Training Resources of America

Student Links

ESOL Student Web Links

U.S.A. Learns - this is a U.S. Department of Education web site that helps immigrants learn the English language. The site provides adults who have low levels of English proficiency with easily accessible and free English language training. The 2nd English Course level of this program is equivalent to the popular English for All (EFA) curriculum described below.

English for All - EFA is a free Web-based multimedia ESL system, developed with government funding, for adults learning English as a second language. The core of the program is an interactive website consisting of 20 video-based lessons. The website includes printable PDF worksheets that can be used with the videos to produce comprehensive lessons.

Pumerosa - is a bilingual, phonetic and interactive Beginner and Intermediate ESL course for Spanish speaking adults. The website can be used as an effective teacher's aide, especially in multi-level and multi-lingual classes. And it has proven to be a very practical transiton to English only classes. Includes audio track and Spanish text.

Real English - this online site provide a series of new English language lessons which use authentic and natural videos of people speaking real English on streets to make the spontaneity of normal English speech understandable for all levels of students. The lessons are all free and new lessons are currently in development.

ELLLO (English Listening Lesson Lab Online) - this site provides a variety of natural interviews and monologues with English speakers from a variety of countries. Comprehesion quizzes, photos, and transcripts are provided for most conversations.

EnglishSpace - this is a free online resource of interactive lessons for students and teachers of English as a Second Language. The site provides over 60 hours of materials in for self-study or group work. You must join and use a username and password each time you use the program. Ask your teacher if a class has already been set up for your participation. EnglishSpace has quizzes, games, puzzles and exercises to help you practice and Learn English.

Short and Long Vowel Sounds - lowest level word lists from the AAA Spelling site that has been conveniently arranged to provide help with specific vowel sounds needed for ESOL and Literacy Level students. See below for additional AAA Spelling and Vocabulary levels for students needing higher level word lists.

Reading Skills for Today's Adults - Level 1 Stories - this link sponsored by Marshall Adult Education, provides a library of stories ranging between reading levels 0.7 and 4.5 and divided into 9 reading levels . The approximately 20 stories per level include an audio track for reading along. Most of the stories are on topics that help adults become better readers and more informed consumers, parents, employees, citizens and community members such as health and wellness, civics, employment, community, family, housing, school, shopping, and government. All stories are adult appropriate and include printable comprehension worksheets.

English Forum - select the Student's section for a variety of resources for students including an Idiom of the Day, a Quote of the Day, interactive English language exercises and complete text of well known English novels with dictionary lookup.

Breaking News English - this is a large collection of more than 1000 reading articles based on current events, ready to be used as the basis for English Language lessons. New lessons are prepared daily and added to the large archive. All articles include lengthy handouts for use in studying the reading selection. Most of the selections include an audio track for those who like to improve reading fluency by reading along.

Voice of America Special English - this web site is an excellent tool to help you practice and improve your listening and reading skills. These stories are broadcast every day on the VOA radio network. Each broadcast starts with world news, followed by a short feature report and a 15 minute feature. On this site you will find scripts from these programs and the matching audio file of the text. You can find scripts by topic or by the name of the program. There is also an online archive of past stories. Read the text, listen to the audio or read along with the audio to improve your reading fluency. You will learn new information about a variety of subjects from issues in the news to American history.

The Key: A Newspaper for New Readers - the Key provides free reading material for adults with limited reading skills. These include adults who have not completed their high school education, and those learning English.

Movie Scripts and Screenplays - this site contains scripts of many popular movies. These may be used as content for ESL reading lessons, read along with the movie to increase student's reading fluency or acted out as a listening and speaking lesson.

English Learner Movie Guides - this site provides guides to popular movies for students of English which include a list of major characters, a summary of the plot, important terms and expressions that might not be familiar to ESL learners, cultural references and questions for ESL class discussion.

Everyday English in Conversation - this link provides a large number of dialogues with normal everyday human conversations full of idioms and natural speech. Students choose from a list of topics and then listen to the audio of the conversation. Some of the dialogues are also accompanied by text versions which allow you to play one line at a time over and over again Other conversations might include audio only and are followed by a fill-in-the-blank dialogue completion exercise.

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab - this free multimedia site is designed to help English Learners improve their listening comprehension through a variety of audio and video conversations, interviews, and news reports.

Rachel's English - great pronunciation site which uses videos to demonstrate correct sounds and the technical aspects of producing the sound. Select a particular sound from the Sound Chart or Sound menu choices.

