Student Links: English language and study skills
Words: dictionary and thesaurus tools | |
| Cambridge Dictionaries | Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. |
| Longman Dictionary | Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (with some pronunciation guides). |
| Online thesaurus | An online thesaurus: find words that have the same meaning. |
| Visual Thesaurus | This thesuarus provides a 'mind-map' of words, showing related words. |
| The Phrase Finder | Search meaning & origins of idioms, phrases & proverbs that are part of everyday English. |
Tools to assist writing |
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| English Concordancer *** | A concordancer with several corpora available. Instructions: click here. *** |
| BNC Concordancer | The 100 million-word British National Corpus with a concordancer. You must register to use all of the features (free) |
| WriteWords word counter | Allows you to count the frequency of each word in your text. |
| Online English Grammar | Free online reference and guide for English grammar, writing and punctuation. |
| Report Writing | Download a detailed PDF report writing guide, or click here for Quick Tips (brief guide) |
| Writing argument essays | A comprehensive unit of study by Bill Daly. |
| Online Writing Lab | Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL): ESL resources for students. |
| Academic Writing advice | Advice on academic writing from the University of Toronto. |
| Writers' Guide | Essay writing guide from the University of Victoria (Canada). |
Speaking and listening: tools and help | |
| English Pronouncing Dictionary | A free dictionary that lets you hear spoken words and phrases. |
| BITS English Language Learning | Online audiobooks. |
| ABC iView | ABC video links that play TV programs on your computer. |
| Giving oral presentations | Federation University's oral presentation advice. |
| TED: a world of topics | The website claims "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world". Give it a try! |
| LetsSingIt.com | Words to most songs you can think of -- in English. Favourites old and new. |
Self-help: online exercises and activities | |
| English learning activities | Activities for students of English contributed by teachers. |
| English exercises online | English exercises, some suitable for younger students. |
| English improvement exercises | English exercises from Oxford University Press. |
| University of Hertfordshire's English activities for international students. | |
| English Stack Exchange | Questions and answers on English usage. Suitable for learners. |
Study skills, learning and assignment guides | |
| Communication Skills Guide | Produced by the University of Adelaide's Business School. (2 MB PDF file) |
| Academic reading skills | University of New England's academic skills web site. |
| Academic Skills Fact Sheets (PDF) | |
| Referencing guides: Harvard, APA, AGLC & Footnotes | Interactive referencing guides from the University of Wollongong. |
| QUT cite|write | A guide to citing, referencing and academic writing from Queensland University of Technology. |
*** A concordancer can be your best writing tool if you want to write like a native speaker.