11 Free Websites to Practice English at Home

Adults work on their English speaking, reading, and writing skills at The New York Public Library

At The New York Public Library’s Adult Learning Centers, where adults work on basic English and literacy skills, we’re often asked for recommendations of websites for adults to practice English at home. Below you’ll find eleven sites, some with a focus on listening, some on vocabulary, others on grammar, and some with a range of activities. Happy learning!

Easy World of English
easyworldofenglish.com
An attractive, user-friendly website including grammar, pronunciation, reading and listening practice and an interactive picture dictionary.

Many Things
manythings.org
This website includes matching quizzes, word games, word puzzles, proverbs, slang expressions, anagrams, a random-sentence generator and other computer-assisted language learning activities. The site also includes a special page on pronunciation, including practice with minimal pairs. Not the fanciest or most beautiful website, but with lots to see and use and no advertising.

Dave’s ESL Cafe
eslcafe.com
A forum for both ESL teachers and students around the world. Includes quizzes, grammar explanations, and discussion forums for students. For teachers, includes classroom ideas on all subjects as well as discussion forums.

The California Distance Learning Project
cdlponline.org
Read and listen to a news stories on topics including working, housing, money and health, then work on activities based on the stories including matching pairs, vocabulary, and quiz questions. Some stories also include videos.

BBC Learning English
bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish
An array of wonderful activities for practice, some relating to current events. Includes videos, quizzes, vocabulary practice, idioms, crosswords, and much more, though all with British accents.

Activities for ESL Students
a4esl.org
Grammar and vocabulary practice for all levels, including many bilingual quizzes for beginners. Also includes a link for teachers, with conversation questions, games, and many other ideas to put to use in the classroom.

ABCYa
abcya.com
This is a website for kids, but who says adults can’t use it, too? The site includes educational games organized by grade level, from 1st to 5th, and is particularly good for spelling and phonics. There are games to practice vowels, uppercase and lowercase letters, Dolch sight words, synonyms and antonyms and more.

TV 411
tv411.org
This site includes videos with native speakers explaining key reading concepts like critical reading, summarizing and scanning, and key life skills like signing a lease and reading a medicine label. Following each video is a comprehension quiz. Click on the blue tabs across the top lead for lessons on reading, writing, vocabulary and finance.

GCF Learn Free
gcflearnfree.org/everydaylife
A well-designed site with interactive tutorials for everything from operating an ATM machine to reading food labels. If you click on the main page icon and then click on reading, the site has resources for English language learners as well, including stories to listen to and read along, and picture dictionaries.

Language Guide
languageguide.org/english
This is an online picture dictionary, with everything from the alphabet to parts of the body to farm animals.

Oxford University Press
elt.oup.com/learning_resources
This site from Oxford University Press has activities to practice spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and listening. A bit difficult to navigate, so more suitable for advanced learners and savvy internet users.

Also, remember that Mango Languages is available to you through the Library! It features ESL lessons for Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Vietnamese speakers. (First time users must create a profile in order to access Mango Languages.)

And don’t forget YouTube. Whatever you’d like to learn — an explanation of a grammar term, idioms, a set of vocabulary — enter it in the search field and an array of videos are sure to come up. I hope some of these sites prove useful. Enjoy! And please add your own favorite sites in the comments.