Compliment or complement? Practice or practise? There or their? Spelling and grammar (SPaG) provide many pitfalls, even to the confident speaker and writer of English. So, what can be done?
What’s a typical English class like with ACL? One class is designing strategies to help them spell words that commonly trip them up, and the tutor invited me to join and find out.
Learners begin to arrive early, and there’s an informal conversation about home learning and exam technique. It’s clear the group is focused and keen to improve, and that they find the tutor really approachable. The class begins with a starter activity, identifying errors on a series of text messages on the whiteboard. There are missing apostrophes, spelling mistakes, lower case instead of capital letters - a whole range. Not one of them gets past these learners, with everyone able to spot at least one mistake and, just as importantly, to correct it and explain why it’s wrong.
The first part of the lesson aims to support the group identify personalised spelling strategies by asking them to pick out words they commonly misspell, and brainstorming ways to remember the correct spelling in future. This small group activity brings to life their printed spelling guide by putting theory into practice. One example is the word ‘sincerely’ - the group who chose this word points out that it can be split into the two words ‘since’, and ‘rely’. The tutor shares with us that it originally came from Latin, and that some people think the derivation ‘sin cere’ or ‘without wax’ means a letter signed off ‘sincerely’ could be sent to a named recipient unsealed. It’s certainly one way to remember it by, and, fact or fiction, a story I hadn’t heard before.
Everyone had plenty of useful suggestions for each other, and learners were keen to support and encourage throughout the discussion. It’s clear they are working hard to a common aim - finding words within words, saying the words in a way you wouldn’t expect, breaking them down into syllables.
The tutor shows the group how to practice using the look/cover/write/check method, and suggests writing on different textures, or physically making the words. He supports learners by signing as he talks, as well. Unfortunately, I have to leave before we begin to learn about commas, but whenever I need a refresher I certainly know where I’ll go!
It can be daunting joining a course to revisit a subject you’ve struggled with for a long time. Joining this class felt like an overwhelmingly positive experience. Why not enrol for one of ACL's English courses and give it a go? You’ll be met with support and understanding, if you do.
And the quote about treacherous spelling? It’s by Albert Einstein.