General
Language Reactor
This is an add-on for Chrome to help study with Netflix. It creates subtitles of shows/movies in any language and allows for immediate vocabulary look-up and the ability to pause after every line. Perfect for shadowing and vocab building. It only works if you are using the Chrome browser on a PC.
EngVid
This site has free video lessons on many topics, including culture, grammar, vocabulary, or exams like TOEIC and IELTS.
BBC Learning English
[website] [application]
This website is a good place to improve your listening, reading, vocabulary, and grammar skills by using some latest BBC news. It also provides vocabulary definitions to help you learn new words.
English at Home
English-at-home can help with grammar, vocabulary, idioms, punctuation and more.
Learn English – The British Council
Songs, games, grammar and more. Check out the archive for lots of English language learning materials.
SALCLOG – KUIS Students’ Reviews of Language Learning Resources
This is a blog for English learners, written by English learners. The writers of this blog are students of KUIS.
新しい学習アプリ、ウェブサイト、勉強方法を探している学生のために、KUIS学生がブログ始めました！
TALK (application)
The app helps you practice your listening and your speaking. It allows you to record your speaking.
English Page
This site has interactive grammar exercises, tutorials, and links to some reading and listening materials.
Duolingo
Fun to use for starting a language and revising some of the basic skills. Use the iPad or desktop versions to access the discussion rooms.
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
This is a community/forum where people ask questions about English vocabulary and grammar. There are a range of users ranging from teachers to beginner language learners. Search for questions you might have or browse questions other language learners are asking. You could even try asking and answering questions yourself. Remember to avoid sharing your personal information on public forums.
LINGODEER
You can practice your English (or learn other languages!) by completing lots of different exercises including vocabulary, grammar and speaking.
LingQ
Access many different articles, videos, and audios– about the news, language learning, or conversation. Each reading has audio included.
Business English Resources
Find vocabulary, phrases, and grammar that can help you in business situations. There are also exercises to help you practice.
Grammar
Practice Grammar online resources (grammar practice activities and tests)
Choose your level (Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced). You can find exercises for practicing grammar points, or download a test which you can print out. You can use the tests to find what you need to work on next.
Grammar Quizzes
Brush up on your grammar by choosing from hundreds of quizzes. There are 4 different levels to choose from.
Sound Grammar
Watch short animated videos that demonstrate grammar points. All of the videos have scripts. You can use this site to review difficult grammar.
早打ち英文法 (application)
This app helps you review grammar that you already learned in junior high school and high school. You can try 10 random questions in each grammar unit to check your current level first.
Grammar-Quizzes.com
Review or practice various grammar points. If you’re not sure where to start, try one of the diagnostic quizzes (Under the “More” menu). It can help you decide which points you need to focus on.
iGE lite app (application)
This app contains explanations and information about grammar points. You can review grammar which you have learned before, or study grammar which is hard for you. There are also practice questions. (This is the free version of the app, which has only some of the grammar content).
SpeakSpeak
You can practice or review grammar at various levels, including grammar for business English. There are also exercises for vocabulary.
Listening
Listen a Minute
One minute listening texts with vocabulary and comprehension activities
Lyrics training
This resource can help you improve your listening skills with your favorite songs in English. You can fill in the gaps of the lyrics as you listen to the songs. You can also sing along with the songs.
Randall’s Listening Lab
Develop your listening skills with many interesting activities. You can choose from easy, medium and difficult levels.
ELLLO (English Language Listening Lab Online)
This is a free online listening resource of over 1,000 listening activities designed especially for language learners. Most listening activities include pictures, a quiz, a script and downloadable MP3s.
VOA (Voice of America) for English Learners
Here, you can read and listen to articles that focus on the USA. You can choose your level or find an article which you’re interested in. In “Read, Listen & Learn,” you can choose an interesting article to listen to.
Radio Garden
Listen to radio stations from around the world! Find a country or city that you’re interested in, and browse the radio stations which are broadcasting live at that moment. If you find a news or talk station, this could be a way to learn about current events in another language or pick up vocabulary. Or if you find a good music station, this could just be a way to discover a new artist!
Voicetube (website and application)
Learn English with videos that you are interested in. There are many features useful for learning such as subtitles, speech-speed control and personal vocabulary notebook. Also, you can sort the videos by different accents and/or learning purposes (e.g., TOEIC, IELTS, lectures)
Audio Fiction: The Survivor
Listen to an audio series at the level you want (beginner, intermediate, and upper intermediate). Enjoy the story, predict what is going to happen in the next episode. At the same time, check your understanding by doing the exercises.
ESL Video
This site has many videos of different types, genres, and levels, so you can find something that is a good fit for you. You can read the transcript to follow along or check a word you couldn’t catch. For each scene or section, you can take a quiz to check how much you were able to understand.
