Spelling and Grammar
In the sections on spelling and grammar, it is possible to drill the skills of correct writing in literary language. The topics are chosen to cover the most common spelling and grammar student mistakes. These were determined based on the analysis of the Šolar corpus, which contains school essays and teacher corrections. The topics were additionally complemented based on the survey of teachers who participated in the Slovene in the Palm of Your Hand (Slovenščina na dlani) project.
The spelling and grammar exercises are designed in such a way that students can use the e-environment on their own, even without teacher guidance. This enables them to use the e-environment as independently as possible, while at the same time relieving the teachers. The e-environment therefore includes:
- a high degree of automation and individualization of exercises (the computer guides the user through the exercises so that they can quickly complete the content they have already mastered and spend more time practicing the content in which their knowledge is insufficient),
- automatic feedback on the success of completed exercises (the user does not have to wait for the teacher's corrections since the computer shows this information simultaneously).
To carry out the exercises, we rely on a text corpus. Proofread texts of appropriate linguistic quality from topics of interest to young people were collected - the MAKS corpus. On the basis of these texts, computer algorithms were defined, and thus we can select suitable examples of sentences from the corpus and use them for the implementation of exercises.
Grammar and spelling exercises are fully automated and are adapted to the needs of the individual user. They are divided into three difficulty levels: basic, intermediate and advanced. At the basic level, error recognition is foreseen (e.g., by choosing, searching, and marking the correct answer). In intermediate tasks, the user must not only recognize the errors but also eliminate them (e.g., by correcting, moving, inserting). The most demanding tasks, however, require a justification of why a certain solution is correct or incorrect.
If students have problems solving the exercises, they can use the ‘Help’ icon to find the explanation to a certain exercise.
Spelling Topics
comma and other punctuation marks
upper-case and lower-case initials
writing together, apart or hyphenated
more difficult cases of writing
Grammar topics
noun
adjective
verb
pronoun
preposition
conjunction
word order
Objectives
Improving writing skills in literary Slovene (starting point: error analysis in the Šolar corpus).
Teaching the content that seems more challenging for students.
The possibility for students to use the e-environment independently, even without the intervention and guidance of a teacher.
Relieving the work of teachers.
Advantages
Up to 500 different examples for each exercise.
Difficulty levels.
Individualization of exercises (considering the prior knowledge and needs of each user).
Theoretical explanations that provide immediate help in solving exercises.
High level of automation.
Automatic evaluation of answers and real-time feedback on the performance based on the solved exercises.
Automatic gathering of authentic examples from the supporting, manually reviewed MAKS corpus (MlAdinski KorpuS), which includes current texts on the topics of interest to young people.
Task Types
Choosing the correct answer.
Inserting commas, punctuation marks and words in the correct places.
Inserting the correct word forms.
Correcting misplaced commas.
Copying the text while considering capital letters.
Adding justifications
Finding answers.