Tips and tools for EFL and ESL learners: spell checking online (TT-01)

Posted on August 30, 2007
Filed under Listening, Upper intermediate, Writing skills, videocasts |

 
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Transcript Hi, Lori here, welcoming you to tips and tools for ESL and EFL learners, from betteratenglish.com. This episode marks our first videocast, so those of you who have video iPods can listen and watch. If you have feedback or questions for us, you can email them to info [AT] BetterAtEnglish [DOT] com or stop by our forum, which you can find at www.betteratenglish.com/forum.

Today’s topic: spelling and spell checkers.

Judging from the email I get from many of my students, it seems as if some of them have a “who cares?” attitude toward spelling in email. Sometimes their spelling is so bad that I can tell right away that they didn’t even bother run a spell checker. :roll:

Maybe spelling doesn’t seem important anymore because modern English language teaching often focuses on “successful communication” and “just getting your message across” rather than “boring” details like grammar and spelling. While this may help give learners confidence in their ability to use English to communicate effectively, there is a downside. The covert message is that spelling isn’t important anymore.

Good spelling is still important. Very important.

Yes, even in email. In fact, I’d say that it’s particularly important in email and online. Why? In the world of email and online communication, your spelling and language reflect who you are. If you use sloppy spelling in your online communications, people may not see through it to discover the brilliant, charming person that you are. This is particularly important for first impressions – say, when you’re writing an email to someone for the first time. When people read your email, not only will they be interested in your message; they’ll be trying to form an idea of who you are. And if your email is full of bad spelling, their first impression of you could well be that you are a loser.

mean teacherIs spelling really such a big deal? It can be. Remember the movie Forrest Gump? Well, writing to someone for the first time is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. And if you get someone like this, she’ll take one look at your bad spelling and careless mistakes and come to the conclusion that you are stupid (or careless or lazy).

Fortunately, there is some good news. Free tools are available, tools that make bad spelling piece of cake to fix. And they are really easy to use. In fact, it’s so easy to run a spell check these days that there really are no excuses.

Let’s look at some of the free spelling tools available for two of the most popular browsers, IE and Firefox. They will help you check your spelling in everything you write online: email, forums, comments on blogs, even filling in online forms. Of course, no spelling checker can fix ALL of your mistakes, but that’s still no reason NOT to use one. I estimate that using a spelling checker will catch a huge percentage of your errors.

First we’ll look at Internet Explorer, the most widely used browser today. There is a useful spelling and dictionary tool for version 5.0 or higher. It’s a plug-in called IE Spell, and you can download it at www.IEspell.com. Once you’ve installed it, it works in a similar way to the spelling checker in MS Word.

In addition to a spelling checker, IE spell also has a cool dictionary look-up function. When you are reading text online and come across a word you don’t know, you can simply right click on it to look it up in a variety of online dictionaries.

Moving on now to add-ons available for Mozilla Firefox. Now, I have to take a moment to rave about Firefox. Firefox freaking rocks. If you are not using it already, you should be. It is so much better than IE that I don’t even know where to start. You owe it to yourself to at least try it.

Why am I so keen on Firefox? It’s got tons of free language tools and useful add-ons, it’s safer than IE, and it’s not Microsoft.

Some of Firefox’s useful language tools for EFL and ESL learners include a spelling checker for multiple languages – you can switch between languages with the click of a mouse; it’s also got lots of different dictionary look-up plug-ins and translation tools in many languages. The Firefox browser and add-ons are all available for free download at www.mozilla.com.

For those of you who are web savvy, this is probably all you need to know to get started with spell checking in IE or Firefox. If you need more guidance or help downloading or installing these spelling tools, feel free to stop by our forum and ask for help.

Remember, checking your spelling can make a huge difference in how people perceive you in your emails. It only takes a minute to check your spelling, and I promise you, people will think that you rock for doing it.

That’s all for this time. We encourage you to check out our podcast and forum at www.BetterAtEnglish.com where we offer free help for EFL and ESL learners. Bye for now!

