AVI.Cat: Turning grammar checking into an e-learning experience

Abstract

Spelling and grammar checking has become a daily activity for almost all text processor users. Usually these tools offer limited information about the misspelling or the grammar error and in certain cases suggest one or more possible alternatives. Sometimes users make the same mistakes one day after the other because they don't know the real reason of the mistake. In these cases extended information about the error could be very handy: detailed grammatical information and exercises to improve the user's writing skills. In this paper we present AVI.cat, a grammar checker and virtual assessor for the improvement of writing skills in Catalan. The tool is based on LanguageTool grammar checker and fully integrates into OpenOffice/LibreOffice text processor. Along with the grammar checker with extended information collected from the web, the tool also offers an automatic evaluator and assessor, that can perform an automatic assessment from a collection of texts written by the user. The assessor can also give information about the use progress and suggests exercises for further improvement.