by Lara Whybrow

If you are a native English speaker or an ESL student looking to improve your vocabulary then Freerice is a great site to use. You get given a word and four options and you need to choose the option that best matches the meaning of the given word. And for ESL learners there is an option to hear the word so you can check your pronunciation of these new words too. 

You start off at level one and as you answer the questions correctly, so you move up in increasingly difficult levels. But the best part of all this is that for each correct answer you donate rice to the World Food Programme. 

Here is what the starting page looks like for level 1:

And then it gets a lot harder at level 40!

If you would like to play Freerice then go to their website (www.freerice.com) or join the Quick Easy English Group http://freerice.com/frog/join/2711836/66d6ff5c6488ae793555499cb5fd73dc

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by Lara Whybrow

One of my favourite sites is www.vocabulary.com. As an English teacher I need to make sure that my vocabulary is pretty damn good and even though I read A LOT of books, even I can learn a new word or two from vocabulary.com! 

The great thing about this website is that it determines your vocabulary level and then once your level is determined, the vocabulary quizzes are tailored to help you. As you continue, the website tracks words that you didn't know and shows them to you repeatedly till you get it right. 

It also has loads of other interesting features - for example if you are trying to think of word for a loud sound, you can search the database with  text:loud +typeof:sound and it will return with a whole bunch of synonyms. You can also view vocabulary for parts of cars, bicycles, etc. Nifty!

If you have signed up to the site, all your progress is recorded. This is a great motivational tool because people love to achieve! 

All in all, this is a great site for anyone interested in improving their vocabulary.  Learn more »

by Lara Whybrow

If you are looking for a fun way to learn a new language for free, then try www.busuu.com. The site is a social network for language learners around the world and as a free learner you can select one language to learn. You can upgrade to a premium account which unlocks all the features. 

There are twelve languages to choose from:

English
Portuguese
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Russian
Polish 
Turkish
Arabic
Japanese
Chinese

The site is very easy to use and features an interactive "language garden" that visually depicts your progress as you complete language levels. The courses are simple yet effective. You also earn "Busuu berries" which can be used to get discounts on membership and animations for your language garden.

The Busuu dashboard featuring the language garden

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