PRONUNCIATION

Visit the University of Iowa's pronunciation site to practice your pronunciation of specific sounds in English. Select American English. Watch the video of the woman pronouncing each sound, watch the animation, and then practice.

GRAMMAR

Do you have a grammar question? Ask Betty! (Betty is not a real person, but the people at the UW who manage the site will answer your question. You probably ought to look at the ESL section of the site first.) To ask a question, you need a UW Net ID. After you pay your tuition, UW Extension and Educational Outreach will send you a PAC (personal access code) and you can use this code to set up your UW Net ID.

EVALUATION TRAINING

Here is the link to the teacher & course evaluation training exercises.

If you want to improve your reading, visit this part of the UW Library's site to search award-winning children's and young adults' books. I recommend choosing something from the Newbury Award list (the Newbury Award is an award for writing). You can search for books for all ages at this part of the UW Library's site.

You might also want to look at various book reviews (see the Seattle Times, Seattle Post Intelligencer, the New York Times, the American Library Association) for the top selling books for adults.

Any time you have a question, ask a librarian! The UW librarians want to help you.

ONLINE NEWS RESOURCES

The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, The International Herald Tribune, The Financial Times, BBC News

LISTENING RESOURCES

If you want to improve your listening, note-taking skills, and reading skills visit Earth and Sky. Earth and Sky is a 2-3 minute daily radio program about science. On the site you can see transcripts and listen to the program at the same time. I recommend that you listen without reading the transcript to practice taking notes first. Then listen and read the transcript. As you listen and read, notice the phrasing and intonation.

Some other useful sites for reading practice (and listening if you watch the program) are NewsHourNightly Business Report (5:30pm-6pm, M-F, KCTS channel 9),  NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (6pm - 7pm, M-F, KCTS channel 9), PBS (our national educational television station), and NPR (National Public Radio).

You can also visit UW classes, like prospective students do.  Every quarter different professors give permission for prospective students to visit their classes and here is the link to the "Drop-In Course List."