Sunday, January 08, 2006

Some Useful Wesites for Teachers and Learners

Here is a list of links to sites related to English language study.  Please feel free to suggest some to be added to the list.  Eventually, we will have them listed in categories. 

(1) Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab is a great resource of free self-testing listening materials and quizzes.  http://www.esl-lab.com

(2) The English-Speaking Union of Japan (ESUJ) is an independent, non-profit, non-political organization established in October 1998 for the principal purpose of promoting international mutual understanding and friendship among nations through the use of the English language. They now have several activities such as an annual University Debating Competition, English programmes, lectures, and receptions. They are also interested in conveying information about Japan to the rest of the world through English.  http://www.esuj.gr.jp/

(3) 1-language.com - Learn English Free Online.  This site is full of many useful resources for both learners and teachers.  Definitely, worth a click.  http://www.1-language.com/

(4) The i-to-i community is a group of 130 devoted professionals and thousands of volunteers who are dedicated to bringing cultures closer through positive, meaningful volunteer work. 
http://www.i-to-i.com/

(5) English International Lyon is a world-class provider of English Language training, both face-to-face in the Lyon region of France and via the Internet. 
Their link is http://www.better-english.com

From their site there are more than 250 FREE exercises available on-line by clicking Business English Exercises and Quizzes http://www.better-english.com/exerciselist.html

(6) EduFind is an online service operated by the Digital Education Network which provides a range of Internet based services for education.  http://www.edufind.com/

(7) Eigotown.com is a site in Japan that provides many services related to English study.  A definitely good place to browse for information.  http://www.eigotown.com/

(8) Dave’s ESL Cafe has been online since 1995.  It is a great site for teachers, but there is a lot there for students as well.  The site claims that it’s “the Internet’s meeting place for ESL/EFL students and teachers from around the world!” It’s definitely a place that you will want to visit time after time.  http://www.eslcafe.com/

(9) The Linguistic Funland TESL Page: resources for teachers and students of English.  Don’t let the rather plain interface interfere with your browsing.  The “view the site map” link is very helpful to see a list of what is available.  It is full of a lot of information for both students and teachers.  Actually, the Linguistic Funland currently has 1694 links to TESL/TEFL, ESL/EFL, Language, and Linguistics-related resources in 65 categories.  http://www.tesol.net/

(10) The ELTCalendar is an events calendar for English language teachers in Japan.  It is mostly useful for teachers, but more advanced learners may find that attending some of the events listed is an economical way to practice their English.  http://www.eltcalendar.com/

(11) EnglishClub.com states that they are the “world’s premier free site for learning English.” It is a site to help you learn English or teach English as a second language.  Access to all pages is free.  http://www.englishclub.com/

(12) The OWL at Purdue is a useful site for teachers and for more advanced students.  It offers many links about writing and has an excellent grammar section that provides good examples and explanations over most grammar points.  A very, very useful site.  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

(13) Refdesk.com is a very useful site for teachers or anyone looking for information on the Internet.  As described at the site:  “Refdesk is free and family friendly. The site is the single best source for facts on the Net; a one-stop site for all things Internet: news, weather, sports, reference, encyclopedia, facts on file, dictionaries and encyclopedias, tutorials, search engines, Windows Operating Systems Resources, free stuff, games and much more.” http://www.refdesk.com/

(14) The Japan Association of Language Teachers (JALT) is a great organization for teachers to join.  As described at their site, JALT “is a nonprofit organisation dedicated to the improvement of language teaching and learning both within Japan and internationally . . . JALT members, regular, joint, group, or student, can attend JALT events including the annual national conference at member rates. Most chapters hold regular meetings, attendance of which is free to members.” The monthly meetings are not only good for teachers, but a good place for learners to improve their English.  Get to the main JALT page at http://jalt.org/main.php You can see a list of upcoming events at http://jalt.org/calendar/main.php

(15) Links to useful EFL sites. Here is a good site of ESL/EFL links mainly for students.  According to the site, all of the links are free sites.  There are sites for practically anything.  Most of them are listed in some of the link pages above, but some are not.  In particular, there are a few links for songs to use for practicing English.  http://www.efllinks.freeservers.com/linksindex.htm