TEDEd
Similar to TED Talks, but slightly easier than that. You can answer comprehension questions after watching videos.
Red Kiwi (application)
Practice your listening while using popular or interesting videos. After watching a part of the video, you can take a quiz to check what you heard. You can also record your voice and compare it to the video. You can also change the speed, try different difficulties, or focus on specific accents.
Academic Listening Activities (Oxford Open Forum textbook)
Listening activities for Academic English. You can choose from 3 levels. There are audio files, worksheets, and scripts for the audio.
Podcasts and YouTube Channels
PodcastsinEnglish.com
You can choose the level and topic. If you are not a subscriber, you will only have listening privileges. To focus your listening, you can think of a few questions about the topic, or predict what you think the speaker will talk about.
English News Weekly podcast
This is a free English news podcast produced by Hiroshima University. You can also subscribe on your Podcasts app and listen on your phone or iPad.
Better at English podcast
– Short episodes. Natural conversation. Transcript and notes on website, with vocabulary and grammar [iTunes link].
VOA (Voice of America) for English Learners
Learning English. Plenty of interesting topics and news stories [Apple Podcasts link]
All Ears English
With this podcast, you can listen to natural conversation about English fluency, business English, or IELTS. Each episode page has a summary of the topics, and some episodes also have videos of the conversations.
Hiroshima University’s English Podcast
Conversations about interesting topics or about English learning. Each episode has exercises or audio which you can use for shadowing, and the website has a PDF with the script or useful vocabulary.
YouTube
Video Jug
This is a large collection of videos which explain how to do everything from love and dating to building machines and car maintenance.
Tasty English
A fresh new way to learn English idioms, with fun English learning videos. Each video is less than 5 minutes long and features English speakers from various backgrounds. Additionally, the videos all take place in Japan.
YYYOKOOO
A Youtuber similar to Bilingirl Chika. She talks about English and English learning, but also about popular culture, foreign countries, and other current topics.
AK English
Another Youtuber like Bilingirl Chika or YYYYOKOOO. She talks about English learning and her life overseas.
Lindie Botes
Lindie is a popular Youtuber and polyglot (someone who speaks multiple languages). She talks about her own language learning journey and provides lots of ideas for how you can also learn languages. You can also visit her blog (https://lindiebotes.com/) or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lindiebotes/) for lots of well written articles.
Hapa 英会話
You can learn useful expressions for speaking. After watching some videos, please try to use them in the SALC or with your friends!
Learn English With TV Series
You can practice your listening comprehension from TV shows, films, and music. This channel also explains grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary, and you might discover a new favorite TV program!
VOA (Voice of America) Learning English channel
This is the official channel for VOA Learning English. It has news stories, English lessons, stories, and more.
KUIS8 podcast
This is a podcast hosted by ELI teachers – Rowie, Derek, Mike and Prateek. You can listen to them talking about interesting topics such as culture shocks and school life.
Crash Course
This channel provides courses on different topics such as Linguistics, US History, Sociology and many more. You can use it not only to practice listening but also to gain knowledge about these topics.
Reading
Sora News
There are many articles that provide unique stories and information about Japan.
PressReader (application)
This app allows you to download thousands of the world’s most popular newspapers and magazines. If you are on KUIS wifi, it’s free to use. As long as you log on to KUIS wifi once a week, you can continue using it for free, even when you are not on campus.
Pocket
[website] [application]
This website or app lets you save online articles in a clean, simple format, so they are easier to read. It’s good when you find an interesting article which you want to read again, or when you don’t have time to read an article. Your saved articles are kept on the app and on the website, so if you find an article on your iPad or PC, you can read it later on your phone.
E-books
Many classic graded readers – many with audio.
Poetry Archive
This is the best place to hear poetry on the web. The archive is a treasure box of poems, including some poets reading their own work.
Biographies
Short biographies of thousands of people.
Case studies by KUIS Students
These are music therapy case studies written by KUIS students in a class taught by Professor Tim Murphey.
Recipy (formerly known as Polyglots) (application)
With this application, you can read articles on many topics from various sources around the Internet. You can tap on unknown words to see their meaning, and you can also save your new words as flashcards for reviewing later. There is also a “pacemaker” function which scrolls the text automatically, so it pushes you to read at a certain speed. This is useful if you are trying to improve your reading speed. This application is also great for TOEIC practice.
National Geographic
You can read many articles about animals, history, science, and travel with beautiful pictures. If you are studying TOEFL, IELTS, and Eiken, use this website to practice your reading skills.
The Big Issue
The Big Issue is originally a magazine offering employment opportunities to people in poverty, but you can use this website for language learning.You can enjoy reading many articles about various topics. For example, interviews on ‘Letter To My Younger Self’ are fun to read.
Pink Pangea
Read travel articles written by women around the world. Use these articles to increase your travel-related vocabulary and learn more about different travel topics. If you’re interested in learning how to write travel-related articles, there are also (inexpensive) workshops you can download, or attend live.
