Online Learning Resource: apps for practising written and spoken English

30th June 2020

Nowadays, there are a bunch of online English practice resources available on the Internet, however, we shouldn’t use them blindly. This week, KnewSTEP Education will introduce some useful applications for practising written and spoken English, so that you can learn English and prepare for various English exams at your home. We hope that children in both the UK and Asia can make good use of these learning tools to consolidate and improve their English abilities!

1. Vocabulary Builder: http://gre.magoosh.com/builder/vocabulary

Vocabulary Builder by Magoosh was developed by Chris Lele, an expert teacher with more than 10 years of experience in Graduate Record Examination. Magoosh means “a wise person”. The app has 1200 words in total, which are common in Graduate Record Examination, academic aptitude test and Test of English as a foreign language (TOEFL). Each word is accompanied by detailed explanations and sentences examples. User has to complete a level to unlock more advanced levels to learn the harder vocabularies. The application settings also allow users to compete and play games with other players, making learning more fun and motivative. It is worth mentioning that the application uses a spaced repetition function system, which will allow user’s mistakes reappear again and again until the user has mastered the vocabulary. This function can help to deepen your memory, allowing you to learn English while playing!

Apart from Vocabulary Builder, there are more apps by Magoosh for IELTS, GMAT, ACT, LSAT, MCAT, Praxis. It may be said as the expert of examinations’ vocabularies. For more Magoosh learning resources, you may visit: https://magoosh.com/

2. 4 pics 1 word: http://www.4pics1wordcheats.net/

The concept of 4 pics 1 word is relatively simple. They use four photos to represent an English vocabulary and players have to work out and guess the word. Certainly, these vocabularies are divided into different levels according to their difficulty, like the other apps, players must first unlock the current level before unlocking new levels of vocabularies on another level. As shown in the picture above, players need to select the appropriate letters from below to spell out the vocabulary. Each correct word can get four “gold coins”. If you need tips, you can use 60 “gold coins” to get one letter. Do use the money wise!

3. IELTS Liulishuo: https://www.liulishuo.com/en/ielts.html

IELTS Liulishuo is an artificial intelligence-driven mobile app allows students to simulate the IELTS oral test in real scenes and record personal recordings for review after the test. In addition to scoring and making overall performance reports, the mobile program will also give you personal suggestions on fluency, word choice, grammar and pronunciation. The IELTS test is an “admission ticket” that is widely required before going to the UK to study. It has more than 100,000 accredited schools and institutions. The official data for the number of test-takers in 2017 is up to 3 million people! This has shown the importance of the IELTS Test.

Tips: You can only sign up once with the same phone number. After you have login successfully, the examination will start straight away. So make sure you are ready for the mock exam, in a quiet and undisturbed place.

4. Freerice: https://freerice.com/categories/english-vocabulary

Freerice uses a multiple-choice mode game. Freerice will donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program for each correct choice the learner made. In this way, learners can learn English while saving and changing lives. Learners can also choose specific topics. In addition to learning English vocabulary in general, there are seven other topics, which includes science, humanities, geography and chemistry, etc. Each topic is divided into different levels according to their difficulty. Learners can choose different levels according to their ability to learn useful English knowledge of different topics.

We hope the above apps would be useful for you. There is a Chinese saying, “To do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools”. Have you found a suitable learning tool for yourself? Finding the right learning tool will help you learn English more effective and efficient. We wish you will enjoy learning English at home! KnewSTEP will continue to learn and walk with you together. If you need more information about one to one tutorial, education consultation or guidance, feel free to contact our education team for more!

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