50 Essential Resources for ESL Students

Published on Wednesday 15th 2010f September, 2010

Learning a new language is always daunting, especially when that language is as full of weird rules and contradictions as English. Native speakers are often unable to master the nuances of tense and grammar themselves. Fortunately, if you're originally a non-English speaker, there are a fantastic amount of resources online to help you master the English language. From speaking to writing, these tools will help you get a handle on English and help you in your education and career. Don't let the size of the task stop you from getting it done. Use these resources and you'll be fluent in no time.

Use these sites to boost your grammar knowledge, from verb tenses to noun placement.

1. Purdue Online Writing Lab: The OWL is a wonderful repository of practice sheets and linguistic primers for learner at all levels.
2. Dave's ESL Cafe: ESL teacher Dave Sperling's in-depth site provides numerous lessons about sentence structure, word use, and more.
3. Listen and Fill in the Blanks: This audio tool uses popular rhymes to teach word placement and correct usage.
4. The English Learner Movie Guides: This is a novel approach to ESL: this site takes popular movies and uses their summaries and idioms to discuss the English language. Great for ESL students with a love of U.S. culture.
5. ESL Partyland: The festive name is an indicator of how laid-back this handy ESL site can be. Various exercises let students practice writing and reading as they use external sites to boost their comprehension.
6. Breaking News English: These inventive lesson plans teach ESL by drawing inspiration from recent news and global affairs. Packed with information about word usage, grammar, and more.
7. Bob Wilson's Auto-English: Bob Wilson, an English teacher living in Spain, maintains this amazingly rich site packed with lessons for ESL students at all stages.
8. Zozanga: A simple but effective interface makes this tool an easy one to use for students who aren't as well versed in computers.
9. ESL-Lounge: Hundreds of awesome exercises make this site a fantastic tool for students. Parts of speech and vocabulary are classified by difficulty.
10. 1-Language: This all-inclusive site offers a variety of free resources including test prep and essay writing.
11. Activities for ESL Students: This pared-down website offers grammar quizzes at multiple degrees of difficulty.
12. ESL Gold: This top-of-the-line resource is packed with instructions in all areas of English comprehension, with special emphases on business writing and test-taking.
13. Using English: A handy reference guide to major parts of speech and their usage, with bonus material for ESL instructors.
14. 5-Minute English: This wonderful site not only offers a variety of lessons and exercises, it also boasts links to other helpful ESL programs, books, and schools.
15. English, Baby!: Another wonderful online resource that teaches English using movies as a context for language usage and comprehension.

These sites will help ESL students learn how to speak the English words they've been learning.

16. American English Pronunciation Practice: This helpful site has dozens of word exercises designed to let students listen and repeat until they get a handle on pronunciation.
17. 2,000+ ESL/EFL Conversations on Different Topics: This detailed tool lets students practice their speaking with the help of an online avatar.
18. Business English Lessons: There are dozens of key phrases on this site complete with audio clips to help ESL students practice clear pronunciation.
19. Free English Lessons from the ESL Resource Center: There are 100 spelling exercises on this site, half with sound and half without.
20. English Daily: Dated graphics aside, this website is packed with great exercises designed to help students remember words and learn English through immersive lessons.
21. Repeat After Us: Free audio clips and pronunciation guides make this a smart resource for all ESL students.

Everything from common vocabulary words to easily misspelled words can be found at these sites.

22. Flash Card Exchange: This brower-based tool lets you study thousands of words, create your own flash cards, and sort cards based on category and learner language.
23. 20-Minute ESL Lessons: These audio lessons cover basic vocabulary for a variety of everyday situations, including office life.
24. A Word a Day: This free service is a great one for vocabulary lovers. Every day you get an e-mail with a word and its definition.
25. The Many Roads to Japan: Robert Norris' book is an interactive reader geared toward ESL students and teachers.
26. Nonstop English: With eight levels of difficulty and dozens of pages of exercises, this site is a wonderfully organized word-learning tool for ESL students.
27. Vocabulary Is Fun: This site offers a variety of entertaining games designed to enhance vocabulary use through interactive play.
28. Advanced Composition for Non-Native Speakers of English: This upper-level tool is designed to teach ESL students how to write fluently in English for business purposes.
29. Pizzaz: This site uses poems and short stories as writing examples and exercises to teach creative writing and usage.

Put your knowledge to the test with these helpful tools.

30. Self-Study Quizzes for ESL Students: Just what it sounds like. These tests will help students learn grammar, tricky words, vocabulary, and more.
31. Grammar Quizzes: Multiple quizzes at each level of comprehension make this website a handy resource.
32. 507 Most Misspelled Words: This list of infamous misspelled words (like, well, "misspelled") is guaranteed to help ESL students remember pesky and easily flubbed English words.
33. Vocabulary Quizzes: These word quizzes cover everything from animals and food to famous quotes and American slang.
34. Advanced English Grammar Exercises: Dozens of detailed quizzes broken down by topic.
35. Pronunciation Quizzes: These quizzes use word pairs to help ESL students learn proper pronunciation.
36. Grammar Exercises: A huge collection of quizzes covering everything from plural nouns to reflexive pronouns, all ranked by class and skill. Another one to bookmark.
37. Easy English: There are plenty of free tests here at a variety of levels, and you can also sign up for a daily test question.
38. 168 Irregular Verbs: The verbs on this list don't follow the expected pattern when they move through different tenses. A fantastic quiz on a popular subject.
39. Idioms Quizzes: American idioms can be some of the toughest phrases for ESL students to master. These quizzes are fantastic ways to learn the little quirks of English-speaker sayings.
40. Proverbs and Sayings Quizzes: More wonderful tests to boost student awareness of famous sayings.

These podcasts make great instructional tools for students on the go.

41. ESL Podcast: Regular updates and easy categorization make this podcast a great resource.
42. ELT Podcast: Although it only runs 10 episodes, this podcast is a great way to go over some basics of English conversations.
43. English Conversations: These audio files, which can be downloaded or streamed, let students listen to conversations and pick up proper tone, usage, and vocabulary.
44. Splendid Speaking: Covering about two dozen lessons, this podcast also uses conversations between English speakers as a starting point for instruction.
45. LanguageCaster: A large majority of the non-English-speaking world is crazy about football (soccer to Americans), so this podcast uses sporting news and analogies to teach English.
46. Learn English Anywhere: There are dozens of helpful podcast lessons here that students can use to learn about U.S. language and culture.
47. Culips: Billed as "a podcast for English learners throughout the world," this fantastic site tailors content to a variety of languages. Hosts use news, history, and slang to break down the quirks of the English language.
48. Better at English: Each helpful lesson on this site includes an mp3 as well as a copy of the transcript so students can follow along and match written and spoken words.
49. The English Desk: This Canada-based podcast offers a solid catalog of lessons that draw inspiration from current events.
50. ESL Aloud: These lessons range from basic word instruction to more complex scenarios like going to the store or working in an office.

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