Develop academic and general vocabulary skills

This site give an excellent range of practice exercises for developing vocabulary skills.

Loch Ness monster..fact or fiction?

Getting your head around the present perfect tense

Are you struggling with when where and why you might use the present perfect tense?  Then this site is for you. 

Common linking words

This is a link to a page with 4 different exercises that allow you to practise common linking words that express contrast / purpose / reason / time, (such as ‘although’ , ‘despite’, ‘moreover’, ‘in addition’, ‘as a result’, ‘owing to’, ‘at first’, ‘eventually’). Useful practise for essay writing!

Also, check out the “Word Bank” on the left hand side of this page – it has a new phrasal verb/word formation/collocation each day to learn and practise.

The WORD BANK that pops up at the side of the page these exercises are on looks interesting – they have a new word every day that they can do an exercise on.  Have fun.

Writing an opinion text

This site 'Writefix.com' gives a step by step guide to planning and writing an essay that requires you to give an opinion.  It also has model essays that allow you to notice how to structure an essay.  You can see how other learners are writing and post comments on their work and/or write you own essay on the given topic and post it to the forum for others to comment on.  There are IELTS speaking materials and practice tests. It also has practice materials for TOEFL, and TWE tests.
There is much more to this site however.  Check out all of the links and explore for yourself.

Writing an opinion text

This site ESL learning and more has useful strategies/tips for structuring a written  opinion text and much much more.  Check it out today!

Test yourself to improve your grammar

English Language (ESL) Grammar Quizzes

Test yourself at this site with our selection of 277 free English language quizzes covering grammar, usage and vocabulary for beginner and intermediate level English students. Simply answer all of the questions in the quiz and press submit to see your score and other statistics. Each ESL quiz is also available as a printable teacher handout. We also have a range of phrasal verb quizzes in our reference area. Our full set of 492 quizzes, including extra exercises for both levels together with additional quizzes for advanced level students are available in the Members' Area.

Adjectives

Here is a site that explains the function of adjectives in written text.  It lists a number of categories of adjectives such as adjectives of shape, size, feelings, time, quantity, taste etc.  It also gives a comprehensive alphabetised list of adjectives.  Have fun exploring.

Find synonyms and antonyms easily and everything else you ever wanted to know about a word.

Just can't find the word you need for that essay?  Have a word, and you are not sure of the meaning then this is the site for you. Just type the word you are interested in, into the search space, and you will be given the following information:- the part of speech, the definition of the word, a range of synonyms and antonyms, example sentences using the word, an audio sound bite to give you the pronunciation and correct syllable stress, the word written in syllables and in  the International Phonetic Alphabet(IPA). 

Moreover if you are compiling written text in a word doccument use the shortcut keys:- shift and F7 after highlighting the word you want to replace and a dialogue box will pop up with an instant thesaurus, giving a range of synonyms and antonyms and the part of speech for the word.