Sounds of English - this website features pictures, sounds and videos to help you students improve English pronunciation and listening skills. it also includes exercises with printable worksheets, handouts, teacher tips and other ESL links.

Life in the USA - this site describes itself as "the complete web guide to American life for immigrants and Americans". Students will find information on many aspects of American life and customs.

Internet Picture Dictionary - tool for Beginning languager learners to build their vocabulary. Student must select the language to practice from English, Spanish, French, German and Italian. You may select words that are grouped alphabetically or by atopic area. You may practice with a variety of formats including flashcards, fill in the blank, word scramble, stinky spelling and straight recall.

AAA Spelling Lessons - this site has spelling lessons comprised of 30 lists of vocabulary word for each for levels 1 to 8. The word lists are the same as that used for the AAA Vocabulary Lessons. One of the many options available is to hear the word pronounced and then attempt to spell it. This site should be helpful for ABE and ESOL students.

AAA Vocabulary Lessons - this site has vocabulary lessons comprised of 30 lists of vocabulary word for each for grade 1 to 8. The word list are the same as that used for the AAA Spelling Lessons.

Phonics Sounds Test - this site allows you to practice and review the important phonics sounds and rules. Although there are only 44 sounds used in American English, some sounds can be made by several different spelling patterns. All common spelling patterns helpful in phonics decoding of words are included.

Dave's ESL Cafe - popular ESL website created by Dave Spirling which includes a wide variety of features for students and teachers alike including news, discussion pages, chats, quizzes, e-mail and job postings. Also included are a wide variety of lesson materials on idioms, slang, verbs and quizzes.

English Page - free online English lessons and activities. This is more of an Advanced ESL page with exercises that are more grammar oriented. Great for grammar practice if you find the right exercise but also includes a Reading Room and Listening Lounge to support these aspects of language learning.

News for You - this website is connected with the News for You publication. It includes an archive of a couple of stories from each issue. These stories include an audio track to assist students in reading the story sentence by sentence if desired. It also include a teacher guide and answers to the crossword puzzle.

The Learning Edge - uses a newspaper format to present reading selections on interesting health and workplace topics such the most common interview questions, networking, cold calling, workplace skills, workplace communication, assertiveness, staying employed, nutrition, workplace safety, transferable skills and apprrenticeship.

Communicating at Work - this online course offerred by the Asian American Civic Association includes much useful information with audio that helps prepare students for some of the issues and unique communication difficulties found when newcomers start a job in the U.S.

ESL Lounge - Songstop Lyrics - Try using song lyrics to improve reading fluency. Students become fluent while trying to keep up with the song.

Ventures - website for Cambridge workbook series Ventures which includes practice online lessons for the Basic level and levels 1-4.

Activities for ESL Students - this page developed by the Internet TESOL Journal contains a large number of activities for ESL students including grammar quizzes, vocabulary quizzes, crossword puzzles and Bilingual quizzes. There is a good collection of podcasts related to aspects of current events and culture.

Interesting Things for ESOL Students - this site includes a wide variety of activities for ESL students including quizzes, word games, word puzzles, proverbs, slang expressions, anagrams, a random-sentence generator and other computer assisted language learning activities.

Ron Chang Li's ESL Site - Ron Chang Li's website serves as a starting point for ESL learners who want to learn English through the Web. This site links you to several good and free ESL places. Notice the link to 100 free short stories with audio links and exercises.

Larry Ferlazzo ESL Page -

English Club - Welcome to English Club, a site to help you learn English or teach English as a second language. Access to all pages is free. You'll find everything from lessons, and videos for students to jobs and lesson plans for teachers, including interactive pages like forums, games, quizzes, chat, help and friends.

Guide to Grammar and Writing - Provides an excellent and comprehensive guide to English grammar, sentence construction, spelling and composition. Also find categories for Forms of Communication, Ask Grammar and Online Interactive Quizzes.

Written Alphabet - this E.L. Easton site is useful to ESL and beginning students. Students can click on a letter of the alphabet and hear how it sounds. The alphabet song is available for playing and practicing. There is also a link to in depth vowel and consonent sounds.

ESL Bears: Guide to ESL Activities and Exercises - this site claims to be designed for first-year recent immigrant students. The majority of links and activities are appropriate for students from entry-level to intermediate. It is a multimedia site which includes a wide range of listening, vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing activities.

Alphabet Practice - Students will learn or review the upper/lower case letters by clicking on each letter to hear the letter. Try to guess the letter before clicking on the letter.

Learn to Read - this site has several levels of online activities for emergent readers including phonemic awareness, phonics, sight words and stories to read.

