Learners of English as a foreign language usually have problems in distinguishing between oral and written English. Oral language typically displays an unplanned and fragmented speech, while written language usually presents a more elaborated and planned speech. When correcting written assignments, teachers should pay particular attention to the uses that are typically oral. The alternatives below present examples of oral speech. The only exception is:

Consider the following sentence from a student’s essay.

“The theme of this short story make us see the beauty in another vision.” (source: a real student’s essay)

The sentence should be rewritten as the following alternative:

Consider the following noun phrase: ‘the only navigable river’. Suppose a student asks you if there is a difference in meaning if ‘navigable’ is placed after ‘river’. The alternative with the correct answer and comment is:

Suppose you are correcting some literary essays. In one essay, you find the following extract.

“It begins with the Giant coming back to his garden after a seven-year trip. When arriving they see that children play in his garden." (source: a real student's essay)

The mistake that directly affects the cohesion of the extract is the/a:

Suppose a student asks you if 'whose' in the following academic passage is wrong.

“There is a way of proceeding in conceptual matters whose method is to define away any inconvenient difficulty." (Biber et al,1999, p.617)

The alternative with the correct answer and comment is: