Wednesday, July 23, 2008

free practice TOEFL tests

Go to this website and click on "prepare for the test." You will find two free practice TOEFL tests there (one the paper based test and one the internet based test).

www.ets.org/toefl/

Good luck!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Go 4 English!

go4English.com is a website designed for Arabic speakers who are learning English. Much of the site is in Arabic (and hence, I can't tell you what it says), but it looks great. It's put together by the British Council, a wonderful English language learning and teaching organization. (You'll see other British Council websites in other posts below.)

Monday, July 14, 2008

plagiarism

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/printable/589/

This link goes to the Purdue's OWL site (a website I've given you already). Specifically, it leads you to a page which explains plagiarism and citation. If you plan to go to school in Europe or America or if you plan to publish an article in an English-language journal, you must understand the ideas of plagiarism and citation! Be sure to give the name of the author and full information on the study/research/article/book which that author wrote whenever you use someone else's ideas.

movie trailers

http://www.movie-list.com/

If you would like to watch more movie trailers (those short advertisements for movies) you can download them for free from this site. Watching and listening--especially about a movie you have seen--is a great way to practice English!

free textbooks in English

http://textbookrevolution.org/

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

Both of these websites offer access to free textbooks and course materials in English. Many of the textbooks are for the sciences and for math, but look around to see if you can find things that interest you. The second link (http://ocw.mit.edu) is created by MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This institution is a world-class engineering school. It is very very prestigious, and you can be absolutely sure that the material on the website is of a high quality.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

itunes

If you don't have itunes already, you might consider getting it. Download this audio program free here:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Once you have itunes, you can go to the "itunes store" and search for free podcasts. I recommend podcasts from NPR (search for "NPR" and many podcasts will show up; almost all will be free. You'll be able to tell which are and which aren't free). Also, if you would like to listen to good short stories, search for "New Yorker" and subscribe to the "New Yorker: Fiction" podcast. These 20 -30 minute pieces consist of someone reading a short story and then two people discussing the story.

You can also search for "ESL" or other podcasts for learning English. Many of them will be free.

(Note: if you "subscribe" to a podcast, it means your computer will automatically download each new podcast in that series. You can always unsubscribe or delete the podcasts. You can listen to podcasts on your computer or on an MP3 player (an ipod).)

Slate.com

www.slate.com

This website is one to look at when you want a challenge. The stories are opinion stories, commentaries on American happenings (often on politics). The site, written by writers of The Washington Post (a newspaper out of Washington, D.C.) is well written and often very clever. I really like it!