Online Resources for English as a Second Language

  1. Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab: http://www.esl-lab.com/
  2. The English Learner Movie Guides: 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.
  3. 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.
  4. ESL-Lounge: Hundreds of awesome exercises make this site a fantastic tool for students. Parts of speech and vocabulary are classified by difficulty.
  5. 5-Minute English: This wonderful site not only offers a variety of lessons and exercises, it also boasts links to other helpful ESL 
  6. Dave’s ESL Cafe: ESL teacher Dave Sperling’s in-depth site provides numerous lessons about sentence structure, word use, and more.
  7. Business English Lessons: There are dozens of key phrases on this site complete with audio clips to help ESL students practice clear pronunciation.
  8. Antimoon: Learn to recognize the sounds in the English language and use correct intonation.
  9. Learn That Word: Learn vocabulary and spelling on this site. You can narrow down your lessons by commonly misspelled words or TOEFL vocabulary.
  10. English Leap: This site has several helpful pages; this one in particular gives a great overview of pronunciation rules for different letter combinations in English.
  11. Answers.com’s Idiom Dictionary: When a phrase doesn’t make sense literally, turn to this idiom dictionary to understand what it means.
  12. 20-Minute ESL Lessons: These audio lessons cover basic vocabulary for a variety of everyday situations, including office life.
  13. About.com English Vocabulary: About.com has a number of resources for ESL including these helpful business vocabulary lessons for several different industries.
  14. Aardvark’s English Forum: In the student section of this forum, you can read famous quotations, work your way through novels in English, and do interactive language exercises to understand the written English language better.
  15. Self-Study Quizzes for ESL Students: Just what it sounds like. These tests will help students learn grammar, tricky words, vocabulary, and more.
  16. Vocabulary Quizzes: These word quizzes cover everything from animals and food to famous quotes and American slang.
  17. 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.
  18. ESL Aloud: These lessons range from basic word instruction to more complex scenarios like going to the store or working in an office.
  19. Podcasts in English: This site offers free podcasts for anyone looking to learn English. They’re separated by skill level and subject so you can choose what fits you best.
  20. VOA Learning English: With this Voice of America channel, you can hear news and feature stories in American English, but spoken 33% slower than normal to make it easier to follow along. You’ll get a grasp on a wide range of vocabulary subjects.
  21. Listen and Read Along: This is exactly what it sounds like. Listen to stories and read along with them by following the highlighted word. Hear pronunciation and intonation while getting a better grasp on sentence structure.
  22. OMGmeiyu’s channel: This site is great for Chinese speakers. YouTube user OMGmeiyu uses her animated style and knowledge of Chinese to help native Chinese speakers learn English in a fun and relatable way.
  23. Teacher Phil: Study basic English, business English, idioms, and more with Teacher Phil. You’ll learn how to speak with an American accent and use proper English, even taking on some of the more confusing language rules.