There are a number of creative ways that you can use Simple English Wikipedia to study English. Lets get the obvious one out of the way now: read. Reading is good. Find an article that interests you and read it.

Okay, now for some more interesting ideas. As I mentioned in Part 1, anyone can write and edit Simple English Wikipedia. As a result there are grammatical errors in many of the articles. While this is not a good thing, it does present a great opportunity. When you read Simple English Wikipedia articles, try looking for any grammatical errors and fix them. This is a good exercise for yourself and it helps others who read the article later.

What about when you are not sure if something is an error? You might find a passage that looks wrong, but you aren’t certain.

First, try looking up the problem in a dictionary or grammar textbook. Finding answers for yourself is a better way of learning because you remember what you learn a lot better when you use it.

If you can’t find the answer for yourself, then ask someone. Bring the sentence in to your English class and ask the teacher. An even better web-based solution is to ask at a ESL student forum. There are a number of different ESL student forums where you can ask these sorts of questions. The advantage that ESL student forums have is that you can link to the article so others can see the whole article and the problem area. Try writing something simple like:

“I was reading a Simple English Wikipedia article and found something that might be an error, but I am not sure. The sentence is (quote the sentence). It is from this article (give url).”

You should get an answer very quickly.

If you aren’t already a member of a student forum, Dave’s ESL Cafe, EnglishClub.com, EnglishForums.com, and UsingEnglish.com have forums where you can ask these sorts of questions.

Even if you don’t find an error in an article, you can make changes to improve it.

Simple English Wikipedia uses “easy words and shorter sentences” so people with just a little English can read and understand the articles. When you find a sentence that is difficult to understand, think about how you might make the article easier to read.

It is difficult for most native English speakers to write in language that someone learning English can easily understand. English Students have a big advantage here because they automatically know what language is too difficult.

Reworking sentences is good practice, and thinking about how to express yourself clearly is an important skill. If you are not sure the change you want to make is correct, then just ask at a forum or ask someone who speaks better English than you do.

Editing errors and reworking sentences are both good exercises for thinking about language. The more you think about language, the more you will master it. Tomorrow I’ll share with you what I consider to be the single most effective activity for learning English on Simple English Wikipedia.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 9:27 pm and is filed under EFL, English, ESL, Study Tips, Reading, Reviews, Miscellany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.