Links
IE Spell download page
Firefox download page
Dictionary Search add-on for Firefox)
Multi-language spelling dictionaries for Firefox.

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Comments

14 Responses to “Tips and tools for EFL and ESL learners: spell checking online (TT-01)”

  1. pringles024 on August 31st, 2007 16:26

    i luv better at english,i learned a lot..more power lori n michael :razz: :smile:

  2. Oleszka on September 1st, 2007 13:03

    Thank you for article!
    By the way I like the Firefox browser too and use spelling checker there. Everyone should try it! :razz:

  3. Behnam on September 10th, 2007 13:36

    Dear Madam,
    Thank you for your useful blog. Thank you once again for your efforts to teach us English. As you know perfectly well, the meaning of a sentence often depends on stress and intonation. So, it is very important to learn the rules of stress in a sentence.
    Would you please give me some practical tips about learning stress and pronunciation.
    Looking forward to hearing from you.
    Yours Faithfully,
    Behnam September 10, 2007

  4. Behnam on September 10th, 2007 18:10

    Dear Madam,
    Thank you for all you have done. Thank you very much indeed.
    Yours faithfully,
    Behnam, Iran

  5. GermanTester on September 13th, 2007 17:13

    In my opinion the most important reason why you should try to spell correctly is that you seem to be impolite to the reader of your message.
    The reader of your message could think he or she is so unimportant to you that you don’t invest any time to spell correctly.
    That could be one reason why he or she is not interested in being nice to you.
    But perhaps you need to engage his or her sympathy for you.

    Sincerely yours, GermanTester
    …who hopes that he didn’t made (m)any mistakes in spelling or grammar

  6. idiosyncratic idiot on October 11th, 2007 16:49

    Very interesting, spot on article. I, for one, learned written English, and I’m still striving to acquire fluency; but I believe this is the reverse situation of most learners.

    I particularly liked the bit on Firefox :wink: . As you said, Firefox freakin’ rocks!

    You’re doing a great work here, congrats.

  7. Rafael Arnoni on November 19th, 2007 06:56

    Wonderful!
    I’m from Brazil and I’m an English teacher. I didn’t know about your site and I loved your video! I still have a lot to learn!! Your site is really cool!
    What GermanTester said is true and it’s happened to me once. I wrote a friend from Slovenia an e-mail and, at the end of it I said I wasn’t going to reread it. I didn’t mean for him to be offended, but I guess he was, a bit.
    He said that I shouldn’t have mentioned that and it could seem the person who was receiving the email might think he/she wasn’t worth my time.
    Lori’s completely right. We mustn’t be careless when writing. It reflects who we are, indeed!

    Best regards!
    Rafa

  8. sandman on January 8th, 2008 08:25

    Dear Lori,
    I really appreciate all you have done. It helped me a lot. now my accent is better and I learned more words. i would greatly appreciate it if you would add new lessons soon. I’ve been opening this website almost everyday waiting on the new lesson.

    thak you in advance,
    Saleh

  9. Vali Allen on January 18th, 2008 22:03

    :razz: Dear Lory,
    I would like to thank you for your work!
    I’m italian and as you maybe know here in Italy the study of English is not promoted as it should!So all sort of help like podcast or blog like yours and other free resurces is very appreciated by all the people who want to improve their english!
    Sorry for my bad spelling, but I promise to get better in the future!

  10. Wen Qu Ph.D. on January 23rd, 2008 01:24

    Hi,

    I like your podcasts, thanks for your time and hard work.

    I noticed the podcasts hadn’t been updated for a long period of time, does this mean you discontinued the program?

    Hope you are doing great now. If you need any help, let us know please.

    Thanks.

    Wen

  11. DJ on April 26th, 2008 16:57

    HELLO LORI…………..

  12. moep on May 11th, 2008 22:45

    why do you no longer continue with your podcast? :shock:

  13. Norman on June 9th, 2008 09:07

    Is this cool site dead now ? no entries for months :(

  14. Wolf on June 13th, 2008 09:33

    Awwwww, your voice is so SEXY! Love ya!

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