Abstract:

Spelling problems are common today in most Spanish students who enter higher education studies.
These problems, in humanities or education degrees, can be approached from matters of the curriculum, but in other more scientific or technical spelling problems can be raised in extracurricular proposals through voluntary training offered as a different type.
In both cases, it is common that lecturers are required to fight against it, finding a quick way to give a solution to the problem. The innovation we propose in this contribution is the design of a questionnaire about Spanish spelling, that can be solved by students in a short time, checked individually and then put together in small or large group (the number of phases depends on the time available for the activity). This process of individual and joint correction of the questionnaire, once it has been implemented and improved on for several courses, is quickly and efficient at the same time. It arises from a deep understanding of the reality of the student through a study of the most common faults, which are concentrated in sections. At the same time, being designed as a questionnaire, may assume prior knowledge of the student, removing their misconceptions and going to the root of the problems.

THE PROBLEM
Educational institutions often find a problem rooted among students: the misspellings. Teachers often demand a level of spell that does not appear as an objective in the teaching guide, because that is considered a basic requirement or a prior skill supposedly already acquired. The fact that in the courses—except in language courses, obviously—is impossible to reserve a part of the agenda to improve the spelling makes many lecturers arise if they have the right to demand something that has not been worked in class. This perception of the evaluation as a way to control only the subjects explicitly explained in class is based on an immature idea of education, even if students have obligation to reach a certain level of competence in spelling to move to the next level. However, the reality is that, indeed, there are teachers who do not give importance to the spelling, just evaluating if the contents are learned. The fact each teacher has his own criteria produce that many times students are not aware that misspelling is a failure that will mean a major obstacle to progress in their studies. Students are not either aware that the problem is theirs, and that they should look for ways to fix it.

Keywords:

Spelling rules, quickly method, questionnaire.