Virtual Writing Tutor

The Virtual Writing Tutor is a comprehensive and powerful tool for improving writing skills. It offers a wide range of features to assist users in various aspects of the writing process. One of its key functions is grammar checking. Users can click the Check Grammar button, and the system will identify common punctuation errors, grammar mistakes, ESL grammar errors, false cognates, contextual spelling errors, and word choice errors. The results are presented below the text area, encouraging users to scroll down and actively engage with the correction advice, which is believed to enhance the learning and retention of the corrections. In addition to grammar checking, the Virtual Writing Tutor also provides other valuable services. It can score and check essays, offering formative feedback on a variety of writing assignments. It can estimate the user's CEFR level, IELTS score, TOEFL score, or CEGEP ESL level quickly and accurately by analyzing the vocabulary profile and grammar error density. The tool also offers IELTS speaking exam preparation, allowing users to select common topics, compose answers, check grammar, listen to text-to-speech pronunciation, and receive an instant evaluation of their pronunciation. Another notable feature is the ability to do a CEFR level check, analyzing the user's writing to calculate their English proficiency level. The Virtual Writing Tutor can also score IELTS and other essays, count words, check spelling, give feedback on grammar and punctuation errors, check paraphrasing, improve word choice, check for target structures, and help master English pronunciation. It is an opinion essay checker, film-analysis essay checker, argument essay checker, cover letter checker, IELTS essay checker, and self-scoring pen pal exchange system. The website offers a free membership option with certain limitations, while paid membership provides unlimited access to all features, including the ability to check 3000 words at a time, save text and feedback, translate feedback into 70 languages, create hypertext narratives and essay outlines, send PDFs with voice recordings, track errors, play error correction games, and post essays to forums for additional feedback. Soon, paid membership customers will also gain access to automatically scored speaking activities. The Virtual Writing Tutor has been found to accelerate learning by 44%, showing an impressive effect size. Students have reported enjoying the quick feedback and scoring on their film-analysis essays. The tool calculates band scores on Task 1 and Task 2 writing tests automatically, using a special method of quality detection called Latent Essay Feature Analysis (LEFA) and Model Essay Proximity Scoring (MEPS) to determine the similarity of the user's essay to the ideal response. While the accuracy of the system may vary slightly compared to a trained IELTS examiner, it provides valuable tips and corrections to help users continuously improve their writing. The Paragraph Checker feature can quickly identify errors in paragraphs, including punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and word choice errors. The Vocabulary Checker analyzes the user's vocabulary using a range of tools and provides feedback to improve word choice, increase the use of academic vocabulary, and eliminate clichés. It profiles the vocabulary in any piece of writing to determine the commonness of the word choice and the amount of academic vocabulary used. For those looking for alternatives to the Virtual Writing Tutor's vocabulary checker, Longman Vocabulary Checker and Lextutor.ca Vocabulary Profiler are suggested. The Virtual Writing Tutor is considered the best grammar check website for several reasons. It can detect errors that other systems might miss, reports errors below the text to enhance memory retention, and can identify various grammar issues such as run-on sentences, comma-splices, and dangling participles. Its grammar check is always free, and upgrading to access other services is an affordable option. Users can also embed a free grammar checker into a webpage or blog post using the provided iframe code. The primary goal of the Virtual Writing Tutor's grammar checker is to enhance ESL pedagogy. It fills the gap when teachers are not available, providing assistance to learners at any time. Language teachers can benefit from using the Virtual Writing Tutor in their courses as it can ensure students receive extensive feedback on every assignment, allowing teachers to assign more writing tasks without increasing their workload. To effectively incorporate the grammar checker into an ESL course, teachers should create a routine where students are required to use the grammar checker weekly and set a standard of zero avoidable errors. Avoidable errors are those that students can correct themselves with the help of form-focused instruction or the grammar checker. Nicholas Walker shares his experience of using the Virtual Writing Tutor in his ESL lessons. He creates collaborative narrative writing projects where students work in groups to develop a story. Students are required to use the Virtual Writing Tutor to eliminate avoidable errors in their writing for homework. The following week, they read their work to their groupmates and use the text-to-speech function for pronunciation practice. For more advanced levels, students create blogs and are required to use the grammar checker and paraphrase checker to avoid plagiarism.