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Q: Do you encourage your students to use spell check and grammar check when learning English?
And from what I have seen on this board, non-native speaking teachers as well?
11 years 2 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
If it becomes to much a problem than yes. It's there and they know it's there so there is really no reason for me to play parent for them and remind them that it is there.
Traveler:
That's a surprisingly intelligent reply from you Silva. Has somebody hacked your user name?
no, because using these tools requires a fluent level of understanding. if i mis spell a word, spell checker will give me a number of options. they would not know which one to choose, then be supremely confident in their wrong choice. and grammar check, that would just confuse the hell out of them. especially if they do not have the correct language standard selected.
chinese students get easily confused when left to figure things out themselves.
Traveler:
I think you're right for an average English class. Most of my students were business professionals for international companies, or students studying western degrees. They were expected to be able to use these tools. They often had to write lengthy letters or essays.
The problem was, because such a thing doesn't exist in the Chinese word processor, they refused to accept it in the English version.
Actually, I would have answered 'yes', however after reading Crimo's answer, I'd actually now say 'no'.
That way, I get to correct all the mistakes they make, and hopefully they can learn from them...
I don't use spell or grammar check for no particular reason. What I do do for my students is to teach them how to use a monolingual dictionary (Longman Dictionary of American English). It takes several class periods to teach them how to identify the word class they need (noun, verb, etc.), how to read the phonetic transcriptions, how to differentiate between the various meanings of the same word, how to quickly locate a word using the guide words at the top of each page to save time, and a few other study tricks.
I also run them through a lesson or two on how to use my favorite online dictionary: dictionary.com so they have no excuse not to use a dictionary when doing their assignments at home and don't have Longman with them.
So far, it works.
