english

The ability to write in plain English without making grammatical, spelling, and punctuation mistakes is what distinguishes an effective writer from others. Many years ago, one could rely solely on their writing skills, good command of grammar, and mental acuity to produce high quality writings. But now there are plenty of special tools and applications that help students, editors, content makers, and ordinary people whose life isn't connected with writing effectively communicate various ideas without spending countless hours on proofreading. Such magic tools are called spell checkers. With a good spell check at hand you can quickly identify typos in your documents, remove grammar mistakes, replace a misspelled word with a proper equivalent, and do lots of other things to improve your writing and make it error-free. But there are also some downsides to using spell-check software you should take note of. So, let's take a closer look at both advantages and drawbacks of using spell checkers.

Benefits

The ability to write in plain English without making grammatical, spelling, and punctuation mistakes is what distinguishes an effective writer from others. Many years ago, one could rely solely on their writing skills, good command of grammar, and mental acuity to produce high quality writings. But now there are plenty of special tools and applications that help students, editors, content makers, and ordinary people whose life isn't connected with writing effectively communicate various ideas without spending countless hours on proofreading. Such magic tools are called spell checkers. With a good spell check at hand you can quickly identify typos in your documents, remove grammar mistakes, replace a misspelled word with a proper equivalent, and do lots of other things to improve your writing and make it error-free. But there are also some downsides to using spell-check software you should take note of. So, let's take a closer look at both advantages and drawbacks of using spell checkers.

Benefits

Last week an article on the education section of the Guardian website questioned the suitability of the current English language tests for international students coming to study in the UK. Here, Erik- a Slovakian student living in London, gives his response to the article and the issue as a whole.

"It is very difficult, I would say impossible, to find an objective language test. Some phonetic and cultural aspects of a language can be learned only through extended interaction with the target community. Therefore, I think the best way would be to allow the students into the target community and evaluate their performance after several weeks. If it turns out that they cannot keep up with the workload because of the communication gap- they failed the language test. Regardless of their potential, they also have to prove a certain level of English proficiency.

However, such authentic testing is simply infeasible. The standardized tests were created, to offer equal conditions for everyone and they should make sure that the successful candidates are able to use English to a certain level. But no test can replace real life.