Phonics Online - a number of online games provided by Sadlier-Oxford which cover PreK through 6th grade reading skills. Skills range from picture matching to alphabet, long and short vowel sounds, r controlled words, consonent blends, diagraphs, dipthongs, prefixes, suffixes, roots, contractions, antonyms, and synonyms.

Phonetics: - this site contains animations of the phonetic sounds of spoken English. Each vowel and consonent includes an animation of the the movement of the mouth. a step by step description of how the sound is produced, and video and audio of the sound spoken in context of words.You must select American English from the language offered.

Readquarium - this collection of online reading activities for beginning readers inludes sections on phonics and phonemes, sight words, fluency and books, vocabulary and comprehension.

Easy Stories to Read - a collection of online stories for beginning readers.

Idioms - links to various sites dealing with English idioms

Word of the Day - For those who are trying to improve or increase their vocabulary, you might like to try this site. Each day delivers a different word, with pronunciation, definition and example sentences.

Word Games - Several word games which are updated on a daily basis

Change Maker - An online game whereby students can buy something but they will have to choose the correct amount of coins and bills first. Adaptable for U.S., Canadian, U.K., Australian, and Mexican currencies, in degrees of difficulty from amounts less than $1.00 to Big Spenders.

Interactive Money Flashcards - This site contains a wide variety of math flashcards of which the money flashcards are of special usefulness to ESOL students. The program allows your students click on money, add up the coins, enter their amount, and see if they are right.

Story Fun - This site is a "mad-libs" story format. Practice parts of speech such as adjectives, nouns, etc., just have fun making the weirdest stories you can possibly think of and see what's returned to you!

Grammar Gorillas - Students will enjoy practicing and reinforcing their grammar skills with this online game from Funbrain. Both beginner and advanced levels are available.

Linguistic Funland - Links to a large number of ESL/ESOL activities.

Google Translate - this is free language translation program from Google. You can choose the language to translate from and to and then enter or paste the text to translate. Don't completely trust any translation program since they all tend to translate everything literally. Instead, use these programs to help you get the general idea of a block of text or to find the meaning of a particular word.

Babel Fish Translation Program - this is another program that will translate a block of text or a whole web page from one language to another.


