Best English Learning Websites
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15 Incredibly Useful & Best English Learning Websites

Needless to say that the English language has already become the global language in a true sense. To put it differently English has become a tool to help you achieve your dreams. Nobody wants himself/herself to be termed as someone who doesn’t know English. I hope this list of 15 best English language learning websites and resources for content, videos & personalized support would help significantly to students, working professionals, or to any seeker. Surely, these websites will help you with immense effect in overall development in understanding and articulating well in English.

Thousands of websites, books, courses, and educational institutes, claim that they can make you an expert but very few own such quality and capability. If you want to learn or polish your English language skills (listening, reading, writing & speaking), then these paramount educational & learning websites may help immensely with their content including audio/video/videos.

You should wisely use these powerful & best of websites with a disciplined schedule. Further, you won’t need any other websites or courses to become an expert.

Before we start, it is important to know the level of your proficiency. Straightaway, test your proficiency level at the British Council portal. Henceforth you can plan your learning as per your proficiency level.

This list of best English learning websites is a must-have tool for every person who wants to develop superb reading-writing & speaking skills. Visit them thoroughly and pick a couple of websites accordingly, which work best for you.


10 Best educational English Language Learning Websites & Resources

#1. British Council

best english learning websites - British Council English Learning

British Council is the UK’s international organization for relations and educational opportunities. A wide range of learning resources for children, teens, and adults are being offered on the British Council websites. This is one of the most visited websites for content related to learning the English language.

One can enhance the learning skills by developing reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills through this platform.

How to use British Council Learning:

1. Check your level of proficiency.

2. Go on with content that is relevant to your proficiency.

3. Develop skills.

4. Download the British Council’s mobile apps for the following:-
– Johnny Grammar’s Word Challenge for interesting 60-second games/quizzes.
– Improve your English listening skills with Audio and Video mobile app & Podcasts.
– Android mobile apps for learning videos.
– Learn Phonics sounds Right

5. Do check MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). These free short courses are open to anyone.
British Council offers these courses on UK’s first MOOC platform-Future Learn for free. Future Learn is a well-known global e-learning course provider.

As per Future Learn, it delivers the largest MOOC ever with more than 440,000 learners. (Source: FutureLearn)

Register for Free with Future Learn for the following courses, in partnership with British Council:
Understanding IELTS: Techniques for English Language Tests
For learning in Early Childhood: Language Learning and Development
Exploring literature: Shakespeare

#2. BBC Learning English:

best english learning websites - BBC Learning English

BBC is the world’s leading and well-known public service broadcaster, then what they are doing here? Well, they are also into teaching. As mentioned on its website, BBC Learning English is a part of the BBC World Service devoted to English language teaching.

Surely, you can get an authentic experience with BBC learning.

How to use BBC learning:

– It is recommended to use BBC learning on your PC. However, you can also download its Android & iOS mobile apps.

– Access easy learning articles, tests, videos, short courses (like 6-minute grammar, vocabulary, etc.), and much more interesting material for free.

Check their long-running series, find as below:

6 Minute English- About topical discussion and new vocabulary. Check pre-2014 archives here.

The English We Speak: Learn the latest words and phrases by this 3-minute audio series and impress others.

Lingohack: Listen and watch BBC world news to learn keywords and phrases & understand news in a better way.

You can find out more about the courses here.

#3. Grammarly:

Grammarly - best english learning websites

It’s a must-have tool for every single person using a Personal or office computer. Get real-time feedback/suggestions on whatever you are writing in English and doing silly grammatical mistakes. Gradually you’ll learn what mistakes you are making and how to correct them.

It’s surely a powerful English language writing assistant for everyone.

Grammarly is equally useful for individuals and organizations.

How to use Grammarly:

Create a free account, go to dashboard/Apps and download the Chrome, Windows, and MS Office web extensions.

The free plan does critical grammar and spelling checks. Once you log in & install this extension, you’ll wonder what silly mistakes you are doing in sentence structure, grammar & vocabulary. It’ll soon become your writing companion.

If you want to access it from mobile devices, you need to subscribe to Premium/Business. The Premium version will also provide access to the best-in-class AI system for writing correction and improvement.

Though subscribing to Premium or a business plan is not free, besides it surely worth more than its price.

If you visualize that your average or poor writing skills are affecting you badly, then we suggest going for Premium or Business plan for these benefits:

  • Advanced checks for sentence structure, punctuation, context & even for writing style.
  • Vocabulary enhancement suggestions
  • Plagiarism detector – checks more than 16 billion web pages.
  • Most compelling evidence of its effectiveness is that, as per Grammarly, 99% of students benefitted with improved writing grades. Grammarly also boasts 85% of its users have become the strong writers.
  • 400+ writing checks.

We suggest you signup & start with a free plan and experience it. A few days later once you experience it, you may opt for a paid plan.

#4. Cambridge English

Cambridge Assessment English : Best English learning websites

Cambridge is also a pioneer, just like British Council, BBC English, and Oxford University Press. This is a great platform for all-level learners and also for teachers.

Because of its wide acceptability, Cambridge exams are recognized by over 20,000 institutes & organizations worldwide. Apart from many proficiency levels exams, Cambridge English also provides diplomas and degrees.

Do check some best-selling & must-read books here

How to use Cambridge websites:

There are mainly two Cambridge websites for this purpose:
1. Cambridge Assessment English
2. Cambridge University Press

While later one provides information about its books and publication, you need to use the former one.

Cambridge Assessment Portal (for learning UK English)
– Check its popular and very useful tests
– You can surely find free elementary learning resources by just filtering, here.
– Have fun with language by using its games/puzzles.
Must use for all – Check it’s another portal Write & Improve, a free tool to get automatic grades and feedback for writing.
Submit your writing work and get the grades on it from A1 (lowest) to C2 (highest).
It also provides feedback on parts of your text, where improvement is needed.
Write & Improve, also offers some paid tools like Test zone (for IELTS) & Class view for teachers.

Virtually Anywhere is useful to improve your listening skills.

– Test your English here for free.

#5. EnglishCentral:

English Central - Learning with best videos

By simply putting it in words, one can say in general that, it is English learning by videos. But once you understand it, you will be amazed that how beautifully it has been done.

EnglishCentral has particularly filled a much-needed gap by the way they are teaching. Indeed, it’s an all-around, powerful way of learning. Real-life experience may help you to understand the language in a practical manner.

Indeed, I was not aware of its scale, see its partners. That is why I have to believe that this is going to be something big!

Surely EnglishCentral is one of the best websites/online tools for English language learning by videos.

Markedly, EnglishCentral has been adopted in 800 Universities across the globe. EnglishCentral has also partnered with the world’s largest private and online English language schools.

How to use EnglishCentral:

The learning mechanism involves four steps below:
1. Watch the video/videos (owing to the plan you choose), which is being provided once/twice a day for reading, writing, and speaking. Listen carefully.
2. Understand the accent and pronounced words, fill in the blanks while interacting with the video.
3. Speak the words and sentences with correct pronunciation and get instant feedback on them.
4. Finally Golive with the private tutor for a one-to-one conversation about the same video (spoken).

Basically, it’s a paid course. You may register for free and get two videos & one trial lesson.

If your pocket allows, join EnglishCentral for a limited period and see the improvement.

Check plans here.

#6. EFEnglishLive

EF English live : learning from live teachers

EnglishLive has created an impressive platform, with over five decades of teaching experience.

Important to realize that EF provides a unique experience of technology and personalized support.

Winner of 2018 Gold Award for learning for its investment in innovation, learner-centric approach, and clear and measurable impact delivery. EnglishLive has won many such awards for teaching.

One of the biggest assets for EnglishLive is markedly its thousands of professionally qualified bilingual teachers to help you.

