Grammaropolis
Grammaropolis takes a narrative-based approach to teach the parts of speech, punctuation, and the parts of the sentence. The combination of traditional grammar instruction (definitions, examples, quizzes, etc.) and original, engaging, creative content (music videos, books, video shorts), has been designed to address students’ varied learning styles. By using the mechanics of character and story (plot, motivation, setting, etc.) to convey information, Grammaropolis provides an engaging solution to what is commonly a dull and tedious subject.
With its cartoon-y visuals and rudimentary topics, Grammaropolis is often used in younger elementary classrooms (K-3) as a primary curriculum. Teachers of grades 4-8 can use it as a supplement to their existing traditional grammar curriculum.
Whether you use the app or not, they've got a great YouTube channel with engaging songs and videos to introduce punctuation and grammar to students.
With its cartoon-y visuals and rudimentary topics, Grammaropolis is often used in younger elementary classrooms (K-3) as a primary curriculum. Teachers of grades 4-8 can use it as a supplement to their existing traditional grammar curriculum.
Whether you use the app or not, they've got a great YouTube channel with engaging songs and videos to introduce punctuation and grammar to students.
English Grammar 101
English Grammar 101 is an online learning program that includes 16 modules and over 250 lessons. Each module includes exercises, reviews, tests and quizzes. It is an ideal companion for both instructor-led learning environments such as language arts and ESL classes, and independent study.
Editing Apps
Grammarly in conjunction with social media sites, such as Twitter, and creating sites, such as Weebly, could be a powerful tool for students because it allows them to remain conscious of their mistakes while fixing them. For students who struggle to pen their thoughts in a foreign language, this can give them a bigger sense of security and motivate them to participate. Grammarly aims to pick up errors with grammar, punctuation and style. It picks up all those typical mistakes that native English speakers make. For example, its instead of it’s, their instead of there and general typos.
That being said, it is not designed to correct common mistakes for non-native speakers. Something to bear in mind is, on average, Grammarly finds 40% of the errors in non-native English. While it helps and can boost some confidence in correcting small errors, students shouldn't expect the app to leave them with perfect English sentences. Teachers can encourage and teach them to make an effort to check and edit their own work in addition to using apps like Grammarly.
Below is an example of a short text written by non-native speakers collected for a Medium article. The author showed the mistakes highlighted by Grammarly and the genuine number of mistakes, after being checked by a person.
That being said, it is not designed to correct common mistakes for non-native speakers. Something to bear in mind is, on average, Grammarly finds 40% of the errors in non-native English. While it helps and can boost some confidence in correcting small errors, students shouldn't expect the app to leave them with perfect English sentences. Teachers can encourage and teach them to make an effort to check and edit their own work in addition to using apps like Grammarly.
Below is an example of a short text written by non-native speakers collected for a Medium article. The author showed the mistakes highlighted by Grammarly and the genuine number of mistakes, after being checked by a person.
While it is important not to be overly reliant on it, Google Translate can also be a decent spelling and grammar checker. All you have to do is cut and paste a phrase in one language and translate it to another. Students could even hear the translated phrase repeated back to them. Again, it isn't meant to be a perfect translation, but it does help improve understanding in the language and is more accurate than most other applications.