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GENERAL ENGLISH DICTIONARIES

• ?- Although American English, it includes the equivalent British words
• - Also has a Business English and a ¡®Learners English¡¯ option which provides simpler definitions and examples.
• ?- Includes translations into many languages, including Chinese & Arabic.

Sometimes a thesaurus can be useful to show the connection between words. This one provides a visualisation that may be helpful:??

Interactive language activities to help develop your vocabulary (e.g. Hangman & Word Guessing) are available from?

SUBJECT SPECIFIC DICTIONARIES

Business

Electronics

Psychology

Those studying Psychology must adhere to APA guidelines for writing, and APA recommends/prefers Merriam-Webster's Collegiate dictionary. Unfortunately a free on-line version is not available. This is their on-line dictionary, which does have a Medical version:

• - N.B. This is an American English dictionary, which excludes British English spellings, so please?use with caution!

GENERAL LISTENING

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This is an audio soap-opera.?Soap opera?is a term used to describe a fictional radio or television programme that often follows the lives of a group of people.

• Each episode is about 3 or 4 minutes long and has very?useful exercises?to go with it.
• Good for improving your ability to listen to conversational English.
• Short episodes make it a good programme to listen to every day.
• Exercises to help you improve your vocabulary and test your comprehension.
• Transcript available

This BBC news programme is aimed at children and so is a little easier to understand than the regular TV news.

Click on the ¡°Watch Newsround¡± link on the right of the page to listen to the programme.

• Listening to the news in English is an excellent way to improve your vocabulary

These podcasts discuss a variety of British-related topics. They are about 12 minutes long

• Provide lots of information about Britain.
• Excellent exercises to help you improve your vocabulary and test your comprehension.

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LISTENING to TALKS

A collection of short videos from the Royal Institute on?science,?technology,?engineering,?environment, maths ?etc. Search for topics related to your field of study.

• Short videos (1-10 minutes) long

An amazing collection of talks by world experts on many topics. Talks are all under 20 minutes long. You can search by subject, or browse for topics that interest you.

• Full transcripts available

ACADEMIC ?LISTENING (lectures)

If you want practise listening to lectures and checking your comprehension, this website has lots of useful exercises.?

Some of the world¡¯s?TOP UNIVERSITIES OFFER FREE ONLINE COURSES.??connects you to many of these courses listed by subject.

Some of the courses allow you to participate and get a certificate at the end (see coursera.com for examples).

OXFORD UNIVERSITY, UK?provide podcasts of many of their lectures at??

Search by school or department.

YALE UNIVERSITY in the USA?also makes many of its lectures available online at?

The UK¡¯s OPEN UNIVERSITY?allows you to study many courses for free and to access their lecture material at?

• Graded English reading material is available from many sites including:?
• For a list of links to reading material see?
• ?- Thousands of free, out of copyright books to download, in various formats: Novels (including Dickens), academic works, old travel books etc..

These websites guide you through the major aspects of writing academic English:

• ?(academic writing guide)
• ?(guide to grammar & writing)
• ?(this measures individual sentences or longer texts for ease of readability)
• ?(for posting questions about your writing ¨C to get online help/comments)
• ?a guide to academic writing, step-by-step, with information about referencing conventions
• Resources for the Essay Writer -?

?provides the following links to help students with writing in Academic English:

A useful app for smartphones and tablets is available:?Academic Writing in English(AWE),?available for FREE from the Apple App Store and from Google Play.

See?

• A useful PowerPoint summarising?

At ELCOS we recognise that learning English is only one of the challenges faced by overseas students; there are also a wide range of practical and cultural differences in day-to-day life. In addition to help provided by the?International Student Support?team, the following (external) web sites may also be of interest and help:

• ?- an interactive webtool for students considering coming to the UK.

This is a new diagnostic test for students preparing for IELTS:?

Many other on-line courses (in a variety of subjects) are now available from a range of respected providers. A useful list is provided here:?

It includes, for example, the following free iTunes Podcasts for English Language Learners:?

• Webinar on the use of story-telling for ELT:?
• ?is an international, peer-reviewed journal that focuses on the teaching, tutoring, researching, administration and development of academic writing in higher education in Europe.