About the Virtual Writing Tutor Grammar Checker

About the Virtual Writing Tutor Grammar Checker Nicholas Walker, creator of the Virtual Writing Tutor For a list of Virtual Writing Tutor features with video tutorials on how to use them, see here. This article is about the motivation to build and use the Virtual Writing Tutor for pedagogical purposes. Until recently, I had been correcting student errors by hand, returning assignments a week or two later. Like other teachers, it always struck me that 7-14 days was a long time for learners to wait for corrections, but with the large number of students I had in my classes, it was the fastest I could get the job done. Even then, I was concerned that my slow method of error correction was constraining the amount of writing practice my learners were getting in my courses. To explain, if it takes two weeks to correct students writing and students expect corrective feedback on every writing task they do (or they wont do it), then the most a teacher can assign is one writing assignment every two weeks. Nevertheless, students language development benefits from writing more often. Of course, I tried using MS Word and other automatic error correctors, but they were not particularly useful at catching  second language errors in my students writing. I then turned to Moodle and developed an extensive  auto-linking glossary  of errors, but the glossary filter put a heavy load on Bokomarus  Moodle server  and slowed everything down. So, in the spring of 2012 while my college students were out on  strike, I launched the Virtual Writing Tutor and set the following goals for myself: To increase the quantity of corrective feedback available to our students To improve its quality To improve its timeliness To increase its frequency To enhance ESL writing pedagogy Increasing the Quantity of Feedback: Catching More Errors Most automatic grammar checkers miss the kinds of errors that second language learners make. They seem more focused on  the kinds of errors that writers in their first language make  instead. I want to remedy that by catching transfer errors, tense errors and  collocation errors. While human teachers can potentially catch all of these errors when they correct assignments by hand,  no teacher has either the time  or space in the margins to correct every error in a college-length writing assignment or explain at length the nature of each error. The VirtualWritngTutor can provide more detailed feedback on as many errors I program it to detect. Improving the Quality of Feedback: Details, Links, and Resources Skeptics of automatic grammar checkers sometimes interpret the occasional false alarm, bad feedback, or  missed error  as a sign that the quality of automatic feedback can never be as good as the feedback a human teacher can give. I am working on these individual problems, and I believe that I can overcome them with time. Indeed, members can help me by reporting issues with the system using the  Report button  on this website. In the meantime, there are other aspects to feedback quality that sceptics should not overlook. Hand-correction usually involves a combination of underlining, terse metalinguistic correction codes and the occasional explicit correction. The Virtual Writing Tutor does all that, too. It locates an error, provides a metalinguistic explanation of the error (not just a correction code) and suggests one or more ways to correct the error. However, the Virtual Writing Tutor goes one step further and displays a clickable link to relevant online remedial practice activities and resources. In this way, the Virtual Writing Tutor can generate a kind of instant curriculum, tailor-made for each learner and based on the learners immediate learning needs. That in itself goes well beyond current hand-coding practices. So, all things considered, the Virtual Writing Tutor has the potential to give better feedback. Example text Try it for yourself. Click the text below to see what the Virtual Writing Tutor can do. I make a lot of mistake that negatively effect my writing. Thats not good. I want always to make the good choice of verbs. I want also to improve my pronunciation. My English-speaking friends talk about to help, but they never do. I work in a big store on the south shore of Montreal where there are a lot of immigrants people. Im speaking every day to a men that works there. I think practicing with immigrants is equally as effective. So far, I have work there since 2 weeks and my English is getting more better. Also, I have learned already a lot about retail, but I will like to have a better job. I am waiting still for my first paycheck. They dont have paid me yet. When I will get paid, I will pay my parking tickets. Nevertheless if my English would be more better, I would definitely get a better paying job. I often wonder how many opportunities I would had had if I paid more attention to my nice English teacher in high school. Improving the Timeliness of Feedback With large class-sizes during the busy midterm period, the timeliness of the corrective feedback on writing we give our students tends to suffer. Teachers struggle to get corrections back to their students by the next class, but sometimes students have to wait two weeks. When assignments are returned, students exclaim, It