Secondary ESOL Links

Vocabulary/Spelling

• Alphabet Organizer

  Students can use this tool to create such things as an alphabet book or for discussing background knowledge on a topic they are beginning to study.

• LearnEnglish

  A British Council site. It offers opportunities to learn and practise English online. It is aimed at the intermediate learner.

• SpellBinder

  Spellbinder supports the principle that spelling is best mastered within the context of learning to write. From wickED on TKI.

• The Word Frequency Lists

  Many word lists are here - 500, 1000, 2000, academic lists

• 100 Most Misspelled Words & Phrases In English

  Each word has a mnemonic pill with it and, if you swallow it, it will help you to remember how to spell the word.

• The 14 Words that Make All the Difference

  These words make all the difference because they are supposed to contain the twenty most useful prefixes and the fourteen most important roots.

• 330 Most Common Verbs

  A list of verbs taken from the 3500 most common words in English, according to the Macmillan Essential Dictionary.

• BBC Learning English

  Rich site including listening, reading, vocabulary sections.

• Cliché Finder

  Check out the more than 3,300 clichés indexed here.

• The Compleat Lexical Tutor

  Analyse the vocabulary difficulty of your text.

• The Compleat Lexical Tutor: Analysis of Word Difficulty in Text

  Paste a text you have written here to make a vocabulary profile of your writing.

• Confusing Words

  Confusing Words is a collection of 3210 words that are troublesome to readers and writers. Words are grouped according to the way they are most often confused or misused.

• Confusing Words

  This site is a collection of 3,210 words that cause problems for students. Words are grouped according to the way they are most often confused or misused.

• Crossword Puzzle Generator Maker - Crossword Puzzle Creator

  This is an easy to use crossword maker. To add language value adapt the crossword so that each student has some of the answers and some of the clues and each student must find the missing clues/answers by asking their partner.

• Dave's ESL Café

  A popular site with news updates, forums for students and teachers, a graffiti wall, an ideas page for teachers, an on-line help centre for students and much more.

• Donate Rice with your Vocabulary

  A chance for teachers and students to feed the world. Each time you correctly guess the meaning of a word, the site, via its advertisers, will donate ten grains of rice to the world's hungry.

• ESL Cafe Web Guide: Vocabulary

  Dave Sperling's guide to ESOL vocabulary links.

• ESL Center

  Kathy Chareonsup's ESL Center is a collection of links.

• Eslgold.com

  Hundreds of pages of graded ESOL materials. The language is not embedded in a context.

• Glossary of Key Words

  The language of examinations and assessment tasks - a glossary of key words (Board of Studies New South Wales).

• Headwords of the Academic Word List

  Averil Coxhead's word list – essential learning for students wanting to be successful at university.

• The Lex File

  English words derived from Latin and Greek elements, with images and explanations for greater comprehension.

• Lexical Approach (British Council)

  A clear explanantion of the important role of formulaic phrases in language learning.

• The New Zealand Dictionary Centre

  From Victoria University. Activities for students such as "Unravelling NZ English usage for newcomers" (PDFs).

• Parapal Online English Exercises

  Interactive listening, writing, reading, vocabulary and grammar exercises.The site includes software for schools and teachers to use. (Uses Flash Player.)

• Penguin Dossiers

  Monthly articles - Penguin Reader level 3. Archive of past Penguin Dossiers and worksheets. Dossiers include reading and listening practice, and vocabulary building.

• Phrase Finder

  Meanings and Origins of Phrases, sayings, cliches and quotes.

• Roots and Prefixes

  Lists and activities

• Sagwa: Pictures as Words

  Early Chinese writing used pictograms - symbols that stand for a word or idea instead of words. Try your hand at matching pictograms with their corresponding meaning with this fun game.

• Skillswise: Words: Grammar (BBC)

  Practice in making sentences, putting sentences together, writing instructions, double negatives and much more.

• Skillswise: Words: Spelling (BBC)

  Learn about prefixes, suffixes, root words, letter patterns and much more.

• Spelling Bank Activities

  Online, interactive games to help students understand spelling rules.

• Stuff for English Learners

  Learn the international phonetic alphabet and the sounds of English. Practise phrasal verbs.

• Ten Conversation Lessons with Stories, Vocabulary Practice, Questions and Activities

  These short stories can be used orally or in written form. The stories are housed on the Internet TESL Journal's lesson pages.

• Vocabulary Builders' Page

  Worksheets and activities for developing content area vocabulary.

• Vocabulary for English Language Learners

  From Ohio ESL.

• Vocabulary: The 100 Most Useful Words in English

  Did you know that on average, just 12 words account for a quarter of all reading? Read all about it here.

• VocabularyCoach

  Choose the correct definition for the word - activities designed for advanced students.

• WordCount

  WordCount is an interactive presentation of the 86,800 most frequently used English words. Each word is scaled to reflect its frequency relative to the words that precede and follow it, giving a visual barometer of relevance. WordCount data currently comes from the British National Corpus®.

• Wordsmyth

  An online dictionary with other facilities such as teacher generated glossaries, crossword puzzles and quizzes. Registration is free.