ESL/EFL Resources

Especially tailored to non-native speakers and their instructors, these resources supplement our other links on Writing as a Process.

  • DukeWrites Enrichment Suite (Duke): This online suite shares video tutorials offering enrichment on US participation strategies and academic writing practices. Screencast tutorials for online resources (including COCA, Academic Phrasebank, YouGlish) are also provided.
  • Listening and Conversational Skills (Duke): Strengthen your listening and conversational skills by perusing the resources selected for this handout.
  • We No Speak Americano: Understanding International Students' Writing (Duke): This student-produced video documents international first-year students' experiences learning to write academically in English and in their native languages, as well as revealing the difficulties they face transitioning to university-level writing in America.
  • Using YouGlish Resource (Duke): This handout explains how to use the YouGlish searchable collection of videos to listen to speakers pronouncing English words and phrases in context.
  • Using the Academic Phrasebank Resource (Duke) : This handout guides you through the Academic Phrasebank, a collection of phrases frequently used in academic writing.
  • Using the COCA Resource for a Word Search (Duke): This handout explains how to use COCA to discover common word combinations and language patterns, a resource that can support improved language use.

Grammar Help

  • ESL Common Errors Workbook (Penguin): This Penguin Handbook offers tutorials and interactive practice for avoiding common ESL errors.

Dictionaries

  • Monolingual learners' dictionaries assist learners of a foreign language by providing more detailed information about definitions, usage, collocations, grammar, synonyms, countability, etc., than one can find in a bilingual dictionary or a dictionary designed for native speakers. Useful online learners' dictionaries include:
  • Dictionary of English Idioms: Idioms are expressions that have a meaning based on common usage rather than on the meanings of the individual words. Use this dictionary of English idioms to make sense of phrases like "Cat got your tongue?" and "Mind your own beeswax."
  • Dictionary of English Phrasal Verbs: Phrasal verbs are idiomatic expressions that combine a verb with a preposition (e.g. sign away, sign for, sign in, sign on with, sign out of). Consult this dictionary to understand differences in meanings, to find the right preposition to use with a verb, or just to browse phrasal verbs.
  • Visual Dictionary: Sometimes a picture helps you make sense of a word better than a written explanation can.

Vocabulary: The Academic Word List

  • The Academic Word List (Victoria University of Wellington): Averil Coxhead developed the Academic Word List, comprised of 570 word families chosen for their frequency in an academic corpus. Click on the site's links to explore the headwords and sublists.