English Language Practice Websites

Idioms/Slang

• Dave’s ESL Café: This website provides an alphabetical dictionary of many different slang terms used by native English speakers.
• ESL Gold: This website acts as a resource for textbooks, web links, online quizzes, and
• The Idiom Connection: Definitions of different parts of speech, like idioms and proverbs as well as examples.
• Many Things: Slang and Idioms: A database of many different slang terms and their meanings.

Grammar

• Purdue University Online Writing Lab: This very comprehensive site provides detailed instruction on how to structure and write any type of academic writing assignments.
• Activities for ESL Students: This site offers quizzes and additional practice sets for students in all areas of grammar and at all levels of difficulty.
• Many Things: English Grammar: An online resource for additional homework and quizzes for virtually EVERY grammar issue.

Punctuation, Spelling, Sentence structure

• Purdue University Online Writing Lab
• Many Things: English Sentence Patterns: This site provides students with many different games and run ways to practice sentence structure and patterns.
• Many Things: Spelling: More spelling games!

Listening

• ESL Cyber Listening Lab: A very extensive database of ESL listening activities and follow up questions.
• Many Things: Listening
• Listening Activities for ESL students

TOEFL

• Highly Recommended TOEFL / TOEIC Links
• TOEFL Grammar
• University of Texas at Austin – ESL services
• ETS TOEFL Practice Online: Buy practice exams of the official TOEFL test from the makers.

Pronunciation

• Pronunciation Links
• English Club
• Many Things: Minimal Pair Practice & Quizzes
• Many Things: Pronunciation Practice
• The CAN-8 VirtuaLab
• The Sounds of Spoken English: A phonetic library of sounds and pronunciation guides in English, Spanish and German.
• American Accent: An American English instruction program (not free).
• English Language Learning and Teaching: A database of common pronunciation mistakes by native language.

Speaking/Conversation

• ESL Gold: Topics for Conversation
• ESL Gold: Speaking Situations: These links provide students with practice in common speaking situations that you will encounter every day.
• ESL Gold: Useful Expressions (Business English): A database of useful Business English phrases and topics for students to practice.
• ESL Gold: Phrases for Conversation

Reading

• English Club: Reading
• Many Things: Reading in English: This provides students with many practical reading assessments like reading signs, American literature and English literature.
• ESL Monkeys
• English as a Second Language website: Reading
• ESL Reading

Writing

• Literacy Education Online
• Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL): This is a very comprehensive writing assistance database with information about formatting, style and technical writing assistance.
• University of Texas at Austin

American Culture

• Living in the USA
• Social Customs and Cultural Differences

International Teaching Assistants

• TARC Library: A list of articles books and journals to assist International Teaching assistants.
• University of Minnesota Listening Database: This is a database of commonly asked questions that TAs receive. TAs can practice listening to and answering the questions.
• University of Pittsburgh TA Handbook Chapter 9: Practical advice for ITAs on how to better get settled in the US and conduct a classroom.

Medical and Nursing

• Medical Pronunciation Jukebox: This site provides audio lists of medical terminology organized into body systems: digestive, blood, etc.