Home » Publications » Nicholas Walker
Real Life Stories
Published May 30, 2010
Moodle can do a better job providing corrective feedback on writing errors than hand coding on MS Word through a repurposing of the standard glossary.
English (Second Language)
Articles
Published January 14, 2020
It’s the week before the beginning of the semester and you are finalizing your course plan. How many writing assignments will you assign this semester? Will you assign one midterm essay and one final essay like your colleagues, or will you assign more?
English (Second Language)
Articles
Published May 17, 2018
You probably already know that grammar checkers have come a long way in terms of coverage and eliminating pesky false-alarms. I previously highlighted 10 benefits of using such a grammar checker, the Virtual Writing Tutor, with students. This follow-up article focuses on an additional 8 fresh new learning tools, which seem to have been sent back from the future. It is impressive what a little artificial intelligence can now do for ESL learners. Here is a short list that is sure to contain at least a few surprises.
English (Second Language)
Articles
Published March 23, 2018
When students went on strike in 2012, a colleague and I used the extra time to launch a free online grammar checker website for our English Second Language college students. Now, after 6 years of development, the Virtual Writing Tutor is in its third incarnation. To see some of its evolution, see earlie stories about the development of this grammar checker published on Profweb in 2013. Better-looking, more powerful, and more accurate than ever before, it has attracted the interest of researchers and has corrected the writing of nearly a million learners from 211 countries. Here are 10 reasons why ESL teachers should consider using the Virtual Writing Tutor grammar checker with their college ESL students.
Multidisciplinary
Real Life Stories
Published January 13, 2013
The Virtual Writing Tutor is a new and interesting online resource for computer-assisted error correction in English writing. Improving the quantity or frequency of feedback, as well as its timeliness, quality and detail, benefits students while reducing the time and tedium involved in correcting large numbers of assignments for teachers of ESL.
English (Second Language)