Loyal Books
You can use this site to access books for free. They have both text and audio, so you can read or listen (or read as you listen). There are many ebook file types, and you can either stream or download the audio. (The level of some books may be quite high, so check the level carefully)
ESL Speed Readings (application)
This app contains 20 stories in easy English (elementary level). It can help you with your reading fluency. The app shows how many words you read per minute.
Speaking
World Englishes Examples
You can learn useful expressions that you can use in daily life. You can choose English spoken in America, Australia and England and learn different English accents
EnglishCentral
EnglishCentral is an exciting and powerful way to improve your English skills. EnglishCentral helps you practice your pronunciation and tracks your improvement. You can learn pronunciation by watching hundreds of commercials, interviews, and movie trailers.
English for Work
EnglishClub.com has some super activities here for speaking English at work. It’s great if you work at a shop, hotel, airport, restaurant, or other place where you have English-speaking customers.
Otter App
When you practice speaking English with your friend, please record the conversation by using Otter. It uses A.I. to automatically transcribe what you said in the conversation. You can later review what you could or couldn’t do well with the app. The transcription is not always 100% accurate, but if you check the transcript and edit it, you can also practice your listening.
Conversation Starters World
If you’re not sure what to talk about in a conversation, this site has lots of questions for starting conversations. You can choose from a huge variety of topics, from very casual to deeper topics (Some might not be right for talking to someone new, so be careful). There are conversation games, too. Try “250 Conversation Starters” first! Perfect for speaking practice or the Conversation Desk in the Academic Support Area.
Pronunciation
Youglish
If you enter a word, this site builds a playlist of videos which contain this word (including subtitles). You can hear the pronunciation of the word in natural English. You can repeat the word to listen more than once, or skip to the next video. You can also choose what kind of English pronunciation you want to hear, or if you’re learning another language, you can try this in various other languages!
Forvo
Check the pronunciation of words in various languages. All words are recorded by native speakers. You can compare the pronunciation of people from different areas (for example, American, British, or Australian English).
HowjSay
Learn about syllable stress and rhythm – Type a word or phrase and hear it pronounced
Accents of English from Around the World
At this amazing site, you can hear English speakers from many different countries and regions pronouncing the same words. You might be surprised at the differences in dialects.
IDEA: International Dialects of English Archive
This site has samples of English spoken by people from all over the world. You can compare different kinds of accents or learn about how many various pronunciations there are!
The Speech Accent Archive
This is a database of English accents from speakers around the world. All of the recordings used the same text, so you can compare pronunciations. This might be be really interesting if you’re learning phonetics or phonology!
Cambridge English Pronunciation Activities
An excellent resource to practice British English pronunciation. Choose your level and how much time you have.
Speech Texter
Dictate with your voice. Free web app for typing with your voice. Over 70 different languages supported!
Tongue Twister English (App)
Do you like practising your English pronunciation? Have fun saying tongue twisters in English. Each tongue twister game challenge is part of ten levels of difficulty.
Vocabulary
The Cambridge Dictionary
The Cambridge Dictionary gives definitions and examples of word use, as well as worksheets to help you learn new words.
Vocabulary Levels Test Online
You can use this test to get a basic idea of the size of your English vocabulary.
Memrise
This website and app has activities to help you remember and practice vocabulary. If a word is difficult to remember, you can set your own visual reminder to help your memory. The website has more vocabulary sets than the app. You can find sets created by other members for specific purposes, such as travel, TOEIC, or academic use. When you start using a set on the website, you can also use it on the app.
Free Rice
A non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Programme. Answer vocabulary questions to help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people.
Idioms
Use digital flash cards to match common idioms to their English meaning.
Academic Word List
570 academic words and their definitions to improve your academic vocabulary.
Quizlet
A vocabulary quiz maker for learners. Find a vocabulary set, or make your own, then test yourself. You can either choose ready-made definitions, write your own, or use translations.
英語 英単語ゲーム HAMARU (application)
This game helps you learn vocabulary with elegant graphics and music. You need to choose words quickly, so it’s good if you want to increasing your speed for recognizing words. After each round, you can also review words which you got wrong. This application is great for remembering TOEIC words or reviewing words you learned in junior high school or high school.
Lyricstranslations
Look up the lyrics to your favourite songs and cross-reference the vocabulary with your first language or the language which you are studying. Then, scroll down the page to find lots of idioms! Challenge your friends to a lyric song contest over Instagram or TikToK, or compare notes on idioms commonly used in popular songs.
Word Sift
This is a great tool for reading and vocabulary. Paste an article into the website and click “Sift.” You can see all the main vocabulary visually, collocations and synonyms, and example sentences from the text. You can use this before you read a text to learn words before you start reading.
