Twitter for English-Language Learners

Do you have a Twitter account? Do you tweet in English? Did you know there are lots of people you can follow who can help you with your English?

If you don’t have a Twitter account, this video will help you to join. You don’t have to write on it, because you will learn a lot just from reading the things you find on Twitter, but writing is great practice!

General

Here are some of the people/organisations you can follow, along with their bios. Most of the tweeters here share useful links or teach you vocabulary in a word/phrase of the day format. If they do other things too, it tells you in their bios.

• EnglishFeed

  Kenneth Beare – Guide to ESL at http://About.com , English language learning content developer and industry strategist

  esl.about.com

• LearnEnglish_BC

  Find free resources for adults learners and opportunities to interact with others.

  United Kingdom · britishcouncil.org/learnenglish

• EnglishClub

  Free club for learners and teachers of English worldwide. Use the tag#twinglish to practise English on Twitter.

  Cambridge, England, UK · EnglishClub.com

• phrasemix

  I’m obsessed with finding the best way to learn a foreign language. I tweet lots of links to daily English lessons on http://PhraseMix.com .

  New York, NY · phrasemix.com

• speak_English

  Spreading English around the world

  San Francisco – CA – USA · http://www.speak-english.org

• englishcentral1

  English Central makes improving one’s English fun and effective by turning popular web videos into powerful language learning experiences.

  Massachusetts · http://www.englishcentral.com [note: you have to pay to use most of the features on the site]

• bbcle

  Improve your English with BBC Learning English

  London, UK · http://bbclearningenglish.com

• RollOffTongue

  ESL teacher/trainer/publisher – Rolls off the Tongue cartoon idioms on FB & tumblr; WhatSoFunny? on FB & Audioboo dares to explain jokes to English learners.

  Staten Island, NY · rollsoffthetongue.tumblr.com

• MacReaders

  These tweets and twoughts keep the readers of our Readers in the loop! Visit our website for more.

  Everywhere · macmillanreaders.com

• Gapfillers

  EFL mlearning elearning site new topical content everyday

  United Kingdom · gapfillers.co.uk/?tok=1

• english247

  Free English Lessons Online, by ESOL Courses. Links to free English activities tweeted by our web team (Sue tweets as @esolcourses). Follow us to learn English!

  Worldwide · esolcourses.com

  [They also have a list which learners can follow, with lots of useful tweeters/links]

• englishwithjo:

  Hi, I’m an Australian living in Greece and an ESL / English teacher and I love meeting people from around the world. I teach English online over Skype.

  Greece · englishwithjo.com

For IELTS

• iPassIELTS

  Personal online IELTS trainers http://www.ipassielts.com/ 

  facebook.com/iPassIELTS

• teacherdominic

  Freelance EFL tutor. Remote learning evangelist. Hates IELTS. Loves IELTS. Blogs about it anyway. Now talks Chinese to his fish.

  UK · dcielts.com

Tweets in Spanish

• madridESL

  Mejora tu inglés! Pronunciación, gramática, vocabulario y cultura americana en mi web.

  Madrid, Spain · madridingles.es

Hashtags

A hashtag is a topic on Twitter. Every time someone includes # followed by a word, it becomes a hashtag. You can read hashtags without joining Twitter by using Tweetchat.

#twinglish is a hashtag especially for English-language learners, where learners from around the world share what they are doing and practise their English at the same time. Others are #engpls and #eigo.

You can also find hashtags for any of your hobbies. It’s a great way to learn words connected to the things you like. For example, if you enjoy films, you could follow the #film hashtag.

And…?

If you think I’ve missed any useful tweeters or hashtags for English-language learners, please let me know in the comments, and tell me why English learners should follow them.