在线学习资源

Test preparation

IELTS Speaking Corpus (from EdUHK)

This website offers a range of IELTS Speaking exemplar videos, featuring band scores from 5.0 to 8.5. If you are going to take the IELTS exam, some common speaking questions and preparation tips are ready. Finally, webpages and mobile apps for preparing the exam are recommended.

 

Cambridge Assessment English

The site is loaded with brilliant delineations to enable you to learn fundamental English. If you are preparing to take Cambridge English Qualifications or IELTS, you can access the free materials which can be download. This is the best websites when it comes to learning about British English.

 

Exam English

Regularly check your ability through worldwide level practice tests through this amazing and best website. For example, IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC, CEFR, Pearson, and Cambridge, all that for free from this website.

 

IELTS-UP

Are you preparing for IELTS? Seeking a place where you could find IELTS tips and tricks? Searching a site with a real-test-like collection of exam samples? Learning IELTS vocabulary? Searching useful IELTS exercises? Or maybe you are just studying English? Then this site is for you.

 

Khan Academy

Khan Academy's website aims to provide a totally free personalized learning experience with Impressive college and test-prep resources, mainly built on over 4,300 video lessons with subtitles on topics including math, science, economics, and humanities and generally helpful tutorials paired with large database of machine-graded assessments. The website includes other features such as progress tracking, practice exercises, and teaching tools. It also provides online courses for preparing for standardized tests, including the SAT, MCAT, GMAT, etc.

 

Developing Writing Skills for IELTS through Exemplars (from EdUHK)

Login to our home developed writing resource website. This website contains self-study materials which help students gain a better understanding of the four assessment domains of IELTS writing (academic module): task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy. One of the features which sets this website apart from other IELTS writing resources is the inclusion of authentic writing exemplars produced by EdUHK students and staff which serve as concrete examples to show students what good writing looks like in IELTS. Students are advised to use this online resource together with other IELTS writing resources which focus on developing language skills.

 

English for Workplace Communication

English for Workplace Communication (from EdUHK)

This workplace English self-access learning platform helps you with your learning of English relevant and essential in the workplace. You can access resources for workplace English where 'English for job application', ‘Emails for administration', ‘Writing at workplace' and ‘Speaking at workplace' are introduced. Apart from the written description and explanation, you can acquire the target skills through viewing the writing samples, in-house video exemplars, recommended external videos and recommended websites, and attempting the language exercises.

 

Discipline-specific English

Discipline-specific English Support (from EdUHK)

Disciplinary English is an important component in your academic studies. Discipline-specific English support (DSES) is to help you build vocabulary and knowledge for writing and speaking. You are advised to look at the vocabulary list of your discipline and do the short quiz to access your self-learning. Common written text types with features identified and suggested readings including reference books and high-ranked journals for your discipline are also provided to support your academic studies. Other than the disciplinary English, pages on academic English are also available.

 

Academic writing

edX

One effective way to learn English by yourself is to attend English-medium university courses online. In edX, you may access 2000 free online courses from 140 leading institutions worldwide and new skills and earn a certificate of completion. Similar websites are coursera.org, Lynda.com, Udacity, Udemy, and more.

 

BBC English Learning

BBC English Learning is a trusted English learning website that inspires language learning since 1943. The website offers English courses from Lower-intermediate to Advanced levels, which caters to the needs of different language learners. Its new features, such as ‘English at University’ course and the ‘6 Minute English’ podcasts - the long-running series of topical discussion, helps to prepare university students for their academic study and enhancement of English at every aspect of life.

 

BBC Academic Writing Course

Do you want to know all about writing in academic contexts? Then you're in the right place! Get it right with your academic writing. This website is your guide to the English language skills you need for further education and learn academic vocabulary; essay structure; writing in online discussion forums; the language of academic argument and more.

 

Academic Phrasebank

The Academic Phrasebank is a general resource website for academic writers by the University of Manchester. It aims to provide writers with examples of phraseological ‘nuts and bolts’ of writing organized according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation. The resource should be particularly useful for writers who need to report their research work. The phrases, and the headings under which they are listed, can be used simply to assist you in thinking about the content and organization of your own writing.

 

Purdue Online Writing Lab (Also known as Purdue OWL)

If your academic writing teacher talks about APA referencing or coherence and you couldn’t make head or tail of it, the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material you need. Users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects.

 

Speaking

English Central Videos

EnglishCentral is the leading provider of online English conversation solutions. This platform combines the web’s best English videos. Its IntelliSpeech assessment technology, an adaptive vocabulary learning system and live tutors, delivers seamlessly over web and mobile. Learners can level up within 3 months when following the steps call Platinum Plan instructed on the homepage of the website.

 

YouTube.com

Needless to say, YouTube.com is the best English listening and learning website, as it is the place where you can immerse yourself in endless, genuine English speaking materials from talkshows, TEDTalks, movie excerpts, movies, English courses, to literally any English-medium courses of your interest. Just remember, try not to be distracted when you are learning English on YouTube.

