English Practice & Study Sites
Here are a list of websites to help you practice and study English. I’ve divided them into Listening Practice, Pronunciation, General English, Dictionaries, English Grammar in Turkish, and TOEFL sections.
Listening Practice
Note: If you really want to practice listening you CANNOT read the script at the same time. If the script is shown on the page with the audio you need to look away to practice your listening skills.
The best English resource site ever. It has everything you could possibly want. You can do searches for ESL podcasts, grammar lessons, TOEFL practice, songs with lyrics. Everything and anything is here. Use this site.
Here is a great list by Ozge Karaoglu for alternatives to YouTube.
English Central is a fantastic site for intermdiate levels and up. You can read articles and listen to them. Even better, you can record your own voice and check it against the pronunciation from the article.
This site has tons of movies and commercials in English. There is a subtitle option so you can turn subtitles on or off.
A site for beginners and elementary students. It has very simple stories about a number of different subjects.
An absolutely wonderful site for listening practice. There are many many listening files with lots of different accent practice. It has tapescripts and little quizzes you can take to test yourself. I highly recommend this site for self-study.
A great site for lower levels. It has flash video. Click the “dialogue” button to see the text.
This is a nice site designed for foreigners who moved to the US. It has very simple to use reading, writing, and listening activities.
This is one of my favorite podcast sites. It has excellent, authentic English podcasts with transcripts.
This site is really nice because it has podcasts by other English learners. It’s excellent for learning to understand different accents. The only problem is there are no transcripts.
Voice of America (VOA) Podcasts
VOA is a wonderful site that gives news from around the world in simplified English. It also has transcripts.
A National Public Radio (NPR) news cast site. It has some really really interesting stories. Recommended for intermediate students and up. Great for accent practice. Transcripts are available.
Sound Portraits Productions (Needs Real Player)
An amazing site with a unique look into the lives of Americans. This site is best suited to intermediate and above. It has some excellent accents. Transcripts are also available.
This site has women’s personal stories about surviving breast cancer. It has some good medical language, but is best for intermediate students and up. Transcripts available.
This site is for advanced students only. There are no transcripts. It has some very personal news stories. Very interesting.
Randall’s Cyber Listening Cafe
This is a great site that has listening practice for all levels. Listening practice is also separated into categories. It has little quizzes so you can check your understanding and then the transcripts are provided at the end. I highly recommend this site.
National Public Radio (NPR)
A liberal American news station. This site has news stories in English along with listening files. Highly recommended for advanced learners and TOEFL students.
This is a great site for children’s stories. It also has transcripts.
This site is only for advanced learners. On it, speakers talk about a wide range of issues. Sometimes subtitles are available.
Pronunciation
This site is offers recordings of English words from many different places, so you can get lots of accent practice. The site is still rather new and growing.
A very simple site. It practices the differences between vowel sounds. Very good for Turkish learners.
Another simple site. It’s similar to Ship or Sheep.
This site has lots of pronunciation listening practice in sentences. You can also record yourself, listen and compare. A very useful tool.
General English Sites
This is a blog written by Clarissa. She has tons of useful tips and suggestions for learners of English (that’s you!). I definitely recommend her site. It’s probably only for pre-intermediate and up, though.
This site offers readings for all levels. It has stories on a bunch of different topics. You can choose the story AND the level of English. You need to create an account to search by level, though.
This site simply has links to a lot of other sites. There are many interesting articles and websites here though, so I kind of like it.
This site is loaded with all types of practice and tips for students of English. It has pronunciation practice, quizzes, Q & A (Question & Answers) sections, youtube videos. You name it, this site has it. There is something for every level.
This site has wikipedia entries in simplified English. Sometimes there are mistakes, but it’s useful if you are researching a project for class and can’t understand the more complicated articles.
A site all about English grammar. It has a bunch of information on things like syllables, intonation, and punctuation as well. Go here if you are looking for rules although I recommend all the other sites on this page for actually learning English.
This site offers a lot of do-it-yourself (DIY) activities. It has grammar quizzes, video lessons, listening lessons, sections on idioms and phrasal verbs, etc. Check it out.
Dictionaries with Sound Clips for Pronunciation
MacMillan Dictionary – British Pronunciation
This dictionary has a lot of nice extras. It provides you with a lot of nice example sentences, too.