How to use EF EnglishLive:

1. Check your present level of English, accordingly, you may personalize the course by setting the goals.

2. The course is divided into 16 levels and get EF certified thereupon completion of each level, check 16 levels here.

3. It uses an advanced speech recognition system to make your practice easier and effective, besides having fun.
Get personalized feedback straight away after completing the exercise.

4. Further gain confidence in personalized live private or group class.

5. On completion of all levels, get the diploma/certificate, which is widely accepted in educational institutes and organizations.

6. Though content could be accessed once you subscribe to it, still, you may access free content like – free quizzes for practice, etc.

#7. Engvid

Engvid : Free English Video lessons

In fact, Engvid is one of the best websites for English language learning by videos. You will surely be impressed with the huge collection they have created.

As can be seen on its website that, Engvid has covered every essential aspect.

Not only it is free but it also maintained quality content. However, it is not an advertisement-free platform.

How to use Engvid

– It is advised to start with grammar or pronunciation, however, if you are good at both you may start from wherever you want.

– Subscribe to its Facebook page, to get a regular feed.

– Also check its resources page.



#8. Learning English By Voanews

VoaNews English learning

Voice of America (VOA) is a US government-funded international multimedia agency. Needless to say that VOA News has created a truly great website.

Needless to say, that Voanews is among the best websites, that will help you with relevant & interesting videos.

It is an innovative effort to teach the latest and current affairs by videos. Important to realize that VOA program offers lively, entertaining content for teaching.

Do make it a habit to regularly visit this portal and grasp content unconsciously. Once you make it a habit to visit this site, in reality, you may not even realize that you have learned it by just having fun.

How to use Voanews

– Check your level with this interesting test.

– Beginner level is divided into level 1 and level 2.

Let’s have a look at this lesson from level 1. Important to realize here that how beautifully they have made this a light mood learning cum entertainment. That too with video transcript, it’s an added bonus.
Though this particular video is just for a beginner but provides a glimpse of learning.

New words videos explaining a new word or a phrase used in a news story video.

– Intermediate & Advanced level offers great quality content.

– English in a minute, English@the Movies, and Everyday Grammar TV is its interesting video series.

#9. Duolingo

Duolingo

It is more than an English Language Learning tool. You will be given tasks, which you have to complete like a game. It focuses more on complete sentence formation. It truly makes English learning work, still, it charges nothing. In effect, Duolingo became quite popular.

This website is not for you if your native language is English and you want to learn the advanced level of the same language. It is not designed like that.

This is for you if you want to learn English as your second language. And you can learn till the intermediate level. For advanced level, you may check EFEnglish Live.

Rest assured that you’ll love the entire process.

How to use Duolingo:

– Choose your native language as your language. Obviously, the target language is English.

– Do not just speed through the course, instead, give it time to let you learn the language.

– Try not to complete the two lessons in a day. You may re-do the lessons on the same day evening/night, in order to develop your understanding.

– Along with Duolingo, use some additional sources to improve your vocabulary/pronunciation.

#10. Stackexchange

StackExchange

Great platform to claim your superiority over your global competitors. Become a global English expert and you may mention your good ratings even in your resume.

It is a community, where people interact, post questions & answers and get the right answer, usually placed at the top.

How to use Stackexchange:-

– Have a look at all StackExchange sites here

– There are particularly two sites:

1. Language and usage – more than 100K+ questions asked.
Go to the user page here.

2. Language learners – more than 60k+ questions asked.

– For usually every StackExchange site/community, you need to understand a few things.

They have a reputation rating/numbering system to emphasize the user’s reputation. As per this system, based on the performance of a user, two types of reputation marks are shown. Firstly for a month and secondly the total reputation marks.

Have a look at the sample activity page, where you can visualize your and other users’ progress. You will be motivated to get more reputation marks and hence your activity level will be increased.


#11. Esolcourses

ESOL Courses

Here ESOL refers to English for Speakers of Other Languages(ESOL), which probably explains, why you are here.

