The ALP offers several options for teachers who want to help their students in developing their language and writing skills.
Providing feedback on language skills
The ALP has developed feedback sytems based on a categorisation of common errors that students make in Dutch and English texts: NLS Online en ELS Online. A key aspect of these systems is that as a teacher you only have to recognize and indicate the type of mistake (for instance, tense or spelling). This category, in turn, gives the student access to extensive information about the topic and exercises to practise their skills.
The ALP feedback systems are integrated in Canvas. This means that you can add standardized comments on language to the feedback that you're giving on any assignment that you grade in Canvas. If you're interested in working with these systems, the ALP provides some initial training, both on the mistakes themselves and the way to use the system.
If you want to know more, send an email to alp.sgw@vu.nl.
Designing good writing assignments
With the availability of Generative AI tools, designing good writing assignments for students has become even more important. ALP staff have worked on various projects these last years to understand what the availability of these tools means for teaching writing. One of these projects led to the so-called Writing Pie of writing skills. The Writing Pie allows a teacher to evaluate their own writing assignments: which aspects of writing skills are part of the learning goals of the course? What kind of assessment fits these goals?
You can read more about the Writing Pie and (re)designing writing assignments here.
Modules or courses on language skills as part of degree programmes
ALP staff provide courses, modules or guest lectures about language skills in English and Dutch for various degree programmes at the VU. If you're interested in a guest lecture on writing, presenting or Generative AI and writing, you can send us an email at alp.sgw@vu.nl. If you're interested in the possibilities for including an ALP module or course on academic communicative skills in a degree programme, you can find more information here.
Referring students to the ALP
The ALP has an extensive list of options for students to work on their language skills by themselves or to get some extra support from ALP staff. We always appreciate it when teachers help us to spread the word about these extra options for students! Here's what we offer for students: