IELTS self-study kit: listening, speaking, pronunciation, vocabulary and writing

By AppDuo Editorial Team · Updated Nov 11, 2026

Five tools, each covering one job: listening and shadowing, pronunciation, practice tests with graded writing and speaking, vocabulary review, and grammar checks on your drafts. Prep is the only one here built around the IELTS exam; ELSA includes IELTS courses in Premium; the other three train general skills. Treat AI-generated scores as a guide. This is not a bundled purchase, and the apps do not share data with each other.

For: Independent IELTS candidates
Typical cost: Costs are not added up: each app bills differently (monthly, yearly or one-off) and in different currencies. All prices below are personal plans. Corodomo Plus is 179,000 VND/month; ELSA Premium is 999,000 VND/year (promotional price in Vietnam); Prep sells one-off IELTS courses from 1,500,000 VND; Anki is free on desktop and Android, with the iOS app at 24.99 USD on the US App Store; QuillBot Premium is 8.33 USD/month billed yearly. Corodomo, ELSA, Anki and QuillBot all have a free tier to start with.

1. Corodomo – Listening and shadowing with video
Bilingual subtitles with IPA, sentence replay and slow-down, and dictation train listening; 1:1 AI shadowing coaching gives sentence- and word-level feedback, and CoroAI runs situational conversations such as interviews and presentations. Its listed exam practice covers JLPT, HSK and TOEIC, so here it handles daily listening and speaking rather than IELTS mock tests. Trade-off: Free includes 1 AI hour a month, shared by speaking, detailed pronunciation scoring and subtitle generation (lookup and dictation are unmetered); Plus is 179,000 VND/month (116,000 VND/month billed yearly) with 30 AI hours a month; Corodomo lists prices in VND
Read our full Corodomo review
8.5/10
2. ELSA Speak – Sound-level pronunciation
Sound-by-sound pronunciation feedback, with AI scoring across pronunciation, intonation, fluency, grammar and vocabulary. IELTS/TOEIC courses and Speech Analyzer are Premium-only, listed in Vietnam at 999,000 VND/year on promotion (list 2,745,000 VND). Trade-off: Free offers only 3 ELSA AI uses and a 30-minute Speech Analyzer trial; ELSA's own pages show different prices, and its privacy notice gives no retention period for voice recordings and says some data, such as internet activity and location, was "sold" or "shared" in the past 12 months
Read our full ELSA Speak review
6.9/10
3. Prep – IELTS path with graded writing and speaking
A band-by-band path, the Practice Lab test bank and virtual writing and speaking rooms scored against the 4 IELTS criteria: 8 AI-graded tasks per stage, up to 5 attempts each, with free teacher re-marking if you disagree. Prep's AI usage policy says results may be inaccurate. Trade-off: Courses are one-off purchases from 1,500,000 VND (Foundation) to 4,500,000 VND (Advanced), and a 1-year AI practice-test pack is 1,500,000 VND, on Prep's Vietnamese website; App Store prices differ, the output guarantee has strict conditions, and the privacy policy gives no retention period although the app collects voice recordings
Read our full Prep review
6.8/10
4. Anki – Vocabulary flashcards
Build your own vocabulary cards with audio and images and review them on a spaced-repetition schedule (SM-2 or FSRS); free and open source on desktop and Android. Trade-off: No ready-made lessons or path, so setup is on you; the iOS app is a one-time 24.99 USD purchase on the US App Store and lacks add-ons; AnkiWeb decks may be deleted after 6 months of inactivity
Read our full Anki review
7.9/10
5. QuillBot – Grammar checks on writing drafts
The free tier includes basic grammar fixes, enough to check your own writing drafts; available as browser extensions, mobile and desktop apps and a Word add-in. Trade-off: Premium is 8.33 USD/month billed yearly (per QuillBot's Premium page); since 8 Nov 2025 the browser extension stores text inputs by default unless you opt out; some Trustpilot reviewers report inaccurate synonyms
Read our full QuillBot review
7.3/10