Sora English (きまじめソラの英語部屋)
You can use this Instagram account to learn interesting words and phrases for different situations. There are also quizzes or ideas for how to learn English using movies, TV, or famous quotes!
Funky English
This site has fun images and example sentences to help you learn words, idioms, phrasal verbs, and British slang.
Media English
CNN10
Daily 10-minute update on world news aimed at students. You can turn on subtitles by choosing “CC” in the bottom right corner of the video.
NHK World
[website] [application]
Watch free news and programs about Japan in English.
Breaking News English
News articles with activities. New articles each day.
BBC World Service – Learn English
Reading and listening practice using news from the BBC.
VOA (Voice of America) for English Learners
Voice of America Learning English News
Online news reports read at a slow pace with simpler vocabulary
New York Times Learning Network
News summaries, quizzes and language practice activities on current news topics
The Big Project
This site brings together links to English language newspapers from all over the world.
Exams
IELTSAce (application)
Everyday you receive a new topic to practice talking about. Each topic is broken into the three parts of the IELTS speaking exam and example answers are provided. Record yourself reading these answers aloud and get instant feedback on the clarity of your reading. There is also a vocabulary section for matching words to meanings and practicing your pronunciation of those words.
IELTS Buddy
This website has advice on how to answer questions in each section of the IELTS test. It contains tips, word lists, practice tests and sample answers.
IELTS App
This app gives you explanation and tips about IELTS. It also gives you lots of practice. For the speaking part of the exam, you can practice by recording your voice.
IELTS exam preparation
This is a very comprehensive collection of materials, tips, sample answers, downloads, practice tests and more for IELTS preparation. Highly recommended. If you want to talk about ideas related to how to use it, please talk to a learning advisor.
IELTS Blog
You can find samples for writing or speaking tasks at your target band score. There are also practice tests and many tips for taking the exam.
Free IELTS speaking practice
Download the PDFs and practice the speaking test. You can do this alone by timing yourself and recording, with a friend, or with a teacher at the Academic Support Area. Listen to the mp3 for an example answer.
IELTS Liz
List of topics and questions similar to ones you will be asked in the IELTS speaking test. Practice alone (record yourself), with a friend, or with a teacher at the Academic Support Area.
Learn How to Learn
Study Bunny (application)
This super cute app is perfect for keeping focused during short study sessions. Set a time limit for your study session, and when you are done, you can earn coins to customise your study bunny! It also helps you to track what study and when you did it throughout the day.
Language Challenges (application)
This app gives you missions to complete by using the language you’re learning.This is great when you need a little extra motivation, or when you want ideas for new activities. It can also be used for other languages, not just English!
Language Exchange
MarcoPolo
MarcoPolo is a video messaging service where instead of sending text messages, you send video and/or voice messages. You can also share videos, images, text, and links. Using this app is a great way to stay connected and communicate without having to speak in real-time with people while using speaking and listening skills.
Tandem (application)
Find language exchange partners by posting a topic, or searching for people who are online. You can change the settings so your partner knows how you want to learn: lots of corrections or no corrections; talking about travel or talking about politics; video chat only or messages only! People are friendly, and the admin respond quickly if there are any problems!
Writing
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
This site has information on many kinds of academic and professional writing. It can be especially useful if you are applying for an academic program or a job in English. You can use the section labeled “Job Search Writing” to learn more about how to write a CV or resume when you need to write an application in English.
Japanese Language & Usage Stack Exchange
This is a community/forum where people ask questions about the Japanese language (in English). You can help answer questions of Japanese language learners using English. This could be an effective way to practice your reading and writing skills. Remember to avoid sharing your personal information on public forums.
365 Creative Writing Prompts
If you are trying to practice your creative writing but have no idea what to write about, this site has lots of topics. Choose a topic which looks interesting, and use the prompt as a starting point to inspire you. You might create a new masterpiece!
Features of Academic Writing
This website has a series of videos, articles, and activities which can help you to learn more about academic writing style. If you have to write a thesis, or if you are thinking of continuing your studies overseas, this might help you to understand what will be expected of you.
Academic Language Feedback Guide
This site explains various points of grammar and academic writing. There are also exercises and guides which you can use. You can use it to improve your writing skill and check your written work.
Culture, Hobbies & Interests
Google Arts & Culture (application)
You can use this application to view exhibits from museums around the world. You can find new vocabulary in the descriptions and articles, while also learning something new!
Cinema
Here you will find photographs, cinema reviews, and news from all over the world.
Lyrics
This is a searchable site with access to all kinds of song lyrics and information about singers etc.
NME
This is a more alternative music site, with news, reviews, chats, and live radio.
Genius
Search for lyrics to your favorite song! You can also find interesting information about each song.
Magnetic Poetry
Have fun making original poems. Play together with your friends to see who can make the most interesting poem, or try using this to inspire your own creative writing.