April 2004 Archives

We have added stemming functions to the database used by the Word Checker. This means that if you search for, say, a plural of a word, then the program will recognise that your search is derived from the base form of the word.

In the Word Checker we have added to the site, you can see whether a word is in the 2,000 most common words in the Brown Corpus.

We have recently added a Word Checkerto the site, which will look up a word or phrase against our databases of grammatical and lexical information. One of the things it will show is whether the word appears in the Dolch basic word list.

There has been some discussion about 'Open Source Teaching' recently. As I understand it, the idea is to build vast databases of reusable computer resources. I would like to suggest two other possible ways of doing this.

We have a selection of printables (handouts that teachers can use in the classroom). These are freely available.

Tutorials on the English Language is an area being worked on at the moment, as is Speaking Out.

Tests in the Members' Area are to include more comments.

There has been endless talk about the dumbing down of education, but little about how far up the educational ladder this decline has got, with most of the scorn saved for courses like Media Studies and arguments about why training courses have been awarded degree status.