1. Grammarly: An Online Grammar
Checker
Instructional Tool Review
George Shamshayooadeh
2. Institutional Context
Immigrant and Generation 1.5 Students
placed into
(Spanish dominant & English dominant
speakers):
1. Developmental English Composition Class
2. Freshman English Composition Class
Writing and Grammar issues that need to be
addressed
3. Grammar: The Sticky Issue
University-Wide Assessment – Students’
performance in grammar, punctuation, and
style lagging
Needs to be addressed, but many instructors
don’t like to teach it – “the non-interventionist
approach”
Instructor feedback on student papers has
had mixed results at best
Is time-consuming and uninteresting to many
students and some teachers
Common understanding of grammar as a set
of prescriptive rules at the sentence level
4. New Approach to Grammar
Instruction
Teaching grammatical issues in context (textual
approach)
“Grammar is not unidimensional and
meaningless; it embodies the three dimensions of
morphosyntax (form), semantics (meaning), and
pragmatics (use).” (Larsen-Freeman 2)
Teaching Standard English Grammar (SEG)
should be sold to students as learning an
important language style/register that they would
add to their linguistic repertoire and marketability
13. Final Analysis
Provides students with instant
feedback/suggestions to edit their papers
Flexible and available anytime/anywhere
Improves the final presentation of student
papers
It has its limitations as a software though
(inform students about its limitations)
For Instructors:
Frees teacher’s time to focus on the rhetorical
and content-related issues of writing (global
issues)
14. Free Grammarly Resources
Grammarly Handbook
http://handbook.grammarly.com
A virtual grammar handbook that describes various
grammatical rules and offers examples of correct and
incorrect use. The rules are broken down into different
categories that make the site user-friendly. It also shares
ideas on academic writing, composition, style, and editing.
Grammarly Answers
http://answers.grammarly.com/
Grammarly Answers is a free service where users can ask
and answer any question related to English grammar and
writing. Any person can ask for help there and receive an
answer. Additionally, users can try to answer questions
themselves and improve their English through explaining
concepts to others.