DIGITAL TOOLS TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS
Hello, Hello Everyone….
Before we get started, let’s read a quote from one of my favorite books and check how much we understand:
«We can experience nothing but the present moment, live in no other second of time, and to understand this is as close as we can get to eternal life.»
The Children of Men, Author: P.D. James, Year: 1992
Wow! Who wouldn’t like to write like that? Well, we know these are sophisticated and stylish quotes written by professionals but come on, haven’t you ever struggled to write at least a decent love letter? OK, let’s not get romantic but, how about an email at work, a report for the end of the month, or even more casual “whatsapping” with your friends in English, or getting into academic matters, writing essays for international exams?
Writing is one of the big challenges when you are learning English. As all we know, the purpose of this blog is to HELP you all, teachers and students to improve more and more every time.
So, this time, we’ll give you some tools and tips to become an effective writer without getting too frustrated in the process.
- Expanding your vocabulary is the first thing to do on this list. The more vocabulary you know, the better you express yourself. Remember…vocabulary also implies being a Spelling Master.
- Do you want to be coherent and cohesive? Improving your grammar is definitely important; nothing makes it easier to understand a text than some lovely good grammar in it.
- Get into reading in English a lot, there are lots of material that you may be interested in. Reading is the best way to learn how to write properly.
- Find your space, look for some inspiration and start writing…
Finally, let´s get to the most exciting part of this article, our research share for some very exciting digital tools to improve your writing:
- If you’re into Blogging, webs like Live Journal, Edublog, Blogger, allow you to create blogs for free. Teachers can get students to write about specific topics that they find interesting, or students can provide comments on current events and social issues.
- ePals, http://www.epals.com is a great way to practice English writing and reading comprehension skills, while making friends in the process.
- Rewordify, which allows students to paste a link and get back a version with simpler words and sentence constructions.
- Writer’s Challenge is a game-based app designed by SCVisuais that is meant to spark creative ideas for writers of all sorts. After pressing Start, the app gives you your very first prompt. After that, it will feed you additional prompts at timed intervals. Use these prompts to generate new ideas, build characters and dialogue, and create settings for your story scenes.
- Oflow is one of the many apps out there designed to help you get unstuck and move forward with your best ideas. You can set daily creativity reminders, keep notes, and bookmark your favorite ideas. You can even share ideas with colleagues and friends by email, Twitter, and Facebook. Oflow is also compatible with Evernote.
That´s it for now! See you in our next article…
