The summer holidays are over! All of sudden it seems that there is a chill in the air and everyone is back in the classroom! That means that it is time to start writing blog posts after a very long summer break. I met a class of German students the other day and talked to them about some of my favourite Academic English websites and now it seems like a good idea to start this term by sharing this list with everyone. Welcome back to English for University. Com and if you are on a pre-sessional English course, work hard!
LearnHigher
This site is produced by LearnHigher, one of the Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in the UK. It gives an excellent overview about what universities expect from students, with excellent advice on academic writing and referencing.
The Academic Phrasebank from the University of Manchester (http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/
If you aren’t familiar with this bank of academic phrases, you should be. An excellent resource when you know exactly what you want to say but are not sure how to phrase it in an academic tone.
Writing for Assignments E Library
This site has been developed by the Learning Development unit at the University of Plymouth to help students understand the requirements of writing at university level. It is a database of examples of university work which you can search by level and subject and see the teachers’ comments too.
Using English for Academic Purposes (http://www.uefap.com/)
This top Academic English website gives a thorough overview of the nature of Academic English and has plenty of exercises to help students develop their Academic English language skills.
Academic Vocabulary Highlighter and Gapmaker (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~alzsh3/acvocab/index.htm)
This site from the University of Nottingham gives students the opportunity to highlight and create gaps in academic texts to practise their Academic English vocabulary. It is based on practising words from the Academic Word List. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about when I mention the Academic Word List find more about it here.
The Academic Word List at the University of Plymouth
This site was created by University of Plymouth lecturer Ricky Lowes and focuses on how students can improve their mastery over Academic English vocabulary.
Martin McMorrow’s Podcasts on Academic English (http://martinmcmorrow.podomatic.com/)
Martin’s regular podcasts about Academic English are an excellent way for you to improve you language skills and especially your vocabulary.
Vocabulary Exercises for the Academic Word List (http://www.academicvocabularyexercises.com/)
Very useful online exercises to improve students’ knowledge and use of Academic English vocabulary from Gerry Luton at the University of Victoria, Canada.
British National Corpus (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/index.xml)
An excellent resource to discover how words are used in real life from the University of Oxford. Type in your problem word and find lots of real life examples of how it is used.