Websites for English Language Learners 

http://www.languageguide.org/english/

This website offers English vocabulary and pronunciation of the words which are arranged under various themes, like music, jobs, home, etc. Helpful for the beginners, ELL in stage 1, who are just learning to pronounce the basic vocabulary words.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/index.html

This site is a useful language reference for advanced level ELLs, adult learners and their teachers. It explains some of the most common usage errors, and provides links to other related web sites (common spelling and grammar errors, history of common phrases and idioms).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools   This is a great website for kids. Thereare rhyming games, as well as games to help students hear the beginning and ends of words. The games are cute, interactive, and they are fun. These games will hold kids attention.

 * There is actually also a section of the site for parents and teachers to print worksheets, and show them the overview of the activities.

http://www.vocabulary.co.il/

This website provides ESL students with a variety of fun games that will help them to build their skills in spelling, phonics, and vocabulary. The website is free and the games do not have to be downloaded. The website offers a variety of stimulating games that include: Word Searches, Hang Mouse (similar to Hang Man), Cross Words, Unscramble word games, Matching Game, and Quizzes. This website can be used for beginner ESL students, as there are many basic word games. In the matching picture game, students can click on words and pictures and a voice pronounces them out loud. This site also provides more challenging word games that can be used by intermediate ESL students.

 http://www.eslpartyland.com/default.htm

ESLpartyland.com is a website designed for older ESL students and their teachers. The student portion of the website is designed to give students a practical way to have interactions with others and read about topics relevant to teens. The students using this site would be at a higher stage of learning English and the site teaches communication skills and gives students opportunities to interact with others. The topics that the students can participate in are: dating and relationships, food, the internet, media, movies, music, and travel. There are activities and games, quizzes, questions and online discussions for each topic. Students can also search for topics related to the above topics and learn about idioms and expressions. The site is also good for high school teachers and gives ideas for teaching music, conversation, film/video, the internet, listening, speaking, grammar, reading and writing. Overall, this is a very useful website for older students and a great way to practice their English online.

http://www.starfall.com

This website is great for ELL students. All the students have used this website in my class, however it is especially great for stage 1 and 2 ELL students. This website provides an interactive way for students to practice their reading. There are many visuals and several levels of difficulty (from learning the A, B, C’s to reading short passages). Students should use head phones when using this website, so they can hear the program. One of my stage 2 ELL students uses this website a lot. She is having a lot of difficulty with pronunciation, and it is helpful for her to hear the correct reading/pronunciation of different words.

 http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/kids/

Aimed primarily at elementary Stage 1 and 2 children, this website allows students to independently practice English using interactive games, writing activities, reading activities, and through hearing poems and songs. The website is clearly organized and features weekly activities for children to try. Interesting and relevant themes are used to teach vocabulary. Better still, within each theme, the activities are categorized as “easy” and “not so easy”.

 http://www.cbc.ca/ottawa/esl/lessons.html

This website is good for Stage 2, 3 and 4 adults who want to independently learn about Canadian history and society. The website is also good for intermediate or high school students learning social studies and history. Topics covered range from D-Day to how laws are made in Canada. First, vocabulary is contextualized in a simple passage and then the ELL must try to infer meaning by doing a match up quiz before the audio file starts. Next, an audio file is played and a true/false quiz is given to assess factual comprehension. After listening, another more in depth quiz is given. For students trying to get used to a regular speaking speeds, this site is perfect because archived CBC clips are the basis for lessons.

 http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

This is another site on my favorite list. When I am reading or writing something on the computer and want to check a word, I use this site to look up the word. I find it a lot easier and faster to look it up online than using an actual dictionary. This site has different types of dictionary, so ELLs can choose one that best meets their needs. It even has a dictionary of idioms.

 http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/

Here is a site for ELLs, who are at Stage 1. This site offers games, stories and video clips that deal with the alphabet and simple sound structures, among other things. The student would be engaged by the animated, talking menu. This is perfect because ELLs would get to listen to English being spoken just by navigating the site. The stories section shows pages of books with text underneath that is highlighted as the narrator reads. There is a parent and teacher section as well, where resources can be downloaded for use at home or in the classroom.

http://www.scholastic.com/captainunderpants/comic.htm

This site could be used by students as a sub-task towards completion of an end-of unit comic strip, to be produced by students. Students use the interface to create their own comic strip online, adding in characters, background, props and dialogue from a pull-down menu. Students could be taught some of the phrases in the dialogue menus beforehand as a pre-writing activity. Also, the teacher could focus on teaching how to put a comic in order instead of the fine points of grammar, thus embedding the language learning in the activity. The benefit of using the pull-down menus to write comic strips is that ELLs would be immediately successful in their writing and would also be exposed to proper English, even if some of the phrases are silly.

http://www.esl-lab.com/

This website is entitled Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab, and that is a very straight forward indication of the skill set being focused on---listening. At this site users are able to listen to a wide variety of conversations, and answer questions about what they’ve just heard. The conversations are classified as easy, medium and difficult and revolve mainly around everyday situations, such as leaving a voicemail message, or inquiring about an apartment for rent. The content of the dialogue is such that it is probably more accessible for older children (those in grade 6 and above). There is, however, nothing that could be considered inappropriate in the content, and nearly everyone would be drawn into the listening activities due to the compelling nature of the conversations. There are computer compatibility issues to be taken into account, as the conversations can only be heard using either “real media” or “windows media player”.