Computerondersteunde Schrijfvaardigheidstraining in Het Vreemde-Talenonderwijs

Government secondary education policy is aimed at students acquiring elementary computer skills such as word processing and database use. Training such skills is not really effective if they cannot be put into practice. An obvious application of word processing is computer-assisted training in writing a foreign language. Practising this skill usually involves looking up a great deal. So database use can be integrated by storing reference materials in a database. For computer-aided writing (CAW) in English, German and French the application Schrijfhulp (Writing Aid) has been developed. It contains information on writing letters (personal letters and business letters), examples of ways in which language functions can be expressed, and grammatical information. Schrijfhulp is linked with electronic dictionaries. The information is available on-line: it can be consulted while using the word processor. Computer-aided training in writing offers a good setting for students' self-activity. Furthermore, there are reasons to assume that CAW is more effective than paper-and-pencil writing activities. Teachers experience CAW as quite a radical change in FL-writing training. For this as well as other reasons CAW and its effects deserve further research.