English Practice in Speaking and Writing
Websites for Writing
The following websites are chosen to give you practice in writing for emails, narratives, synthesis, and persuasive writing. I tried to choose just from the Upper Intermediate to Advanced levels and those that are academic in nature (ie EAP). At the same time they should target those whose English is not their mother tongue.
It's tough to find good sites for writing because writing is so many complex parts to writing.
English Club has a writing section and grammar section
If you are looking for a site that concentrates more on grammar then go to Guide to Grammar Learning which concentrates on grammar for the purpose writing
The Purdue Writing Lab has a good resource in subject- specific resources (e.g. literature, social science, technical writing)
Benedictine University has a separate site for a number of writing aspects including paraphrasing, avoiding plagiarism,
If you are mainly concerned with essays, this Australian site from the State Library of Victoria called Essay Writing Skills
The Using English For Academic Purposes (UEFAP) site under Academic Written Genres has a good listing of different types of writing, which is valuable because many writing sites often overemphasize essay writing.
It's tough to find good sites for writing because writing is so many complex parts to writing.
English Club has a writing section and grammar section
If you are looking for a site that concentrates more on grammar then go to Guide to Grammar Learning which concentrates on grammar for the purpose writing
The Purdue Writing Lab has a good resource in subject- specific resources (e.g. literature, social science, technical writing)
Benedictine University has a separate site for a number of writing aspects including paraphrasing, avoiding plagiarism,
If you are mainly concerned with essays, this Australian site from the State Library of Victoria called Essay Writing Skills
The Using English For Academic Purposes (UEFAP) site under Academic Written Genres has a good listing of different types of writing, which is valuable because many writing sites often overemphasize essay writing.
Websites for Speaking
Many of the best speaking websites are designed for teachers but you can find some good speaking activities from them. The main thing to do is work with them with a partner or use them to record your voice. The following are websites that provide speaking activities that are more for giving information about yourselves and expressing opinions (eg discussing hobbies, routines etc) rather than communicative functional activities (eg shopping, restaurant dining etc) A few of the better sites are:
Vocaroo
This is the easiest site for recording your voice. Set this up before you do the topics in the websites below.
Print Discuss
A site with a good range of topic questions. Nothing much more than questions but it is nice to have them all there.
ESL Flow
There is a section under speaking that has many communication icebreaker tasks. While this section is mainly designed for social English, there are many sections that have you discussing topics related to many speaking exams such as IELTS and TOEFL using partner to interview and be interviewed.
My Speech Class
Has a list of persuasive topics. Try to talk about them for at least 2 minutes
Boggles World ESL
In the ESL adult section are a number of activities organised around topics. I would advise using the speaking prompts
English Daily
This is the conversation section of their site and it is organized around conversational phrases that can come in handy as you are speaking
Talk English
This site has an interview section that will in pairs get you speaking about yourself
Vocaroo
This is the easiest site for recording your voice. Set this up before you do the topics in the websites below.
Print Discuss
A site with a good range of topic questions. Nothing much more than questions but it is nice to have them all there.
ESL Flow
There is a section under speaking that has many communication icebreaker tasks. While this section is mainly designed for social English, there are many sections that have you discussing topics related to many speaking exams such as IELTS and TOEFL using partner to interview and be interviewed.
My Speech Class
Has a list of persuasive topics. Try to talk about them for at least 2 minutes
Boggles World ESL
In the ESL adult section are a number of activities organised around topics. I would advise using the speaking prompts
- Dislikes (in adultesl 1)
- For and Against (in adultesl 1)
- Chores and Errands (in adultesl 1)
- We have a lot in Common (in adultesl 1)
- How life has changed in 50 years (in adultesl 1)
- What would happen if (in adulttesl 3)
- Suggestion/recommendations (in adulttesl 3)
- Strange experiences (in adulttesl 3)
- Topical Sentence Stems (in adulttesl4)
- Government Minister (in adulttesl4)
English Daily
This is the conversation section of their site and it is organized around conversational phrases that can come in handy as you are speaking
Talk English
This site has an interview section that will in pairs get you speaking about yourself
Youtube videos for Writing
JamesESL has a few writing videos that are reasonable
West Virginia University puts on a decent writing workshop for English for Academic Purposes - more designed for graduate writing
A good checklist for writing is provided by Stephen Maule in his video on EAP Paragraph Analysis
Another site that informs you of 12 common errors in academic English is from Learn English with Rebecca
West Virginia University puts on a decent writing workshop for English for Academic Purposes - more designed for graduate writing
A good checklist for writing is provided by Stephen Maule in his video on EAP Paragraph Analysis
Another site that informs you of 12 common errors in academic English is from Learn English with Rebecca
Youtube videos for Speaking
without the gimmickryThere is not really a lot of Advanced level speaking videos here as most are either designed for basic level phrases or try to peddle magic shortcuts to fluency.
Eun Young Jun has a number of Advanced Speaking Videos and I will post the first one called Advanced English Speaking 1 and then you can take it over with the rest (there are about 42 of them in total)
Oxford Online English has a numbr of topic based lessons. They are not brilliant but they do give some advise on various topics ypou may find useful to prepare later for discussion topics
Rachel's English does a lot of work on pronunciation and it is sincere without the gimmickry you find so often in ESL Youtube videos
Eun Young Jun has a number of Advanced Speaking Videos and I will post the first one called Advanced English Speaking 1 and then you can take it over with the rest (there are about 42 of them in total)
Oxford Online English has a numbr of topic based lessons. They are not brilliant but they do give some advise on various topics ypou may find useful to prepare later for discussion topics
Rachel's English does a lot of work on pronunciation and it is sincere without the gimmickry you find so often in ESL Youtube videos