Your common mistakes Another thing that you can do as you are doing grammar or vocabulary exercises and then checking your own answers is to write down the mistakes that you make in a separate notebook. You can use this list after you have done a piece of written work, by looking through the work again to make sure that you haven't made any of the mistakes that are on the list. Spellcheck and Grammarcheck off Try writing a piece of work with the automatic checking of spelling and grammar in your word processor program turned off. As the name suggests, most people mainly want to have the chance to chat in another language through conversation exchanges, and you might not make yourself popular if you expect your (unpaid) partner to correct pages of written work or correct every mistake you make. Check for typical mistakes When you have finished a piece of written work and gone through it looking for specific mistakes you often make, you can do the same again for more general typical problems like articles (a/ an/ the/ some/ any/ -), adverb word order, and prepositions (at/ on/ in/ etc. After checking your own work once, turn these functions on and see what things they correct, copying down any important ones into your common errors notebook. Then check your answers with the key at the back of the book, but don't mark or change any of the answers on the page. You could also print off the uncorrected version and the corrected version, and use that in the next few days or weeks to check your improved editing skills. How to correct yourself outside class One of the most common complaints from students is that they don't get enough correction of their mistakes in class, perhaps because they think that