Having your language students work on their writing skills using word processors is a very effective way to help them develop both their language skills and their knowledge and comfort with using technology.  Apart from simply working on a piece of text, language learners can make use of several editing, feedback, and corrective features found in most decent word processors like Microsoft Word, Open Office, or Word Perfect.

I'm not going to write too much about this topic, as it isn't overly complicated.  You'll need to teach your ESL students about the functions (such as the spell checker), and encourage them to make use of them.  There are a few things to keep in mind however that are very important and need to be stressed to your students before they start using a spell checker, grammar checker or similar tool to help them in their writing.

They are NOT perfect for ESL students

Spell checkers, and even more so, grammar checkers can't be trusted completely.  Considering that the English language has over 2 million words, and most spell checker dictionaries have less than 200,000 words, there are a lot of gaps.  Very often technical words, names (of people & places), borrowed words (sushi for example) among other categories are simply not included in the spell checker and either turn up false positives, or completely skip words.

Additionally, a typing mistake like 'tents' for 'tense',  will not get flagged since both are perfectly correct English words.

They require human intervention

Because of the issues noted above, and others, proper use of a spell checker or grammar suggestion tool requires human intervention and attention.  Simply using the 'correct all' button will NOT give an error free text.  Luckily most word processors like MS Word allow you to manually add new terms and edit existing entries as you use it.  However this can be difficult for ESL learners since spelling is already an issue and they are using the spell checker to correct the spelling of words they are unsure of.  They need to be very aware of this and use the spell checker very carefully.

This problem is worse with grammar checkers.  I know I'll get some argument on this, but since grammar is a fluid thing, and ideas can be expressed with different grammar structures, correct grammar often get's flagged as being incorrect (MS Word's grammar checker for example simply HATES passive structures and flags them all the time as being poor structure).

So, by all means encourage your students to use the editing and feedback features in word processors.  They can certainly help them with their langauge learning.  However at the same time, be sure to take the time to instruct them on the dangers and how to use these features effectively and intelligently for their best progress.

Cheers,

Eric

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