IELTS, TOEFL. and Bagrut Spelling Tips! When to write on L and when to write 2 LL

If you are preparing for any type of writing test, then you have to know how to spell very well.  This can be difficult to prepare at the last moment, so take time before the test to go over all types of spelling rules.  It can be very difficult to remember when to write one l or two, so here are some spelling tips for you.

If you have a word, that ends in the l sound, and it is one syllable, then you need to put two ll

full, all, bell, tall, till, ill, still

But if you add another syllable to the word, and the l sound is at the end, then you only put one l

careful, cheerful, until

If you have a word that usually has two ll  like all and well  and you add another syllable after it, then one l is dropped

already, also, although, always, welfare, welcome,

Some words with one l get another when an additional syllable is added:
cancelled, cancelling, signalling, metallic.

But there is always an exception in English:  signaled has only one l

One word that has a   difference between American usage and British usage is

traveller, is the UK spelling with two ll and traveler is the USA spelling.



Lesson Plan by Rachael Alice Orbach - Professional English teacher

Spelling i before e words and some exceptions.

With all the other things that we have to do in the classroom, we can't forget spelling!  This is a spelling assignment for the pesky  i before e rule. 

Rachael Alice 

Name ________________________  Date ______________________

Spelling  i before e words and some exceptions.

believe - You must believe that [i] usually comes before [e] except after [c] or when it is pronounced like "a" as "neighbor" and "weigh" or "e" as in "their" and "heir."

foreign below. (The "i-before-e" rule has more exceptions than words it applies to.)

height – this word is an exception to the rule.

hierarchy - The i-before-e rule works here.

leisure - Yet another violator of the i-before-e rule. You can be sure of the spelling of the last syllable but not of the pronunciation.

neighbor - The word "neighbor" breaks the i-before-e rule and invokes the silent "gh". If you use British spelling, "neighbour."

receive/receipt - I hope you have received the message by now: [i] before [e] except after . . . .

their/they're/there - They're all pronounced the same but spelled differently. Possessive is "their" and the contraction of "they are" is "they're." Everywhere else, it is "there."

weird - It is weird having to repeat this rule so many times: [i] before [e] except after...? (It isn't [w]!)

weigh – here is an exception to the rule

Assignment:

Write each word in a sentence:

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

How to correct bad spelling

Lets face it.  Spelling in the modern world is getting worse.   Even with spell checker, many times the student chooses a wrong word just because it looks right.  But they don't know the meaning of the word, so it doesn't fit into the sentence!

I came across an old book written in 1918, by David M. Roth

http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24648168M/Roth_memory_course?v=2

Here is a lesson about spelling, sometimes old can be good!

He takes some words that are commonly misspelled, and have the student practice them in a different way than we usually do.

There are two ways that we can do this:
First we take the word that has a letter that we don't usually hear:

Privilege:  The letter i people usually don't hear and spell it with an e.

So how do you practice spelling this?
You make the i bigger.

privilege  This is much easier when you are working with a pen rather than on computer,
Write the word this way five times. Then test yourself the next day, writing the word regular.
See if you can spell it correctly!

Another way is to make the i a different color.
privilege  this also works better when writing by hand.
Write it five times , test yourself the next day to see if you can spell it correctly.

If you are teaching in a class,
Have the student keep a personal spelling dictionary of words that the student has had trouble spelling.
Have the student practice spelling the word, using one of these techniques.

I'm in the process of reading this Memory Course, and as I have other insights, I'll write a post about them so you can use them for yourself and in your classroom.

Till next time,

Rachael Orbach
www.rachaelorbach.weebly.com

Spelling Tests for real learning

What is the purpose of giving spelling tests?

We want to prepare our students for their future lives
and to become good writers.  If someone is a poor speller,
it then reflects back on all other parts of their performance.

The problem with spelling tests is that students only study for
the test.  Then after the test, everything is forgotten.

One way to combat this attitude, is to have each student to have
a personal spelling chart.

When the student gets back the general spelling test,
they should have a different list ready to put all the
words that were missed on the last test.

Then each student will have to learn the review words
for the next week.

This doesn't have to be a lot of extra work for the teacher
however.  When it comes to the spelling test for the nest week,
the teacher can just collect the personal spelling test sheets
from each student, and pick only 5 words from each list
for the test.

It is also helpful to have the student to practice writing
sentences with the missed words.

Spelling  is an important skill for preparing students
for further academic achievement.

This method can be used for students in all grades.