was so long ago that I have forgotten what I was trying to say here. With the Virtual Writing Tutor, feedback is instant. What could be more timely than that? Improving the Frequency of Feedback The Virtual Writing Tutor is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Instead of receiving corrective feedback on only one draft of an essay or narrative composition, learners can now get feedback on every draft throughout the writing process. The system will never get annoyed or tired. Learners can write a paragraph, check it, write another check it, and so on. The Virtual Writing Tutor makes it possible for learners to get feedback as often as they want it. Another point worth considering is that teachers can now give more writing assignments than ever before. Whereas teachers might have been reluctant to add to their own workload by assigning additional writing tasks to their students, with the availability of the Virtual Writing Tutor they can ask for error-free texts every class and the burden of error correction will never increase. In this way, students will get feedback on errors as often as the teacher wants or thinks is necessary. Improving Writing Pedagogy In many colleges around the world, writing is taught as a collaborative exchange between student and teacher. The teacher assigns a writing task, the student produces one draft, the teacher provides corrective feedback on it, then the student redrafts the text and submits it for evaluation. Sometimes a student can feel somewhat mystified and betrayed if, after trying to respond to all the teachers correction codes, the student then receives a low score on the essay since the teacher was in effect a collaborator on the final draft. A better way to teach writing might be for teachers to ask students to consult the Virtual Writing Tutor throughout the drafting process as just one of a variety of revision strategies. Other revision strategies might include the use of self-assessment checklists, peer-review tasks, and participation in teacher-student writing conferences. In this way, the teacher can evaluate the use of a range of revision strategies and not the students success at responding to corrective feedback received on one draft of one essay from one source. During peer-assessment activities classmates might find it useful to submit a students writing to the Virtual Writing Tutor to see if the revision strategy was used and which suggestions were ignored. In this way, a teacher can put the following question on a peer-assessment grid:  Has the writer eliminated all major errors from his or her writing?  Such a question teaches all learners in the class to be judicious consumers of corrective feedback for life. Power Tools for Teachers Just as learners will have to become judicious consumers of automated corrective feedback, teachers will have to reassess their old approach to hand-coding errors. There is nothing about the Virtual Writing Tutor that prevents teachers from continuing their practice of giving hand-coded feedback. However, like a master builder with a new power saw, ESL teachers will have to reflect carefully on when to pull this new power tool out of the toolbox and when to do things the old-fashioned way. Heres why: 1.     The VWT is fast, really fast. 2.     It provides error correction upon demand 24/7. 3.     It can provide feedback on multiple drafts of text, not just the first and last draft. 4.     It can explain at length the nature of the error, something human teachers dont have time or space in the margins for. 5.     It displays links to specific resources and remedial activities to help learners eliminate errors from future writing. 6.     It is available to students and non-students alike, supporting lifelong learning. 7.     It is completely free for teachers and their students to use. However 8.     It provides unfocused feedback, correcting every error it finds without regard to the learners readiness. 9.     It generates false alarms, suggesting unnecessary corrections or providing explanations that dont always make sense. 10.  It still misses lots of errors. Get InvolvedStay in Touch Of course, the Virtual Writing Tutor is  a work in progress. If you are an ESL teacher and would like to help me make the VWT better, please Suggest a New Error or Report a False Alarm using the email utility provided or by leaving a message on my  Facebook wall or by posting a comment on my  blog. I would love to hear from you, and your feedback will help me provide the ESL world with better corrective feedback. Please follow and like us:

10 of the Best American Colleges for Studying a Foreign Language

