Word Processors' Grammar and Spelling Assistance: Consequences for Second Language Learning and Teaching

Office 2003's Microsoft Word processor includes right click spell checkers, thesauruses, dictionaries, grammar checks, synonym look-ups. These components do no help beginning, intermediate or even advanced second language students to compose correct sentences and texts. In fact, they confuse many native speakers--like me for example. I include me in the class of "Some writer who prefer not to use a comma before a non-restrictive clause beginning with 'which'".  

Other issues include quantifiers. For instance "Most" and "Many" often precede adjectives. The sentence "Comma usage is one of the most complex and misunderstood questions" sounds  good to me;

" Comma usage is one of the most complexes, and most misunderstood, questions" does not sound good to me. Comma usage is one of the most complex, and most misunderstood, questions of proper punctuation.

• Sentence Structures;
• Paragraph Structures;
• Subject-verb Agreement;
• Tense;
• Modal Auxiliaries;
• Conjunctions;
• Articles;
• Prepositions;
• Punctuation.

Furthermore, we teach 'Academic Style', i.e. no contractions, no colloquialisms, no idioms, and the avoidance of impersonal constructions, as far as possible.

According to previous research carried out at NUL (c.f. Fandrych 1999, in print), some of the problem areas for students at tertiary level are:

• quantity instead of quality: unnecessary repetition and a general tendency to produce long-winded explanations;
• errors in style (contractions, colloquialisms etc.);
• problems with sentence structures;
• problems with punctuation;
• no editing/proof-reading;
• students are not used to looking up spellings, collocations, usages; instead, they 'improvise', and they often confuse words, e.g. conflict - convict, conduct - consult;
• sentences starting with again, also etc. ;
• problems with tenses, modes;
• problems with articles;
• wrong use of whereby;
• spelling errors, partly due to lack of phonetic distinction: tend/turn, this/these, hash/harsh; mader (for 'murder'); penulty, pinishment, lithal, nagetive; crimminals, limmit;
• redundancy, e.g. all the remaining others, can be able to, convincingly argue and convince us, decreases or diminishes;
• omission of 'to be' in attributive phrases.

I suggest that tools > options panel. 'Check spelling as you type', 'Check grammar as you type', and 'Always suggest corrections' be unticked. "Hide grammatical errors in this document" should be ticked.

• Capitalization ticked.
• Commonly confused words unticked.
• Numbers (are numeric acceptable for one or two digit numbers? How important is it?
• Passive sentences (untick—especially for technical writing)
• Subject-verb agreement is not 100% accurate. Untick. I feel a second language learner should develop an ear not an eye for what is correct.
• In terms o: consider other functions:
• Clichés
• Colloquialisms
• Contractions
• Gender-specific words
• Jargon
• Sentences beginning with And, But, Hopefully, Also, Again,
• Unclear phrasing
• Wordiness
• Comma before last item
• Punctuation with quotes
• Spaces between sentences
• Split infinitives