Digital Literacy – English for study

Hi there, just finishing off an email…

just a second.

"Students will follow the subjects

outlined in the course kurriculum."

Hmm… looks like I spelled

that word incorrectly.

Not to worry -

I'll just use my digital spellcheck -

Aha, that's the correct spelling:

c-u-r-r-i-c-u-l-u-m.

What a useful tool the spellchecker is.

I would have looked very silly if I sent that

email with a misspelled word in it!

I remember my old English Teacher,

Mr Wordsmith, used

to get so angry

with me for my spelling!

And by sheer coincidence

that's what we are

going to look at today:

Digital tools to help you

with your English for studying.

We are so lucky

to be living in a digital society

where we can find lots of useful tools for

learning languages.

There are lots of tools online

or built into our digital devices that can

help us use language better in our studies.

After all, reading and writing clearly is

a massive part of your studies,

especially if you are using English

as a second language.

The spell check tool

that features in many websites

and word-processing applications

is really useful.

Let's see it in action:

I'll enter this word

but spell it incorrectly.

Ok, so there's an indication

that I have got the spelling wrong…

so now I can see some

suggestions. Yes, that's the correct spelling

of the word - I'll just select it

- and bingo! The word is correctly spelled.

If I don't want to accept it, I can ignore

it, or even add to the dictionary

so it won't happen again.

Top Tip: Remember spell-checkers

usually have dictionaries

for British and American English

so make sure you have the

right one selected!

Next up - grammar checker. See if you can

spot the grammar mistake

in this sentence.

Did you get it? Let's see what the grammar

checker says.

Yes, that's the problem,

so let's accept the correct version.

Fantastic!

Grammar checkers do sometimes get it wrong,

so you may have to check in a grammar book,

or on a grammar website.

You don't have to accept

what the grammar checker says:

ultimately, it's up to you.

These features are often built into computers,

smartphones and word processing software.

Now talking of software,

here's a useful thing to know.

Distance learners often need

to use office software

But I often use online software.

It's easy to use and best of all it's free!

And your documents are

saved online so you can

access them anywhere.

And you can also let other people work

on the same document -

great for working as a team with other learners!

It's quite usual for distance learners to

work collaboratively.

There are lots of benefits to this

as it helps you plan, share information

and check each other's work before submitting.

And your documents are saved online, so you

can access them anywhere.

Just remember to keep your

collaboration platforms secure,

and only let people you

trust have access.

There are a few more digital resources you

can use to help you with your studies.

If you want to find out the meaning of a word,

you can use an online dictionary.

And if you want to find an alternative word with the

same meaning, you can use an online thesaurus.

A thesaurus is a book or online database that

gives you words with similar meanings

so you can vary your language - so useful!

And if you want to use language suitable

for academic purposes,

there are lots of websites to help

you with this.

They have all the most useful words and

phrases you will need to write your coursework.

And so until the next time, goodbye –

or should I say farewell, so long,

see you later, adios!