Here’s a list of what me and my Members Academy students think are the best IELTS writing resources available online and for FREE.
There are hundreds of free IELTS materials and websites, but the quality varies. This page shows you where to find the most reliable resources to improve IELTS Writing.
Please let me know in the comments if you find anything useful that you think I should add.
Get all the links in this free PDF. (updated November 2022)
Free IELTS writing materials - general sites
EAP Foundation.com takes you through different aspects of Academic Writing, like essay types, style and paraphrasing.
British Council Learn English Teens has excellent Task 1 and 2 colour-coded models like this For/Against essay about the internet.
WriteandImprove.com uses technology developed at the University of Cambridge to mark your writing. The first one is free.
The UEFAP.com site (Using English for Academic Purposes) looks old-fashioned, but it still provides basic and useful information e.g. how to use signal words and different types of cohesion.
Manchester University Phrasebank – lots of help for Academic Writing
An A-Z of Writing Skills (Skillsyouneed.com/write).
Free IELTS writing feedback resources
Analyzemywriting.com – ‘an online text content and readability analyzer. Copy and paste a text into the homepage and gain a wealth of information about your text including word and character counts, word and sentence lengths, the readability of your text, and other analyses’.
Virtual Writing Tutor (virtualwritingtutor.com) checks your writing for free.
Wordtune is a Google Chrome Extension that offers alternatives for any sentence you highlight.
Free IELTS Writing materials for collocations
- English Club has a fantastic A – Z of collocations
- Collocation Checker – Just-the- word.com
- Sketchengine.co.uk (SKELL) helps you find words that go together and synonyms
- Wordhippo.com – a kind of thesaurus an SO much more.
- Ludwig.guru – ‘a search engine that helps you write better English by giving you contextualised examples from reliable sources’.
- Lexico.com does something similar – it gives you lots of sentences with the word in context so you can see how it’s used (not just the meaning).
Get all the links in this free PDF.
Free Spelling and Punctuation guides
- Howtospell.co.uk – spelling lessons with videos
- Thepunctuationguide.com – check all kinds of punctuation rules
Free IELTS materials for getting ideas
British Council Video Zone has lots of bite-sized video lessons on a variety of topics
ScientificAmerican.com/podcasts is a useful podcast with 1-minute IELTS-style articles
TubeQuizard is a fabulous place to do exercises based on well-chosen YouTube videos.
Improve your vocabulary through Reading and Listening with these awesome sites:
- CommonLit.org
- Newsela.com
Free IELTS grammar practice for IELTS
- The coursebook English File, has its own site with lots of graded grammar practice
- Englishclub.com has a great grammar section with lots of quizzes.
Do you need motivation, high-quality materials, a roadmap, feedback, guidance and an IELTS specialist teacher?
Upgrade to the Members Academy today.
Get instant access to all courses, challenges, boot camps, live classes, interactive and engaging classes, 1:1 support, and a friendly tight-knit community of like-minded learners to get you to Band 7+.
Free Academic Writing Practice for University
- Verbs for citation (PDF – nice simple list)
- The CRAAP method for evaluation sources.
- Academic Writing advice for students (University of Toronto downloadable PDFs)