10 of the Best American Colleges for Studying a Foreign Language These days, were all pretty excited about all the new ways that are popping up to learn languages online.And for good reasonâ€"who wouldnt want to become fluent without ever having to change out of their pajamas?But if youre going to learn a language in a more formal way, there are worse places to do it than a college campus.The right college can give you everything you need to build a sophisticated knowledge of both the language you want to learn and the culture associated with it from the ground up. Experienced teachers, motivated classmates and piles of easy-to-access resources are all in one place!Whether youre looking to major in multiple languages and kick off a career as a heavy-hitting translator or just looking to take some classes on the side, some college language programs are going to give you more to work with than others.Heres what you should know when picking a college to study a foreign language, including what to pay attention to when making your decision and ten sta ndout programs to get you started. What to Look for When Choosing a College to Study a Foreign LanguageThe first thing to look at in any foreign language department youre interested in is their bread-and-butter: what languages do they offer?You should be able to find a list on the schools website. Importantly, you want to check which languages are offered continuously and which are only taught occasionally. The languages at the core of their program will be the ones they have full-time faculty for.The next thing to pay attention to is how the languages are actually taught. For example, some schools will have immersion programs  you can sign up for. If youre going to major in a language, you also want to look at the requirements to see what it all  actually entails.Finally, research any additional perks and resources the school offers. Do they have a language center that hosts events? What are their study abroad opportunities like?Looking at both the core of their program and the e xtra resources that make that school special should give you a good overview. And if you want to really get a clear picture, nothing beats an in-person visit!What to Do If You Wish You Were a College Student But Youre NotEver wish you were in college again? If not, you probably will by the time youre done reading about all the language learning resources these schools give their students.Thats okay! While its true that many of the features that make these programs unique are only accessible to students enrolled full-time in the schools, in many cases elements of the program will also be open to the public. Look into all of the following possibilities:Can you audit a course or take a summer course?Are there special courses like summer immersion programs that are open to the public?Are some of the services provided through the language program, like workshops, non-credit courses and digital tools, open to the public?Can you take distance learning or extension classes?Even if you arent a college student, universities tend to be pretty into the free exchange of ideas and all that, so you might find you still have access to some of these resources.10 of the Best American Colleges for Studying a Foreign LanguageMiddlebury CollegeLocation:  Middlebury, VermontMiddlebury is well-known among language learners for its Language Schools, which provide an intensely immersive summer language learning environment.Based on that, you might expect Middlebury College proper to be a good place to learn a language, and the school doesnt disappoint. Their first-rate program covers 11 languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.It also includes partnerships with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where you can complete an accelerated Middlebury/Monterey BA/MA, and the Middlebury C.V. Star Schools Abroad, where you can take your language studies overseas.University of California, Los AngelesLocation: Los Angeles, CaliforniaUCLA isnt just a big school in a major U.S. city. Its also a language learning hub.They offer a diverse array of languages that would make most language departments green with envy. Thought you couldnt study Armenian, Quechua, Uzbek and Yoruba in college? Turns out you were wrong!Their Center for World Languages provides a rich collection of language learning resources, including everything from an online database of learning material for 150+ less commonly taught languages to an Italian library and  foreign language teaching workshops.And because second language acquisition is one of the Center for World Languagess research focuses, innovative language learning techniques are always making their way into UCLAs classrooms.University of Wisconsinâ€"MadisonLocation: Madison, WisconsinBy the numbers alone, UW-Madison produces more language majors a year than any other U.S. university. During their time at the school, these students have access to an impressive colle ction of language learning resources, including classes in over 40 languages and study abroad programs  with ties to over 60 countries.UW-Madison boasts an impressive  26 conversation tables  that meet regularly during the school year, so you  can have  casual conversations outside of class in a relaxed environment.Theres also the Language Institute, a center for research, career advising, interdisciplinary studies and the federally funded Russian Flagship Program.Cornell UniversityLocation: Ithaca, New YorkCornell offers classes in languages ranging from Akkadian to Zulu. Altogether, there are 52 languages offered, including 31 that can be taken for at least two years.The schools Language Resource Center is home to a media library as well as a language lab. It also hosts talks related to language learning, many with an interdisciplinary bent.In the past, a distinguishing aspect of Cornell has been its immersion programs in Asian languages, most recently its summer Mandarin