Imagine a website that could help students write better essays with automated feedback. Now imagine the same website but with additional commenting tools to help people record audio comments and rate each other’s essays using IELTS and TOEFL rubrics and comments. There you have it: an essay checker for the Virtual Writing Tutor. That’s what
Read on »Features
Silent Letters: Pronunciation Made Easy
English is semi-phonetic, which means that the way a word is spelled can give clues to its pronunciation but can also be quite misleading. Often, the pronunciation of a word can be very different to what you might predict based on its spelling. One way English is semi-phonetic is the use of silent letters. Silent
Read on »Walk-me-through the Main Features
You may have noticed the latest addition to the Virtual Writing Tutor grammar checker main page. It’s a short little walkthrough of the principal features of the grammar checker for newcomers. You only get to see it twice before it disappears forever. Why did we add it? The Problem One usability issue I see again
Read on »Easy Essay Outliner
Just fill out a form to create your outline. What could be easier? Are Essay Outlines Difficult for You? Not any more. We have broken down essay outlining into a series of easy steps. All you have to do is answer a few questions, make a few choices, and the Virtual Writing Tutor builds your
Read on »How to Create a Pen Pal Exchange on the Virtual Writing Tutor
Click here to start a Pen Pal Exchange Click here to read about the features on the Pen Pal Exchange Step 1: Click on “Templates.” Click “New” to create a template from scratch. Give your template a descriptive name. Pen pals will see the name on their dashboards. If you want to try a ready-made
Read on »Pen Pal Exchange Project
Useful links on the pen pals: Start a Pen Pal Exchange project for students on the Virtual Writing Tutor. For instructions on how to create a pen pal exchange for your students, check out these step-by-step pen pal exchange creation instructions for teachers. Learn about the pedagogical value of pen pal exchanges here. Click here
Read on »Membership advantages
Members can check 3000 words at a time, save text and feedback, translate feedback into 70 languages, create hypertext narratives and essay outlines, send PDFs with voice recordings, track errors, play error correction games, post essays to forums for additional feedback, with more features on their way. Features Non-member *Signed-in Member Price Ad-supported Ad-supported, zero
Read on »Target Structure Checker
Target Structures Optimal second language pedagogy involves a repeating exchange of meaningful messages with a focus on target structures. That is to say that teachers should provide learners with opportunities to create sentences, paragraphs, stories, essays, blog posts, articles or reports that are meaningful to the learner. They should express those messages to other learners,
Read on »Word Counter
How to Use the Word Counter on the Virtual Writing Tutor When you want to know how many words are in a particular text, paste the text into the text area and click the “Count Words” button. The system will count your words and sentences, and calculate your average sentence length. The text you enter
Read on »Get Help from the Community on the Grammar Checker Forum
New Grammar Checker Forum The Virtual Writing Tutor has added a community forum to its free grammar checker. Post your text, tell the community what kind of help you need, and benefit from the free proofreading service that the community can provide. You can get help with your grammar, spelling, punctuation, and structure. It costs nothing
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