(16) The Internet TESL Journal is a great site for both students and teachers.  The main page is an online monthly journal full of ideas for teachers, but it has a lot of separate links for students to quizzes, language games, and exercises.  Definitely, a site that both students and teeachers will want to visit frequently.  http://iteslj.org/

(17) OM Personal Multimedia English is a very useful site.  On the surface, it reminds us a little of Eigo.town since it is a bilingual site.  Eigo.town is from Japan, however, while OM Personal is from Argentina.  Since it is from Argentina a lot of the site is in Spanish, but it is still easy to find material.  Actually, it is a megaportal with over 3000 pages of English-related information.  It contains tons of free English stories, listening materials, grammar exercises, songs, and many other materials.  Initially, when we accessed the site there appeared to be some spelling and grammatical errors.  Recently, however, most of these have been corrected.  Even so, the site does have a few advertizements for learning material, it is a free site full of a massive amount of material.  Simply, visit the site.  We are sure you will find a lot to like.  http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/index.htm

(18) The All About Japan site for English language learning is an excellent site containing tons of information and links concerning the study of English in Japan.  The site contains information about both free and commercial sites on the web.  http://allabout.co.jp/study/english/

(19) ESLgold provides hundreds of pages of free English teaching and learning materials for both students and teachers. All resources are organized by skill and level for quick and easy access.  Simply, it is a very easy to use site from which I have been able to find tons of information.  It is worth its cyber-weight in gold.  http://www.eslgold.com/

(20) UsingEnglish.com gives you access to a large collection of free English language resources and is designed to have something for everyone with an interest in English including language teachers, students, learners and academics. Topics cover almost everything about English study.  They even have an “online text analyser” that will analyse the readability and difficulty of a text.  http://www.usingenglish.com/

(21) Wikipedia.com is an open-content encyclopedia in many languages. In this English edition, started in January 2001, there are currently 345207 articles.  Since it is an open-content encyclopedia it is written and edited by volunteers.  It is run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which operates several other multilingual and open-content projects:  dictionaries, textbooks, encyclopedias in other langauges, etc.  It is a great place to find an article on practically anything.  In addition, many of the content words in each article are linked to other articles and websites.  It is an amazing source for both teachers and students.  http://en.wikipedia.org/

(22) UW-Madison Writing Center is another good reference site for anyone looking for answers to writing problems.  It is very similar to #12 the Purdue OWL.
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/index.html/

(23) Vocabulary Workshop a great place to go for lists of prefixes, suffixes and roots.  It also contains a list of vocabulary words that often appear on the TOEFL test.  In addition, some very good exercises you can use for review.  This site was created by Carla Caglioti for use in the Preparation for an American University Program at Southampton College of Long Island University.  http://www.southampton.liu.edu/academic/pau/course/webesl.htm

(24) Mr. Stout’s Blog-For students and teachers is an excellent place to go for both teachers and learners.  As stated on the blog, “this blog serves several purposes: Communicating with my students outside of the classroom, publishing my students’ work, and it serves as a resource for both students and teachers.” We have found it to be a value source of ideas for classroom activities, and it contains some great links and tools for students to help with their study of English. http://mrstoutsblog.blogspot.com/

(25) Free-ESL.Com is another great place to for many students and teachers of English.  According to the site, though, “the Grammar Guide is growing fast. It’s the most popular area of the site so make sure you check it out and see what all the fuss is about!” We agree, so check it out!  http://free-esl.com/channels/gg/default.asp

(26) Common Errors in English is a great way to help you avoid making common errors in English.  Simply, this site is a labor of love provided by Paul Brians, a professor at Washington State University.  If you want a portable copy of the website, please order the book version. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/

(27) Focus on English: English Conversation Online is a free site for listening to short English dialogs.  According to the site, it “is dedicated to helping ESL/EFL learners develop conversational English skills.” It looks very useful and is good place to listen to rather “natural” English. http://www.focusenglish.com/

(28) Guide to Grammar and Style is another great grammar and style site that can help you avoid making common errors in English.  This site is generously provided Jack Lynch, an associate professor in the English department of the Newark campus of Rutgers University.  If you want a portable copy of the website, please order the book version. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/index.html