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iGE: Grammar on the Go
UCL’s innovative interactive Grammar of English (iGE) translates the grammar
of the English language into a fun, easy-to-use iPhone App with the potential to
benefit a huge number of people.
iGE is the creation of Professor Bas Aarts, Professor of English Linguistics and
Director of the Survey of English Usage (SEU) and Sean Wallis, Senior Research
Fellow at the SEU.
Grammar gap
Professor Aarts said, “Grammar has come
back in a big way, including in schools. But
this is not without problems because many
teachers don’t know how to teach it. They
feel at a loss because they haven’t learnt any
grammar themselves.”
That’s where iGE can help. The App is aimed
at students and teachers of English as a native
language, as well as a second language and
anyone else who is interested in English, such
as journalists, editors and authors. It contains
interactive exercises to provide the user with
feedback on their answers.
Interactive excellence
For Professor Aarts, it’s about making a good
quality grammar App available to anyone who
wants it. He said, “There’s no complete, high
quality grammar out there at the moment.
There are grammar Apps available – but
they’re either not written by experts, or they’re
just digital versions of textbooks.”
The development team wanted to combine
expert knowledge with intuitive usability.
Professor Aarts said, “At UCL, we have a lot
of expertise in writing grammars. The example
material used in the App comes from our
corpora – vast collections of language data,
both spoken and written. So we use real
examples to explain grammar – not stilted
examples like ‘The cat sat on the mat’!”
Together with quality, interactivity is a key
feature. Sean Wallis provided the technical
know-how for the project: “We put a real
emphasis on interactive learning and on
encouraging experimentation and exploration.
These are things you don’t get with a
traditional textbook.”
A boon for UCL
By delivering UCL
expertise to the public,
the App is well-aligned
with the Government’s
knowledge transfer
agenda. It’s great publicity
for the University, and
there’s money-making
potential too. Professor
Aarts said, “The Englishlanguage-learning market
is absolutely huge. Tapping into that market is
something that we really want to do.
“The App already brings some money into the
English department and the Faculty of Art and
Humanities. This is a great help at a time when
external funding is dwindling. We hope it will
allow us to continue to do our research in the
Survey of English Usage.”
Future perfect
There’s plenty of scope for development.
The App can be targeted at different users of
English – for example, primary school children,
medical students or foreign students.
And it’s not just the English department that
will benefit from the new technology. Professor
Aarts said, “We are developing common
platforms so that other teaching material can
be put on it. It was always envisaged that the
App would be a pilot for future work. This is
all going to be part of a strategy at UCL to
develop e-learning on a much larger scale.”
The project was made possible with proofof-concept funding from UCL Business. Prof
Aarts said, “We worked closely with Dr Steven
Schooling whose support was crucial.”
For more information on the App see www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/apps/ige/
About UCL, UCL Business and Licence
About UCL
About UCL Business
About Licence
UCL (University College London) was
established in 1826 and is ranked as
one of the world’s top-ten universities.
The university is a modern, outwardlooking institution, with more than 4,000
academic and research staff committed
to engaging with the major issues of our
times. It has a global reach, with 34%
of its students coming from outside the
UK, from almost 140 countries.
UCL Business PLC (UCLB) is a leading
technology transfer company, which
supports and commercialises research
and innovations arising from UCL, one of
the UK’s leading research-led universities.
UCLB has a successful track record
and strong reputation for identifying and
protecting promising new technologies
and innovations from UCL academics. It
invests directly in development projects to
maximise the potential of the research and
manages the commercialisation process
of technologies from the laboratory to
be market ready. UCLB supports UCL’s
Grand Challenges of increasing UCL’s
positive impact on and contribution
to Global Health, Sustainable Cities,
Intercultural Interaction and Human
Wellbeing.
For businesses seeking specific
technology solutions, UCL Business
(UCLB) provides the commercial
expertise, legal advice and administrative
support required to broker licensing
agreements, allowing companies to
fully exploit unique technologies with the
knowledge that exclusivity and market
advantage is preserved.
www.ucl.ac.uk
UCL Business is affiliated with UCL
Enterprise, which provides UCL’s
structures for engaging with business for
commercial and societal benefit.
www.uclb.com
www.ucl.ac.uk/enterprise
Through UCLB, academics wishing
to license technology have access to
comprehensive support services, with
Business Managers assisting throughout
the process from initial negotiation to
concluding contracts.