Merriam-Webster – American pronunciation (You will need Quicktime installed for this one.)
Free Dictionary – British & American pronunciation
You can also look up idioms in this dictionary, which is a nice feature.
SesliSozluk – British & American pronunciation
This site isn’t a dictionary, but it’s often better in my opinion. Type a word into the box and it will pull up a bunch of sites that use the word in context. It also pulls up a visual thesaurus, which I think is quite useful.
English Grammar in Turkish
(Note: Grammar is often explained or translated wrong on these sites, especially for things like the Present Perfect because Turkish does not translate into English well)
This site just gives a lot of grammar explanations and examples in Turkish. Generally, there are many ways to translate something from Turkish into English and this site only gives one possible way, which is a problem. However, it might help you get a grasp of some of the more difficult differences.
This site gives grammar explanations in Turkish and provides examples in English. It doesn’t offer translations, which I like.
TOEFL
The Official TOEFL Website by ETS
This site offers a practice exam, gives advice on TOEFL prep, and gives you up-to-date info about the exam.
An absolutely amazing site that has links to lectures on all sorts of academic subjects. This is perfect for students practicing for the TOEFL.
Another wonderful site with free video lectures on a wide array of subject.
This site has a number of lectures based on various TV series. I recommend the Nova series, the American Experience Series, and the Bill Moyer: The Separation of Church and State series.
Real video lectures from the University of San Diego about various ethical debates. This is excellent listening practice for the TOEFL.
These are very difficult lectures on American history. The audio is on the left and some related texts are on the right. Unfortunately, there are no transcripts.
Renshaw: Internet School of English
This site has advice, personal tutoring, exam questions, sample responses, practice exams, etc. all for TOEFL and similar exams. Some things you have to pay for and some things are free. Look around and see what you can find. Also be sure to check out his list of the 300 Top Academic English Words.
Advanced Composition for Non-Native Speakers of English
This site has a lot of nice tips on writing academic essays and provides a number of examples to look at as well.
OWL Writing Center – Purdue University
This is a fabulous site for everything on writing. You can even email the lab for the answers to specific questions.
Has a free practice exam
A great site for learning academic vocabulary. It has some nice videos to help along with the explanations.
Probably the most important site out there for practicing speaking. On this site you can join groups and record yourself answering TOEFL speaking task questions. You can then compare your answer to other people’s answers. If you really want to improve your speaking score, you must use this site. Ask your teacher to start a group and give you feedback on your entries.
IELTS
This site simply provides information about the exam, test dates, locations, etc. It also gives you some sample exam types.
This site provides some basic information on the IELTS exam as well as scoring criteria. It also has useful practice listenings that I really like.
IELTS Online Practice Materials
This is a great site with lots of useful tips on the IELTS as well as some great free practice activities.
This site has tons of wonderful information from test-takers who have already taken the exam. They share their experiences and tips. There is a lot of great practice stuff on here, but be careful as it is not official information. Everything you read here may not be true.
This is another wonderful blog with tons of useful tips and practice activities.
This teacher takes a lot of sample writings from IELTS that students send in and then she gives feedback based on exam criteria. Generally a very helpful site for writing practice.
This site has a lot of good basic overview information on the exam, the sections, and some tips. It also lists some useful words and phrases for talking about various subjects you’ll need on the speaking section.
Has a free practice exam.
This site has a few practice activities on it and some study tips. That’s about it. If you go to their iTests site there are practice exams, but you have to register.
This is mainly a pay site, but if you go to the skills sections there is a sample practice to do with answers.
Advanced Composition for Non-Native Speakers of English
This site has a lot of nice tips on writing academic essays and provides a number of examples to look at as well.
OWL Writing Center – Purdue University
This is a fabulous site for everything on writing. You can even email the lab for the answers to specific questions.
A great site for learning academic vocabulary. It has some nice videos to help along with the explanations.
Probably the most important site out there for practicing speaking. On this site you can join groups and record yourself answering IELTS speaking task questions. You can then compare your answer to other people’s answers. If you really want to improve your speaking score, you must use this site. Ask your teacher to start a group and give you feedback on your entries.
turklis1 | 
September 30, 2009 8:14 am
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