My thoughts on the 'Check My Words' toolbar

Earlier today I downloaded the 'Check My Words' toolbar to my computer with no problems. Once you have opened up Microsoft Word (2007 version) you can find it by clicking the Add-ins tab at the top of the screen.

To put 'Check My Words' to the test, I first typed up one of my students' pieces of writing which he had done recently, using Microsoft Word. In his writing task, the student (primary six level) was asked to respond to the question, "What would you do with HK$500 if it were given to you for your birthday?" with an essay of at least thirty words. This is what he came up with:

If I have HK$50 I think I will buy the mp3 give my friend Louis because he like listen music. I with buy the Harry Potter because I have Harry Potter one, two, three, four, five but I not have Harry Potter six so i buy it.

Imagining that I were in my student's shoes, I highlighted certain words which I felt I would need help on and clicked on the 'check' tool. For example, when I highlighted 'like' and clicked on 'check', a comprehensive list of common and potential errors pertaining to the use of this word appeared on the left hand side of the information screen. The only trouble is, if I did not know (and my student would definitely not know) the grammatical terms 'subject-verb agreement'. 'infinitives and gerunds' then I would have to wade through all this and other information, spending a huge amount of time to pick out what was necessary in order for me to be able to correct my written phrase 'he like listen music'.

The 'Say It!' tool is much more useful for primary level students. When I highlighted the whole essay and clicked 'Say It!', an American-sounding speaker accurately reproduced the words remarkably smoothly. I suppose it would be useful to use the tool during occasions where students have to read aloud essays, poems and so forth and need to know the exact pronunciation of certain words, phrases or even sentences in some cases. Just a minor point - I like the way the speaker pauses each time there is a comma in the text (contrast 'Mum said I am clever.' with 'Mum said, "I am clever.") Pity it doesn't work so well with exclamation marks.

The 'Definitions' tool provides a list of all the possible meanings of a highlighted word, drawn from various online dictionaries (you can choose which one). A link to an online bilingual dictionary would be more useful for primary six students in my opinion.

The 'Similar Meanings' tool is like a thesaurus - great for providing students with lists of alternatives to words that they have written (synonyms). It displays the opposites of those words (antonyms) as well.

The 'Word Family' tool tells you the parts of speech of a highlighted word and its related family of words (e.g. like has likes, liked, unlike, liking, etc.) as well as a rating that indicates its importance or how common it appears in writing or speech.

The 'Word combinations' tool can benefit students' writing immensely because it tells them whether a string of words can be used together. After highlighting 'like listen' in the essay above and clicking the tool, I was presented with eight example sentences containing 'like listening' on the Word Neighbors webpage. This is more than enough to convince me that my written combination of words needs correcting. A useful link on the webpage is an embedded English-Chinese translation tool.

I have nothing to say about the 'Example Sentences' tool as it is self-explanatory.

It appears, then, that the 'Check My Words' toolbar has been developed with university-level students in mind, though I can see that some of the inbuilt tools can be used even with upper primary level students. It goes without saying that if you are going to introduce your students to the various resources available in the 'Check My Words' toolbar, you'd better make sure that they can use Microsoft Word comfortably. In my case, I very much doubt that my primary six students have any typing experience whatsoever (in English, that is), let alone have experience of using Microsoft Word.

I can, however, imagine how the tools can be of enormous benefit to advance level students at college or university level, particularly those who are enthusiastic about grammar!