A useful thread on the TES revealed a great new resource found by the outstanding ‘roaming teacher’ (whose HoD I met in a queue for samosas somewhat serendipitously a month or so ago) – a website for students to self-revise common grammatical errors: http://grmr.me/
This resource is useful as part of a general marking policy that sees an emphasis on ‘marking for students’ as opposed to ‘marking for parents/teachers’. That is, marking should be written with the intention of a response.
Sometimes the response required from the student is straightforward (such as distinguishing the use of it’s or its), but requires personalised (and perhaps extended) instruction in order to respond effectively. To this end, a teacher can write a short URL in the margin (grmr.me/csp for commas splices, for example), and direct their students to a video.
This is something that I might do to personalise such instruction to my style (and to British learners), but it does require a substantial amount of time. I also think the website www.thequillguy.com/its is perhaps a little long. However, like MrBruff.com, there are immense educators out there who are producing quality material, and to merely recreate is not so useful.
To see the thread itself (and the ‘what’s wrong with this’ icon marking that links to the use of grmr.me) visit http://community.tes.co.uk/tes_english/f/14/t/671730.aspx