 

Vocabulary

Academic English vocabulary – self-assessment for learning

Academic English vocabulary is an essential part of university academic learning. Academic Vocabulary is defined as words that are traditionally used in academic dialogue and text. Selecting from Academic Word List by Coxhead (2000), the academic vocabulary on this website is well-sequenced for ease of learning. One of the key features is its self-assessing features. Test your learning results and keep learning.

 

News in Levels

This site provides short news articles that are written in three different levels of English: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. The exercises can be used to learn vocabulary or highlight how users can progress from one level to another.

 

Google Books Ngram Viewer

This is an online search engine comparing how frequently different words or expressions are used. It is useful for checking collocations (e.g. "fast food" vs. "quick food") as it charts the frequencies of any set of comma-delimited search strings using a yearly count of n-grams found in Google's text corpora.

 

Glosbe - the multilingual online dictionary

This is a translation website that helps to check if a word/expression has ever been translated by professional translators (e.g. in the UN or the European Parliament) and then provides the translation(s). It is useful for translations of idiomatic and uncommon expressions.

 

EAP Foundation

This site will help learners expand their academic vocabulary using the Academic Word List (the AWL). Made with a corpus i.e. a computerized collection, of over 400 written academic texts, equaling about 3.5 million words in total, this core academic vocabulary is used by writers in many different subject areas and the 570 words on the Academic Word List are valuable for all learners preparing for academic study.

 

Vocabulary.com

VOCABULARY.COM is a dictionary website where word definitions can be looked up. It offers a significant number of word games for users to test their comprehension. As you get started, a word appears on the screen. From four definitions, choose the one you think is correct. The site then tailors future questions based on strengths and weaknesses. Users get points for each correct answer and earn badges as they reach different goals; charts track their progress on the site.

 

Online collocation dictionary

This free collocation dictionary is one of the oxford dictionaries online. It features collocations/collocation - common word combinations such as 'bright idea' or 'talk freely' – that are the essential building blocks of natural-sounding English. The dictionary contains over 150,000 collocations for nearly 9,000 headwords. It also shows all the words that are commonly used in combination with each headword: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions as well as common phrases.

 

Thesaurus.com

A thesaurus is a reference work that lists words grouped together according to similarity of meaning (containing synonyms and sometimes antonyms). Thesauri can be used to clarify the meaning of an unfamiliar word when its definition in a dictionary can't be understood. This can be particularly useful for a nonnative speaker, because the range of synonyms offered by a thesaurus might include at least one word that he or she already knows. It also improves the range of vocabulary a student can use in speaking and writing.

 

Reading

British Council Magazine

Learn English online using our high-quality resources to quickly improve your English. Our website for adult learners, is brought to you by the British Council, the world's English teaching experts.

 

Sparknotes: Today’s Most Popular Study Guides

Sparknotes, a popular study guide for Literature, Poetry, Philosophy and Drama subjects, supports learners as they study literature, prepare for high stakes tests, and engage texts for entertainment. Sparknotes users are suggested to follow this user’s guide: 1. Read the book in its entirety, contemplating their own unique understanding of the content; 2. Read the SparkNotes to solidify the knowledge of the characters, events, and details. The Sparknotes editors work with experts to create books, blogs, quizzes, and flashcards that will help learners master hard material.

 

Listening

ELLLO

English Language Listening Lab Online (ELLLO) is an interactive self-study website providing audio interviews and supplementary materials including sports, travel, games, etc. for the improvement of ESL/EFL listening skills. The listening material consists primarily of authentic dialogues with English speakers and different interviews are available for each day of the year. The website offers students ample exposure to comprehensible input while engaged in authentic listening.

 

VOA Connect

VOA Connect brings together stories of people across the United States and around the world. It provides listening materials usually at around 2 minutes per piece in the format of videos with subtitles, which makes the listening easier for listeners.

 

ESL Videos

The website provides videos and quizzes for listening especially suitable for less confident listeners. Click into any videos and you will be engaged in watching quality entertaining English videos, while filling in the blanks and boost your confidence through focused listening.

 

Adept English

This website has free English language resources that help you practice speaking English. You can download the audio files in MP3 format to your mobile phone and listen to them a number of times as well.

 

General skills

BBC Learning English

Every day BBC Learning English has a new video to help you learn the English language. We also produce regular 'extra' videos across the week so come back every day to see what's new. MONDAY: Exam Skills - top tips for studying and preparing for an exam TUESDAY: News Review – discover the language used to explain the news WEDNESDAY: Pronunciation in the News - pronounce words from the news like a native speaker WEDNESDAY: LingoHack - vocabulary from the most recent BBC news reports, etc.

 

Free online English lessons and ESL/EFL resources

This website offers weekly lessons on various areas of English learning, from the broad categories of vocabulary and grammar book to detailed exercises such as those for verb tenses, use of articles, conditionals, modals. It also provides lessons on reading and listening. Even though its user interface is less fancy, the exercises are of good quality.