Esolcourses offers a great collection of free courses. The course is designed with the level starting from beginners to advanced level, with total 5 levels.

These are free to understand and provide clarity of course content. Course content is designed in a way that it doesn’t look boring. Every level of the course is divided into lessons, exercises games, quizzes, worksheets, and learning resources.

How to use:

– Check the sitemap to see the website contains details.

– You need not signup or login, just browse the content and start with your choice of topics.

– Esolcourses is just for learning purposes, it doesn’t provide a certificate for course completion.

#12. Lyrics Training

Lyrics Training

Everybody knows that English is a de facto global language. There are countries where even 1% of the people do not speak it as a first language. For instance, in India, first language speakers for the English language are just 0.02% of the total population. Still, a whopping 125 million Indians, 12.18% of the population speak English (source: Wikipedia).

As can be seen, all second and third language speakers find it fairly difficult to understand the English used in Hollywood movies or in music albums.

Therefore you need something, which can help you to understand the sounds and words of English as a foreign language. In that case, we suggest you use Lyrics Training.

Here Lyrics Training is going to help you especially to recognize the sounds and words of US and UK English in a short span of time.

Though it is not a fully-fledged course, you should use this as a supporting tool. It is completely free to use and a lot of fun.

How to use:

– Though you may continue without registration if you create an account, it will help you see the progress.

– As per your level of English, select the game mode.

– Once you select the video and play it, video lyrics appear just below it. Suddenly it stops playing, here you need to fill in the missing word. Let’s say if the word is ‘jungle’, for first fill, it won’t accept any letter except ‘J. Do not get confused about whether the keyboard interface is working or not if you type a different word for that order.

– If you don’t know the word, just click on ‘give up‘, and it will be shown to you.

– You may compete with other users or even with your friends, to make it more fun and competitive.

#13. Effortless English Podcast

Effortless English Podcast

This website is presented by the person, who is popularly known as the world’s no-1 English teacher, AJ Hoge audios could be downloaded free of charge.

How to use Effortless English Podcast:

– Either you just drop in on the website and start listening to podcasts on a regular basis.

– Go to Categories and choose interesting ones like vocabulary, videos, vidcast, conversations. Surely all these audio and video will help to not only improve your listening skills but also spoken and writing.

– Download mp3 files and store them in USB drive folders and listen to them while driving, traveling, or even in your room.

#14. Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press

It provides excellent learning resources for all age groups, teaching resources, and much more.

Here you can find the information related to English Language Learning books and multimedia tools.

How to use Oxford University Press:

EnglishFile is an important tool of Oxford University Press, which improves students’ speaking skills.

As per this Oxford University Press page, “90% of teachers worldwide who took part in an Oxford Impact study believe that EnglishFile improves students’ speaking skills”.

– Oxford English Testing to improve your exam technique with Oxford University Press’s different websites specially designed for online practice tests

Check all other Oxford University Press, mobile apps here.

Oxford University Press ELT Youtube channel for videos

#15. Italki

Italki

Italki is one of the best platforms to learn English as a second language or foreign language.

It has users from all over the world with over 5 million students and 10K high-quality teachers. Unlike many other platforms, Italki ensures that you are going to learn either from a professional or a native teacher. Hence Italki has set some standards for the quality of teachers

If you are more comfortable with a person-to-person interaction between a student and a tutor, then Italki is a great platform.

Check some best-rated teachers here.


Some other notable sites:

  • Wyzant (A great student & tutor’s 1-to-1 interaction platform) – Paid
  • Preply : Student tutor, one-to-one interaction – Paid
  • Memrise (For vocabulary/flashcards) – Free
  • News in Levels (learning by current affairs news videos. Same video for three proficiency levels) – Free
  • Rosetta Stone (English learning as a foreign or second language) – Paid
  • EnglishPage – Free
  • Perfect English Grammar (For grammar) – Free & paid both
  • Fluentu (English learning as a foreign or second language) – Paid

Happy English learning and wish you the best in your voyage!


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