Online English resources

Advanced collocations

Today's collocation on Collocation of the Week

The Collocation of the Week blog looks at a common word each week (this week it’s take, last week it was beat) and gives you a collocation with this word every day. You get a definition of the collocation, an example (a sentence with the collocation), plus notes on it. Collocations are published every weekday (Monday to Friday, so five in total), with a short test to follow on Saturday. If you want to build a collection of these collocations, you can download them in .pdf format. An excellent, easily accessible resource for improving your vocabulary.

The 100 most frequently used English words – a game

What are the 100 most commonly used English words? You have 12 minutes to answer this question in this fascinating online game: http://www.sporcle.com/games/common_english_words.php

Of course you know all these words – but can you think of them all within 12 minutes? It’s not as easy as it sounds. If you can find half of them, you should be proud of yourself.

Funny signs

long stay toilets

The website signspotting.com features funny signs from all over the world. Visitors can rate the signs and you can browse the top 20 list.

Warning: some of the signs contain language that might not be suitable for younger learners.

Teaching tip:

Ask your students to write their own captions for some signs of their choice.