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Home About TRA Training Sites Skills for Life Programs Staff and Student Resources Employment / Volunteer Opportunities News / Events Contact Us Site Map	Resources HOME / Resources / Student Links / ESL Student Links ESOL Student Web Links U.S.A. Learns - this is a U.S. Department of Education web site that helps immigrants learn the English language. The site provides adults who have low levels of English proficiency with easily accessible and free English language training. The 2nd English Course level of this program is equivalent to the popular English for All (EFA) curriculum described below. English for All - EFA is a free Web-based multimedia ESL system, developed with government funding, for adults learning English as a second language. The core of the program is an interactive website consisting of 20 video-based lessons. The website includes printable PDF worksheets that can be used with the videos to produce comprehensive lessons. Pumerosa - is a bilingual, phonetic and interactive Beginner and Intermediate ESL course for Spanish speaking adults. The website can be used as an effective teacher's aide, especially in multi-level and multi-lingual classes. And it has proven to be a very practical transiton to English only classes. Includes audio track and Spanish text. Real English - this online site provide a series of new English language lessons which use authentic and natural videos of people speaking real English on streets to make the spontaneity of normal English speech understandable for all levels of students. The lessons are all free and new lessons are currently in development. ELLLO (English Listening Lesson Lab Online) - this site provides a variety of natural interviews and monologues with English speakers from a variety of countries. Comprehesion quizzes, photos, and transcripts are provided for most conversations. EnglishSpace - this is a free online resource of interactive lessons for students and teachers of English as a Second Language. The site provides over 60 hours of materials in for self-study or group work. You must join and use a username and password each time you use the program. Ask your teacher if a class has already been set up for your participation. EnglishSpace has quizzes, games, puzzles and exercises to help you practice and Learn English. Short and Long Vowel Sounds - lowest level word lists from the AAA Spelling site that has been conveniently arranged to provide help with specific vowel sounds needed for ESOL and Literacy Level students. See below for additional AAA Spelling and Vocabulary levels for students needing higher level word lists. Reading Skills for Today's Adults - Level 1 Stories - this link sponsored by Marshall Adult Education, provides a library of stories ranging between reading levels 0.7 and 4.5 and divided into 9 reading levels . The approximately 20 stories per level include an audio track for reading along. Most of the stories are on topics that help adults become better readers and more informed consumers, parents, employees, citizens and community members such as health and wellness, civics, employment, community, family, housing, school, shopping, and government. All stories are adult appropriate and include printable comprehension worksheets. English Forum - select the Student's section for a variety of resources for students including an Idiom of the Day, a Quote of the Day, interactive English language exercises and complete text of well known English novels with dictionary lookup. Breaking News English - this is a large collection of more than 1000 reading articles based on current events, ready to be used as the basis for English Language lessons. New lessons are prepared daily and added to the large archive. All articles include lengthy handouts for use in studying the reading selection. Most of the selections include an audio track for those who like to improve reading fluency by reading along. Voice of America Special English - this web site is an excellent tool to help you practice and improve your listening and reading skills. These stories are broadcast every day on the VOA radio network. Each broadcast starts with world news, followed by a short feature report and a 15 minute feature. On this site you will find scripts from these programs and the matching audio file of the text. You can find scripts by topic or by the name of the program. There is also an online archive of past stories. Read the text, listen to the audio or read along with the audio to improve your reading fluency. You will learn new information about a variety of subjects from issues in the news to American history. The Key: A Newspaper for New Readers - the Key provides free reading material for adults with limited reading skills. These include adults who have not completed their high school education, and those learning English. Movie Scripts and Screenplays - this site contains scripts of many popular movies. These may be used as content for ESL reading lessons, read along with the movie to increase student's reading fluency or acted out as a listening and speaking lesson. English Learner Movie Guides - this site provides guides to popular movies for students of English which include a list of major characters, a summary of the plot, important terms and expressions that might not be familiar to ESL learners, cultural references and questions for ESL class discussion. Everyday English in Conversation - this link provides a large number of dialogues with normal everyday human conversations full of idioms and natural speech. Students choose from a list of topics and then listen to the audio of the conversation. Some of the dialogues are also accompanied by text versions which allow you to play one line at a time over and over again Other conversations might include audio only and are followed by a fill-in-the-blank dialogue completion exercise. Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab - this free multimedia site is designed to help English Learners improve their listening comprehension through a variety of audio and video conversations, interviews, and news reports. Rachel's English - great pronunciation site which uses videos to demonstrate correct sounds and the technical aspects of producing the sound. Select a particular sound from the Sound Chart or Sound menu choices. Sounds of English - this website features pictures, sounds and videos to help you students improve English pronunciation and listening skills. it also includes exercises with printable worksheets, handouts, teacher tips and other ESL links. Life in the USA - this site describes itself as "the complete web guide to American life for immigrants and Americans". Students will find information on many aspects of American life and customs. Internet Picture Dictionary - tool for Beginning languager learners to build their vocabulary. Student must select the language to practice from English, Spanish, French, German and Italian. You may select words that are grouped alphabetically or by atopic area. You may practice with a variety of formats including flashcards, fill in the blank, word scramble, stinky spelling and straight recall. AAA Spelling Lessons - this site has spelling lessons comprised of 30 lists of vocabulary word for each for levels 1 to 8. The word lists are the same as that used for the AAA Vocabulary Lessons. One of the many options available is to hear the word pronounced and then attempt to spell it. This site should be helpful for ABE and ESOL