer lots of easy-to-use audio exercises for practicing listening skills at all levels. (Note: Look for instructions on how to slow down the playback speed of these recordings on Windows Media Player.)
• Reading Practice with Word Families offers nine short stories that each feature a different phonics pattern. There is read-along audio, a comprehension quiz, and a simple phonics presentation with each story.
• 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 California Distance Learning Project has news stories (unfortuately somewhat dated), 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.
• Voice of America News has news and feature stories (some audio, some video) 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 "special English" (spoken at a somewhat slower pace) with a transcript to follow along with. You can also access VOA through their Learning English YouTube channel.
• 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.)
• The GCF Everyday Life Project offers interactive practice to help students build confidence with vocabulary and functional literacy skills. It’s fun, attractively designed, offers full audio support and is built around realistic life situations such as using an ATM machine, making a deposit, or reading safety information.
• Simple English News presents a range of news and feature stories each in a short paragraph that you can listen along with.
• English Express presents short (Canadian-themed) news and feature stories for ESL students at various levels. Each story offers text, audio, and related visuals.

Page Menu.

US Citizenship

• The Jones Library offers ten citizenship lesson guides (based on the textbook "Citizenship: Passing the Test"). There is also a plain language step-by-step guide to becoming a citizen, and information on requesting a fee waiver.
• The USCIS Citizenship Resource Center offers official information on naturalization requirements, the application, and the test, and provides some free study tools for the English test and the civics test, including audio of the 100 questions/answers and a multiple choice practice test.
• ProLiteracy Education Network offers interactive practice (with audio) for the reading and writing components of the citizenship test.
• The Citizenship Study Guide offers interactive practice with the 100 questions and the literacy test, including some audio exercises and information in Spanish.
• Ventures Arcade has interactive quizzes on the 100 questions and literacy test that include some audio. (Click on the red, white, and blue "citizenship" button, then choose the study topic you want. To get back to the beginning, click on the "menu" bar on the left.)
• CLINIC has translations of the 100 civic questions into many languages. Although most applicants take the test in English, it is useful for them to read the questions in their own language to make sure they understand what they mean.
• Insight Media offers a great dictation practice test (with audio) at their LibertyBook site (click on the “student” section, then select “dictation.”) The site also offers a multiple-choice quiz of the 100 civics questions (text only).
• NewCitizen.US has information about steps you can take after becoming a citizen (such as registering to vote, getting a passport, or sponsoring family members).
• At Lynne Weintraub's SpellingCity page, you can study the words on the writing (dictation) test. Spelling City reads each word for you, spells it aloud, and uses the word in a sentence. It can generate a worksheet to help you practice writing the words. SpellingCity also uses the writing test list to make spelling games to play on line, and word puzzles to print out. When you're ready to take a test, you can listen to the words, type in the letters, and check your results. If any are spelled incorrectly, you can continue to practice and take a new test on the words you're having trouble with--until you've got them all right.
• The Minnesota Literacy Council offers a free on-line citizenship course that includes audio practice with the civics and literacy tests and videos that show beginning-level students answering personal interview questions. (Note: The practice questions here require students to read & select from multiple choice answers, and type in dictated sentences. In the real USCIS test, civics questions and answers are spoken - not written - and the writing test uses pencil and paper - no typing.)

Page Menu

US Culture

• Foreignborn.com offers self-help information on many topics such as visas, financial matters, health insurance, college, social security, etc.
• 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. A similar site, Newcomer's Guide, offers "how to" advice on living in the US.
• Valuing our Differences: Celebrating Diversity is a web site that offers information on a wide range of US holidays.
• 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.

Page Menu.

TOEFL

The following sites offer TOEFL practice tests and or instruction. They're free, but some of them require you to register:

• Free English offers high quality, authentic practice with the new TOEFL iBT test format, with full reading, writing, listening and speaking sections.
• A good way to practice for the TOEFL listening test is by listening to academic lectures. TED and Education Portal offer academic lectures on almost every imaginable topic. So does ITunes U (but you have to download them using ITunes).
• Princeton Review small number of sample listening test items.
• 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.
• The Linguist Library offers a catalog of short audio recordings on many topics, including conversations and academic lectures similar to those on the TOEFL listening test. Transcripts are available, and translations (into mostly European languages) are facilitated on the web site. What the site does not provide is practice questions to test your comprehension. However, if you go through a free registration process, you can use the site to create vocabulary flashcards (based on the audio transcripts you view) and use them to test yourself.

For help with writing essays:

• Purdue University's OWL Writing Lab
• WritingDEN's Tips-O-Matic

Jones Library card holders can take “Learn a Test”s practice iBT TOEFL test at:

• http://www.joneslibrary.org/ref/tests.html. Your “user name” is your library card number.

Page Menu

G.E.D.

• The official web site of the G.E.D. Testing Service has useful information about the test.
• Glencoe publishes GED study books, and provides a corresponding on-line "supplemental study center." Whether or not you use the textbook series, you have free access to their chapter outlines, chapter review quizzes, interactive flashcards, and glossaries.
• McGraw Hill offers study aids and practice with each of the five GED subtests: reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. On the top left corner you will links to full practice tests. If you click on any individual chapter, additional links will appear on the left with things like flashcards, content summaries, and quizzes. (These on-line materials were created in conjunction with the Contemporary GED textbook series, but they can be useful even if you don't have the books.)
• 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.
• Steck-Vaughn offers a free on-line G.E.D. practice test.
• The Five Paragraph Essay Wizard offers help on writing effective essays.
• Jones Library card holders can take "Learn a Test"'s practice GED test at http://www.joneslibrary.org/ref/tests.html. Be sure to read the specific instructions page on how to enter your card number so that it will be accepted by the system.
• GED Prep Info is an easy-to-navigate site with information and practice questions for each section of the test.

Page Menu