The Effect of Online Grammatical Error Check on the Improvement of L2 Writing

Abstract

One of the most challenging language skills is the mastery of the target language's academic writing. To perfect academic writings, many English learners have sought help from different online error checkers websites. Yet, little is known about their benefits on improving grammatical errors, in particular and academic writing, in general. This quantitative study was designed to investigate preparatory Saudi English learners' standpoints about their reasons and attitudes towards the use of the different online websites such as Google Translate, Grammarly, Grammar Check, and others to improve English academic writings, in general and the most frequent errors, in particular. The data was collected through an online survey (N=115) composed of 23 items. Results show that students' main aim of using those programs is to get high marks and improve their writing style. It is also found that many students have benefited from online error checkers websites and the most frequent writing errors have been minimized. It is aimed that the finding may equip students with some learning strategies to enhance the quality of their writing efficiency through the use of online error checkers programs. Additionally, the result may set grounds for pedagogues to harness innovative teaching techniques that effectively utilize online error checkers to maximize students' language writing performance.