students. AAA Vocabulary Lessons - this site has vocabulary lessons comprised of 30 lists of vocabulary word for each for grade 1 to 8. The word list are the same as that used for the AAA Spelling Lessons. Phonics Sounds Test - this site allows you to practice and review the important phonics sounds and rules. Although there are only 44 sounds used in American English, some sounds can be made by several different spelling patterns. All common spelling patterns helpful in phonics decoding of words are included. Dave's ESL Cafe - popular ESL website created by Dave Spirling which includes a wide variety of features for students and teachers alike including news, discussion pages, chats, quizzes, e-mail and job postings. Also included are a wide variety of lesson materials on idioms, slang, verbs and quizzes. English Page - free online English lessons and activities. This is more of an Advanced ESL page with exercises that are more grammar oriented. Great for grammar practice if you find the right exercise but also includes a Reading Room and Listening Lounge to support these aspects of language learning. News for You - this website is connected with the News for You publication. It includes an archive of a couple of stories from each issue. These stories include an audio track to assist students in reading the story sentence by sentence if desired. It also include a teacher guide and answers to the crossword puzzle. The Learning Edge - uses a newspaper format to present reading selections on interesting health and workplace topics such the most common interview questions, networking, cold calling, workplace skills, workplace communication, assertiveness, staying employed, nutrition, workplace safety, transferable skills and apprrenticeship. Communicating at Work - this online course offerred by the Asian American Civic Association includes much useful information with audio that helps prepare students for some of the issues and unique communication difficulties found when newcomers start a job in the U.S. ESL Lounge - Songstop Lyrics - Try using song lyrics to improve reading fluency. Students become fluent while trying to keep up with the song. Ventures - website for Cambridge workbook series Ventures which includes practice online lessons for the Basic level and levels 1-4. Activities for ESL Students - this page developed by the Internet TESOL Journal contains a large number of activities for ESL students including grammar quizzes, vocabulary quizzes, crossword puzzles and Bilingual quizzes. There is a good collection of podcasts related to aspects of current events and culture. Interesting Things for ESOL Students - this site includes a wide variety of activities for ESL students including quizzes, word games, word puzzles, proverbs, slang expressions, anagrams, a random-sentence generator and other computer assisted language learning activities. Ron Chang Li's ESL Site - Ron Chang Li's website serves as a starting point for ESL learners who want to learn English through the Web. This site links you to several good and free ESL places. Notice the link to 100 free short stories with audio links and exercises. Larry Ferlazzo ESL Page - English Club - Welcome to English Club, a site to help you learn English or teach English as a second language. Access to all pages is free. You'll find everything from lessons, and videos for students to jobs and lesson plans for teachers, including interactive pages like forums, games, quizzes, chat, help and friends. Guide to Grammar and Writing - Provides an excellent and comprehensive guide to English grammar, sentence construction, spelling and composition. Also find categories for Forms of Communication, Ask Grammar and Online Interactive Quizzes. Written Alphabet - this E.L. Easton site is useful to ESL and beginning students. Students can click on a letter of the alphabet and hear how it sounds. The alphabet song is available for playing and practicing. There is also a link to in depth vowel and consonent sounds. ESL Bears: Guide to ESL Activities and Exercises - this site claims to be designed for first-year recent immigrant students. The majority of links and activities are appropriate for students from entry-level to intermediate. It is a multimedia site which includes a wide range of listening, vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing activities. Alphabet Practice - Students will learn or review the upper/lower case letters by clicking on each letter to hear the letter. Try to guess the letter before clicking on the letter. Learn to Read - this site has several levels of online activities for emergent readers including phonemic awareness, phonics, sight words and stories to read. Phonics Online - a number of online games provided by Sadlier-Oxford which cover PreK through 6th grade reading skills. Skills range from picture matching to alphabet, long and short vowel sounds, r controlled words, consonent blends, diagraphs, dipthongs, prefixes, suffixes, roots, contractions, antonyms, and synonyms. Phonetics: - this site contains animations of the phonetic sounds of spoken English. Each vowel and consonent includes an animation of the the movement of the mouth. a step by step description of how the sound is produced, and video and audio of the sound spoken in context of words.You must select American English from the language offered. Readquarium - this collection of online reading activities for beginning readers inludes sections on phonics and phonemes, sight words, fluency and books, vocabulary and comprehension. Easy Stories to Read - a collection of online stories for beginning readers. Idioms - links to various sites dealing with English idioms Word of the Day - For those who are trying to improve or increase their vocabulary, you might like to try this site. Each day delivers a different word, with pronunciation, definition and example sentences. Word Games - Several word games which are updated on a daily basis Change Maker - An online game whereby students can buy something but they will have to choose the correct amount of coins and bills first. Adaptable for U.S., Canadian, U.K., Australian, and Mexican currencies, in degrees of difficulty from amounts less than $1.00 to Big Spenders. Interactive Money Flashcards - This site contains a wide variety of math flashcards of which the money flashcards are of special usefulness to ESOL students. The program allows your students click on money, add up the coins, enter their amount, and see if they are right. Story Fun - This site is a "mad-libs" story format. Practice parts of speech such as adjectives, nouns, etc., just have fun making the weirdest stories you can possibly think of and see what's returned to you! Grammar Gorillas - Students will enjoy practicing and reinforcing their grammar skills with this online game from Funbrain. Both beginner and advanced levels are available. Linguistic Funland - Links to a large number of ESL/ESOL activities. Google Translate - this is free language translation program from Google. You can choose the language to translate from and to and then enter or paste the text to translate. Don't completely trust any translation program since they all tend to translate everything literally. Instead, use these programs to help you get the general idea of a block of text or to find the meaning of a particular word. Babel Fish Translation Program - this is another program that will translate a block of text or a whole web page from one language to another.

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