intensiv e. Although the future of these offerings is unclear, Cornells language program in general remains very strong.Harvard UniversityLocation: Cambridge, MassachusettsIts no Middlebury, but Harvard still isnt too shabby. Case in point: It has courses in 80+ languages, more than any other U.S. college.The schools Language Resource Center has a space for watching international TV (armchairs included!), screening rooms and a computer center. And if these on-campus resources arent enough, you can also get a discounted Rosetta Stone subscription through the school.Indiana UniversityLocation: Bloomington, IndianaIndiana teaches a dazzling array of foreign languages and has the Center for Language Technology, which puts together regular workshops, conversation hours and festivals for language learners.The school also hosts more Language Flagship Programs  than any other U.S. universityâ€"programs that combine one-on-one tutoring, group instruction, immersive environments and interdisciplinary work to help students reach ACTFL Superior proficiency within four years.University of PennsylvaniaLocation: Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaLike other top language schools, University of Pennsylvania offers a competitive selection of languages.More unique to the program is the Penn Language Center. Through the center, you can request a language tutor or become one yourself, and you can take proficiency assessments.If you have an interest in sign language, business or medical professions, you can also sign up for specialized language courses in those areas.Stanford UniversityLocation: Stanford, CaliforniaStanford stresses that because their program is all about becoming proficient, it emphasizes doing rather than knowing. Much of this doing happens with the help of the Digital Language Lab, which administers spoken and written testsâ€"including the Simulated Oral Proficiency Interviews students take to graduate.Stanford students also have easy access to a rich array of study abroad opport unities, and 50 percent (!) of Stanford students have studied overseas by the time they graduate.University of California, BerkeleyLocation: Berkeley, CaliforniaBesides taking courses and potentially majoring in one of almost 70 languages, students at UC-Berkeley can supplement their studies with a minor in Applied Languages to gain an understanding of how people learn languages and how languages interact with their broader cultural context.Meanwhile, the Berkeley Language Center is a dynamic hub of learning and research. Some of the centers activities include publishing a journal, putting on a series of workshops and curating a collection of foreign language film clips for students.Yale UniversityLocation: New Haven, Connecticut Unlike its rival Harvard, Yale offers a mere 53 languages. But foreign language students at Yale arent left out in the cold. The Center for Language Study runs a thriving tutoring program and courses in special purpose languages like medical Chinese and med ical Spanish.Plus, if the language youre interested in isnt one of the 53, you can apply to receive up to four semesters of funding and support for outside study through the Directed Independent Language Study program.All of these ten schools provide excellent environments for language learning, but each school has a slightly different emphasis, so youll want to do as much research as possible on the programs youre interested in.For example, all the schools have language centers, but some of the centers are more research-oriented, some offer tutoring, some hold events and workshops, etc. Likewise, all the schools have study abroad opportunities, but each school will have a slightly different catalogue of study abroad options.And the school thats the best fit for you may not even be on this list!In the end, if you know what your priorities are, keep an open mind and do your research, you probably wont go wrong. And One More ThingIf youre looking for extra support to supplement your college language classes, or if youre looking to get a head start on a future language major, youll love using FluentU. FluentU makes it possible to learn languages  from music videos, commercials, news and inspiring talks.With FluentU, you learn real languagesâ€"the same way that natives  speak them. FluentU has a wide variety of videos like movie trailers, funny commercials and web series, as you can see here:FluentU App Browse Screen.FluentU has interactive captions that let you tap on any word to see an image, definition, audio and useful examples. Now native language content is within reach with interactive transcripts.Didnt catch something? Go back and listen again. Missed a word? Hover your mouse over the subtitles to instantly view definitions.Interactive transcript for Carlos Baute song.You can learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentUs learn mode. Swipe left or right to see  more examples for the word you’re learning.FluentU Has Quizzes for Every VideoAnd Fluen tU always keeps track of vocabulary that you’re learning. It uses that vocab to give you a 100% personalized experience by recommending videos and examples.Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet  or, better yet,  download the FluentU app from  the iTunes store  or Google Play store.