English is a pretty daunting language to learn for beginner, non-native English speakers who grapple with all the contradictions and weird rules associated with the language. Thankfully, lots of online and offline resources or ESL learning tools are available for non-native English speakers who want to polish their usage, grammar, speaking and writing abilities.
Dave’s ESL Cafe – http://www.eslcafe.com/grammar.html
Dave Sperling is a renowned teacher of English as a second language. He has come up with an in-depth site providing hundreds of grammar lessons. The lessons include word usage, vocabulary, sentence structure, noun placement, verb tenses, conversational skills, phonetics, differences in the meaning of English words based on countries and nationalities and linguistic practices.
ESL Movie Guides – http://www.eslnotes.com
For a rather novel way of learning English, as an ESL tutor or ESL student, you can use the help of the site English Learner Movie Guides to brush up your ESL skills. If you are fond of movies and Canadian or American culture, you can learn English usage with the help of this website. Popular movies and their plots/plot summaries are used to discuss and teach the English language and idioms.
English Conversations for ESL students – http://englishconversations.org
For ESL students who prefer podcast instructional tools, these downloadable audio files can come in really handy for practicing English speaking and listening skills. You can either stream or download the audio files to listen to English conversations. You can learn vocabulary, word usage, proper tone and word pronunciation via ESL audio files. Many of the audio clips are bilingual as well, helping people of non-English speaking countries to decipher a new language.
Grammar Exercises – http://www.english-4u.de/grammar_exercises.html
Learning fluent English grammar is a difficult and challenging proposition. If you wish to acquire grammar skills, you can take the help of this online tool to practice your reflexive pronouns, plural nouns, adverbial clauses and verb tenses. This site carries an exhaustive collection of quizzes that cover the A to Zs of English grammar.
507 Most Misspelt Words for ESL studies – http://www.esldesk.com/spelling/misspelled-words
English can be a very confusing language for non-native speakers with its strange spelling that bear hardly any resemblance to their pronunciation. So if your ESL tutoring client feels confused by English spelling, you can take the help of this tool to improve their English spelling knowledge and to avoid the pitfalls of common spelling errors.
Offline ESL Resources
There are many offline learning tools for ESL tutors and ESL students such as downloadable PDF files that offer instructions in basic and advanced interpersonal communication skills, cognitive academic language proficiency, listening comprehension, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar and word order, speaking fluency and pronunciation.
ESL University Courses
You can also enrol in online or offline business English courses or ESL courses offered by Canadian universities, American and Australian universities as well as by British universities through the British council. Most of these ESL courses can be taken online and last for three to four months. They concentrate on improving your reading, writing, speaking and listening skills.
You can choose from basic level or advanced level courses depending on your proficiency level.
School is Easy Tutoring can then help guide you through these courses with an ESL tutor, including TOEFL tutoring and preparation.
