Useful sites for homework activities

Homework is a key part of the Fluentify experience, to strengthen students’ knowledge of English.

For this reason, Fluentify tutors often have a bank of go-to websites for homework activities. We have already covered listening and reading comprehension in our 25 Great Homework Resource Sites post.

Now, let’s talk about grammar and vocabulary.

These sites have been collected from tutor contributions to the #sharingmaterials channel on Slack.

Thank you to all the tutors who post on this channel; your advice, resources and insights are invaluable to help us all teach great classes on Fluentify.

This post is divided into videos, gap-fill exercises and quizzes, phrasal verbs and reading activities.  

At the bottom, you’ll find homework activities divided by parts of speech so that you can quickly find homework materials you need for a particular class.

Grammar and vocabulary videos

Engvid

If you’re student needs more explanation on a language point, you’re sure to find a video about it on Engvid. Ask your student to watch the video on the topic and complete the corresponding quiz for homework.

Link: https://www.engvid.com/english-lessons/

Simple English Videos

Again, you’ll find hundreds of videos on grammar, vocabulary, business English and pronunciation on this site. Each video comes with a useful transcript to analyse the language used.

Link: https://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/videos/

ESL Video

ESL Video uses snippets of YouTube videos, TED Talks and TV series to highlight particular language points. Students test their comprehension with a quiz.

Link: https://www.eslvideo.com/

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Gap-fill exercises and quizzes

Gap fills and quizzes are great homework activity to reinforce your student’s understanding of a language point.

Perfect English Grammar

This site is great for interactive grammar exercises, with hundreds of activities covering A1-B2 grammar. The student can then check their understanding themselves with the interactive form.

Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/grammar-exercises.html

ELT Base

ELT Base offers word-ordering and multiple-choice quizzes on a range of grammar and vocabulary points.

Link: https://www.eltbase.com/quizzes

Englisch Hilfen

Englisch Hilfen also has a lot of free worksheets to reinforce grammar. They are not interactive, however, and so the tutor would have to give students both the worksheet and the answer key.

Link: https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/worksheets.htm

BBC English

BBC English offers, podcasts, videos and short courses on English grammar and vocabulary. Some videos also have a short quiz at the end. Here are some useful links:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/upper-intermediate

https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/intermediate/unit-6

British Council

The British Council provides grammar and vocabulary lessons with videos and interactive activities.

For vocabulary: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/vocabulary

For grammar: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar

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Phrasal verbs

Phrasal Verb Demon teaches phrasal verbs by preposition (or particle) rather than the verb. For example, the ‘on’ in phrasal verbs has the meaning of ‘to attach’ (e.g. ‘put on a jacket’) or ‘to continue’, (e.g.‘carry on with your work please’).

Teaching phrasal verbs this way makes much more sense to students. After teaching a set of verbs by preposition, tutors can reinforce the point by asking the student go into more depth with the relevant page on this site. They can also deep-dive into the 101 most common phrasal verbs and test themselves with a quiz.

Link: https://www.phrasalverbdemon.com/index.html

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Reading

A great way for beginner students to start reading is to read with a parallel text in their own language. Parallel Text allows students to read classic texts such as Jane Ayre or Sherlock Holmes with half the screen in the study language and the other half in their own language.

Link: http://paralleltext.io/

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Homework activities divided by language point

Need a homework activity fast? Here are some suggested videos, gap-fills and quizzes for each of the main grammar points.

Present simple

Video:  Carter’s breakfast routine (Simple English Videos)

Link: https://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/carters-breakfast-present-simple/

Activity: Present simple ‘to be’ gap-fill (Perfect English Grammar).
Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/present-simple-exercise-14.html

Activity: Present simple mixed verbs gap-fill (Perfect English Grammar)

Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/present-simple-exercise-8.html

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Present continuous

Video: Present simple or present continuous? (EngVid)

Link https://www.engvid.com/present-simple-or-present-continuous/

Activity: Present simple or present continuous gap-fill (Perfect English Grammar)

Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/present-simple-present-continuous-1.html

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Modal verbs

Video: May, might and could for future possibilities (Simple English Videos)

Link: https://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/modal-verbs-may-might-could-possibilities-1/

Video: How do modal verbs work? (EngVid)

Link: https://www.engvid.com/how-do-modals-work/

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Past simple

Video: Past simple tense (Engvid)

Link: https://www.engvid.com/past-simple-tense/

Activity: Past simple irregular verbs 1 & 2 gap-fill (Perfect English Grammar)

Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/irregular-verbs-exercise-1.html

Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com//irregular-verbs-exercise-2.html

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Past continuous

Video: Storytelling – The past continuous and puppies (Simple English Videos)

Link: https://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/storytelling-past-continuous-dog-rescues/

Activity: Past simple or past continuous? Gap-fill (ELT Base)

Link: https://www.eltbase.com/quiz/089_01.htm

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Present perfect

Video: Past simple or present perfect? (EngVid)

Link: https://www.engvid.com/past-simple-or-past-perfect/

Activity: Present perfect or past simple gap-fill (ELT Base and Perfect English Grammar)

Link: https://www.eltbase.com/quiz/215_08.htm

Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/past-simple-present-perfect-3.html

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Present perfect continuous

Video: Present perfect or present perfect continuous (EngVid)

Link: https://www.engvid.com/english-grammar-present-perfect-simple-continuous/

Activity: Present perfect simple or continuous? Gap-fill (Perfect English Grammar)

Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/present-perfect-present-perfect-continuous-2.html

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Used to

Video: How to use ‘used to’ in English (EngVid)

Link: https://www.engvid.com/how-to-use-used-to-in-english/

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Used to and to be used to

Video: I am used to and I used to (EngVid)

Link: https://www.engvid.com/english-grammar-i-used-to-im-used-to/

Activity: Used to, to be used to and to get used to gap fill (ELT Base)

Link: https://www.eltbase.com/quiz/076_01.htm

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Will, going to and present continuous for future

Video: Will, going to and present continuous for future (Simple English Videos)

Link: https://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/will-going-to-and-the-present-continuous-3-common-future-forms/

Activity: Future tenses quiz: will, going to, present continuous quiz (ELT Base)

Link: https://www.eltbase.com/quiz/154_01.htm

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First conditional

Video: First conditional in action (Simple English Videos)

Link: https://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/first-conditional-in-action-english-grammar/

Activity: First conditional form gap-fill (Perfect English Grammar)

Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/first-conditional-exercise-1.html

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Second conditional

Video: Second conditional in action (Simple English Videos)

Link: https://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/the-second-conditional-in-action-english-grammar/

Activity: Make the second conditional form gap-fill (Perfect English Grammar)

Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/second-conditional-exercise-1.html

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Third conditional

Video: Third conditional in action (Simple English videos)

Link: https://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/the-english-third-conditional-in-action/

Activity: Make the third conditional gap-fill (Perfect English Grammar)

Link: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/third-conditional-exercise-1.html

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Mixed conditionals

Activity: Mixed conditional quiz (ELT Base)

Link: https://www.eltbase.com/quiz/153_02.htm

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Final thoughts

What are your go-to homework resource sites? Tell us about them in the comments below.