The use of personal computers in teaching English composition

摘要

It is clear that computers are essential to a course in programming, are easily used for practice in arithmetic, and are useful for simulations in an economics or sociology course, but it is not clear how, if at all, they can be used to teach the writing of English. To be sure, you could use a computer to administer a spelling drill, or a multiple choice test in punctuation---but none of this is composition. While most proposed applications in the teaching of English run to such computer assisted instruction, my experiences over the last four years have shown me that a personal computer can be a powerful aid in learning to write.