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Idioms, phrasal verbs and proverbs
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Spelling: discussions and interactive exercises
Computers and word processing programs with their automatic spelling checkers have made writing and spelling a lot easier. There are times however when you cannot rely on these automatic spelling checkers, like when you are writing letters by hand, or when you are teaching or reporting and you have to write on a blackboard or white board. The differences between speliing of words in American and British English also make the study of spelling rules necessary.
Listed below are links to discussions and interactive exercises in spelling from the best ESL and EFL resources on the Internet. Clicking the blue links will take you to the specific pages where the discussions or exercises are, while clicking the website name will take you to the home page. Take time to browse these excellent websites; they are consistently good and fast loading. Besides the materials listed below, these great sites generously offer, free of charge, a tremendous range of valuable resources for the ESL and EFL teachers and students.
In answering the interactive exercises, you should follow carefully the prompts and directions. You should read each sentence or part aloud before clicking the answer you think is right. After the correct answer is displayed, think it over as to why it is the correct answer. (Please take note that the correct answer may depend on whether the exercise comes from an American English or a British English website.) After doing so, read the complete sentence again aloud with the correct answer.
To train yourself to think in English, try to recite the sentences with the correct answers from memory and at your full speaking volume. Or you can ask a friend to read out loud the sentences with the correct answers and you repeat them without looking at the computer screen.
[01] Spelling and Word Choice, from East Tennessee State University
[02] Spelling Rules, from English Club
Adding -er / -est (quick, quicker, quickest, happy, happier, happiest, hot, hotter, hottest...)
Adding -ing / -ed (work, working, worked, stop, stopping, stopped...)
Adding -ly (loud, loudly, happy, happily, terrible, terribly...)
Adding -s
-ible or -able (accessible, visible, dependable, networkable...)
-ie- or -ei- (friend, fiend, feint, freight...)
English and American English (colour, color, practise, practice, tyre, tire...)
[03] The Spelling Zone, from English-Zone.Com
Note: Listed below are the publicly-accessed exercises and activities. You have to join in order to avail of all the resources in this website.
Adding Word Endings
ADDING -ED and -ING (index to all exercises)
Adding -ED to Verbs 01
Adding -ING to Verbs 01
ADDING -S and -ES (index page to all exercises)
Spelling Plural Nouns 06 - Chart (Irregular Plurals List)
Spelling Plural Nouns 01 (Plural Nouns I)
ADDING OTHER ENDINGS (index to all exercises)
Spelling Adverbs With -LY 01
Capitalization: Learn the rules for capitalizing nouns, then practice with quizzes (Index page to all exercises )
Capital Letters Lesson: NAMES
Capital Letters Quiz: NAMES
Comparatives & Superlatives: BIG-BIGGER-BIGGEST, AS...AS (Index to all exercises)
Comparatives 01 Comparatives - one syllable words
Contractions: I + am = I'm, There + is = There's, etc. (Index to all exercises)
Contractions: Negative Modals (Contractions Practice #2)
Your or You're? 01 Confusing Words - Your / You're
Contractions: Subject + Be Verb Contractions Practice #1 - to BE Verb
Punctuation
Practice using commas, correcting run-on sentences, and making possessive nouns (Index page to all exercises)
Possessive Nouns with Apostrophe S General Rules for Making POSSESSIVE NOUNS
Spelling Practice, Take some practice spelling quizzes (index to all exercises)
THE ENGLISH ALPHABET
Beginning Spelling Lesson + Quiz BEGINNING SPELLING 1
Advanced Spelling Quiz 01 ADVANCED SPELLING Quiz 1
[04] Spell Check (with Easy and Hard categories), from Funbrain
[05] Complete List of Spelling Rules for Nouns and Verbs by Susan Jones (Georgia State University)
[06] Spelling, from HyperGrammar (University of Ottawa)
[07] Spelling Practice, Levels 1 to 5 (about one hundred interactive spelling exercises), from Interlink Language Center
[08] Spelling, from Interesting Things for ESL Students
Note: This excellent website by Charles I. Kelly and Lawrence E. Kelly has the most number of activities and exercises in spelling among the sites we have checked out. Listed below are just some representative examples. Visit this website to avail of the other spelling activities and exercises.
Spelling and Typing Games: Type the word before you run out of time.
Catch the Spelling: Catch the letters in the correct order.
Word Based Games for ESL Students (Flash Player version 5 or newer)
Spelling / Vocabulary Quizzes: 151 quizzes covering over 1,500 words
WordWeb
Crossword Puzzles: Doing crossword puzzles may help your spelling
English Vocabulary: Some of the activities listed on this page are good for spelling practice
Spelling List One
Spelling List Two
Spelling List Three
Spelling List Four
Spelling List Five
Spelling List Six
Spelling List Seven
Spelling List Eight
Spelling List Nine
Spelling List Ten
Spelling List Eleven
Spelling List Twelve
Spelling List Thirteen
Spelling List Fourteen
Spelling List Fifteen
Spelling List Sixteen
Spelling List Seventeen
Spelling List Eighteen
Spelling List Nineteen
[11] 50 commonly misspelled words, from Spelling test by Mindy McAdams
[12] Spelling rules and exercises, from OWL English Purdue Grammar and ESL Exercises
[13] Free online spell checker (up to 20,000 characters), from SpellCheck.net
[14] Spelling It Right - Learn To Spell Confidently, by Roger Smith (British English)
Note: This great website offers lessons and activities in spelling including Syllables, Consonant Blends, Prefixes, Suffixes, Word endings, Vowels, Words in Science, Maths, English, Geography, Plurals, Memorizing Strategies, Word games, Wordsearches. Listed below are the Interactive Hangman games from this site.
Hangman: suffixes -able and -ible practice
Hangman: the i before e rule
Hangman: words starting bl, br, cr, cl, dr
Hangman: words starting fl, fr, gr, gl
Hangman: words starting ch, k, ph and g
Hangman: words starting wh, c or sc
Hangman: words starting pl and pr
Hangman: words which have the "magic" e
Hangman: words ending -er, -or and –ar
Hangman: words starting sc, sh, sl, sm, sn, sp, squ, st, and sw
Hangman: plurals of words ending –y
[15] Often Misspelled Words in English, from www.yourdictionary.com
[16] Word Cup (an international, online vocabulary competition for all ages, students and adults, sponsored among others by Oxford University Press), from eSpindle
eSpindle is a non-profit organization offering customized vocabulary tutoring online. It is supported through memberships, and memberships are matched with free licenses for disadvantaged students. Other services and resources offered by eSpindle:
Practice quiz for the Word Cup (Choose between easy, average and hard words; quiz updated twice a month)
Free, moderated online spelling bee and Word Cup forum (exchange ideas, make friends, find encouragement)
Root word directory (prefixes, root words and suffixes)
[17] SpellCheckPlus, from Dr. Terry Nadasdi (University of Alberta, Canada) and Dr. Stefan Sinclair
A tool for writing in English that identifies spelling errors and common grammatical problems. It is able to detect problems with words that sound the same (e.g.: there versus their, its versus it's, etc.), incorrect use of correct words (e.g.: never mined instead of never mind), punctuation / spacing (e.g.: with out instead of without), capitalization (e.g.: saturday instead of Saturday) and hundreds of grammatical errors, e.g.: I have went instead of I have gone. The site is particularly adept at catching commonly confused words and "slips of the pen", e.g.: pier pressure instead of the correct peer pressure, road to hoe instead of the correct row to hoe, etc
Notes:
englishforjapanese.com offers fee-based language learning study solutions for Japanese students of English for speech, pronunciation, listening, pronunciation, social and business conversation skills; with free but non-interactive exercises and tests in English usage, vocabulary and grammar; some lessons in downloadable PDF format; related blog Two-Minute English offers free daily, non-interactive exercise and activities.
Typical English mistakes by speakers of other languages, by Language Project, (approved by the British Council; more examples available upon registration): Arabic speakers; Chinese speakers; Japanese speakers; Korean speakers; Portuguese speakers; Spanish speakers; Czech speakers; French speakers; German speakers; Greek speakers; Italian speakers; Polish speakers; Russian speakers; Swedish speakers; Turkish speakers.
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Online dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, almanacs, atlases, translators
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OneLook®
Dictionaries
Definitions and spellings of more than seven million words from over
1001 indexed online dictionaries
Visual Dictionary and Encyclopedia
The Internet Picture Dictionary
Encyclopedia Britannica On-line
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
Online bilingual dictionaries from www.freedict.com
Online
English to African / African to English Dictionary
Online
English to Indonesian / Indonesian to English Dictionary
Online
English to Japanese / Japanese to English Dictionary
Online
English to Spanish / Spanish to English Dictionary
Online
English to Swahili / Swahili to English Dictionary
Information
Please
On-Line Dictionary, Internet Encyclopedia, Atlas and Almanac Reference
English-Chinese
Dictionary
Chinese-English
Dictionary
from
TigerNT
Webster's Online Dictionary. With Multilingual Thesaurus Translation
YourDictionary
Free online English dictionary with definitions, thesaurus entries,
spelling, pronunciation, synonyms and etymology
RhymeZone rhyming dictionary and thesaurus
AskOxford.com
(UK)
AskOxford.com
(US)
English grammar, spelling, usage and writing; dictionary; crosswords
and puzzles
Online newspapers and magazines
Read 6000+ Online Newspapers @ ThePaperboy.com
Women
Today Magazine
Chinese
Women Today
Relationships; Sex & Love; Advice; Beauty; Fashion; Food; Money; Work;
Chat; Online Studies; Life Stories; Wellness & Spirit; Self-Esteem;
Family & Home; Health & Fitness; Wit & Wisdom
SOON
Online Magazine
Learning English Index
free world-wide easy-English literature programme; free
copies available on request
Power To Change (English); for other languages, click Arabic; French; German; Italian; Japanese; Malay; Russian; Spanish; Chinese; Thai; and Czech
The
Key
Written for new readers and adults with limited reading skills
Learning
Edge
An interactive on-line newspaper for adult literacy
students and with games, crossword puzzles, on-line quizzes, and writing
contests
Online libraries
Project
Gutenberg Official Home Site: Free, easy to access literary works
Top
100
Online
Book Catalog - Overview
Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations
English
Online Resources Electronic Text Center, University Of Virginia
Complete texts of thousands of works of English
literature, including novels, plays, poetry and Bibles
Humanities
Text Initiative
University of Michigan
Online access to complete texts of many works of English literature
Project
Bartleby Archive
Complete texts of many works of English literature
The Internet Classics Archive Complete texts of hundreds of works of English literature.
The On-Line Books Page Complete texts of more than 7,000 works of English literature
Miscellaneous links
Internet Anagram Server (Advanced programming, Topical Anagrams, Anagram Hall of Fame, Odds and Ends)
Free vocabulary test for TOEFL, GMT, SAT, GRE and VOA Special English, from Vocaboly
Pictorial
Vocabulary Guides, from LanguageGuide.org
Learn the pronunciation and spelling of thousands of words using an image
based interface, with supported languages as English, French, Spanish,
German, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Chinese
(traditional characters), Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Turkish, Vietnamese,
Thai, Indonesian
A Word A Day, from Wordsmith
Explore the world of words, share, and delight in the joy of words with a community of more than 600,000 linguaphiles in at least 200 countries, from Australia to Zimbabwe
British to American / American to British - Vocabulary Converter
Spoken English Learned Quickly offers free downloads of lessons and books (Learning Spoken English, a 450-page Student Workbook and an Instructor’s Guide) to your computer, iPod, Blackberry, MP3 player or PDA; Lessons in vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and verb tenses using spoken English exercises; Complete lessons contain enough recorded audio lesson material for two hours of study a day, five days a week for nine months.
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