Learning resources - Tips for ESL students
Get moving on your career goals! These handouts will help you get ahead in your work in English.
Read textbooks more easily
- How to read a textbook. This two-page handout shows you a more efficient way to understand a textbook so you don’t have to read it four or five times.
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Improve your vocabulary
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Improve your listening skills
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Use abbreviations for note-taking
- How to abbreviate. Save time with abbreviations in your notes using these 10 suggestions.
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Write better essay tests
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Develop an essay
- Showing and telling. There’s a difference between effective (showing) and ineffective (telling) writing. Know the difference and your essays will improve.
- Paragraph development. Write better paragraphs when you know the difference between general and specific statements and their roles in paragraph development.
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Edit an essay
- Focus on sentences. Use concrete subjects and avoid the use of “it” or “there” as the subjects of sentences. Write better sentence when you avoid passive verbs and forms of the verb “to be.”
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Use correct grammar and proofreading tips
- Commas, the six rules. These 6 comma rules and their examples will show you how to use commas more effectively.
- Possessive pronouns and contractions. What’s the difference between possessive pronouns that do not take an apostrophe and possessive nouns that do? How do you use contractions? Get the answers here.
- A guide to punctuation. This detailed handout explains 20 rules for using commas, brackets, colons, and apostrophes.
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Reduce your stress
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