Pronunciation
A good introduction to aspects of English pronunciation in 20 short lessons created by the Center for Language Education at HKUST.
Pronunciation tips from the BBC Learning English service, covering the sounds of English and features of English. This resource also includes interactive quizzes and 3 BBC radio programs.
A website created to help people improve their American English pronunciation. At the core is a series of videos explaining in detail how each English sound is pronounced in American English, as well as a blog.
Go to the iLANG site to see more online resources suggestions. You can find specific resources related to producing accurate speech as well as connected speech.
Public Speaking
A site hosted by RTHK featuring 9 speeches selected by local writer and columnist Tao Jie. Some of the speeches are classics, such as Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, while some are from local celebrities such as Audrey Eu and Martin Lee.
A great resource featuring the important speeches of America in the 20th and 21st century, with audio in mp3 and transcript in pdf. Most speeches are political, but there is a section on movie speeches and another on Obama speeches as well.
Vocabulary Learning Strategies
10 practical suggestions for learning English words.
A leaflet from Language Commons, HKUST, that offers practical strategies for learning vocabulary.
Words to Learn
Part of the BBC Learning English website, with daily news reports and a focus on vocabulary and pronunciation.
3000 keywords that are widely used in English and regarded as important for expression of general ideas. Click on a word to look it up in the Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary.
This list was developed by Averil Coxhead, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. It is a list of words that you are likely to meet if you study at an English-speaking university. You can click on a word to look it up in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary. The words are divided into 10 sublists.
30 online gap-fill exercises for each of the 10 sublists of the Academic Word List.
Take vocabulary tests to find out your English vocabulary level. You can take tests at word levels of 3000, 5000, 10000 and at the University Word List Level.
Go to the iLANG site to see more online resources suggestions.