Introduction
Second Language (L2) writing teachers have often been concerned about how to improve their classroom instruction, considering the unique challenges of teaching academic writing to English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) students. With the rise of technology, L2 writing teachers may opt to use digital tools to help them improve the quality of their teaching. However, they need to choose the most appropriate and helpful digital tools depending on affordability and accessibility. Grammarly is one of the most well-known emerging digital tools. This tech review presents how teachers can incorporate Grammarly as a teaching tool in the classroom.
Grammarly for Teaching L2 Writing
Grammarly can check the following: (1) correctness (i.e., grammar, spelling, and punctuation; consistency in spelling and punctuation; and fluency); (2) clarity (i.e., conciseness, clarity-focused sentence rewrites, and formatting); (3) engagement (compelling vocabulary and lively sentence variety); (4) delivery (tone detection, confident writing, politeness, formality level, and inclusive language); and (5) plagiarism (it ensures that the work is fresh and original by checking in against 16 billion web pages).
Teachers may use these functions in the teaching of academic writing, especially focusing on the micro-level revisions (i.e., tense, agreement, pluralization, patterns, and rules). Grammarly can correct all basic errors and teachers can then focus primarily on checking macro-level issues (i.e., content, flow of arguments, and others). Since Grammarly is best used during the editing and revision processes (Barrot, 2020), students may run their papers through the program before submitting them to their teachers, thus minimizing micro-level mistakes. Most studies (Barrot, 2021; Nova, 2018; Qassemzadeh & Soleimani, 2016) have focused on Grammarly as a language learning tool using the functions of the free version.
In Barrot’s (2021) quantitative study, the treatment group outperformed the control group with a large effect size when their posttest scores were compared. Likewise, qualitatively, it was reported that students had learned grammar rules through metalinguistic explanations provided. Grammarly feedback was more effective than teacher input as regards to students’ retention on rules related to the passive voice (Qassemzadeh & Soleimani, 2016).
Likewise, O’Neill and Russell (2019) found that students have positive perceptions towards Grammarly due to its usefulness and convenience. Furthermore, Karyuatry et al. (2018) reported that Grammarly was an effective program that can help to check grammar errors and potential stylistic mistakes. These findings encourage teachers to use Grammarly as a pedagogical tool for teaching academic writing.
However, there are limitations. These researchers used its free version, and it is suggested that in future studies its premium version should be used to utilize its full functions. For example, the free version only has a very few functions, while the premium version has a lot of additional features. These features can be seen in Table 1:
Table 1: Grammarly’s Free and Premium Versions
Teaching academic writing is now becoming increasingly technology driven. With recent advances in technology, Grammarly developers need to further develop the digital software to upgrade and address its limitations related to its capability to enhance the L2 writing quality (Perdana & Farida, 2019). Notably, (1) Grammarly is less effective to improve the content and organization of writing (Ghufron, 2019; Huang, 2020), and (2) it could not identify some proper nouns (Vo & Nguyen, 2021).
For instance, it cannot suggest recommendations with incoherent academic writing, as it only focuses on surface-level errors (Bailey & Lee, 2020) in L2 writing. It is evident in Figure 1 that Grammarly does not detect the issue of the coherence of the sample paragraph from Thornbury (2020).
Figure 1: A snapshot of Grammarly premium result
Another specific example of the Grammarly’s limitations is that some proper nouns are hard to identify, making it hard to suggest accurate capitalization. Since Grammarly is an American-based digital tool, some words that are proper nouns in different contexts may be difficult for it to find. For instance, in this sample sentence, “We'll be vacationing in manila next year.” Manila is the capital of the Philippines making it a proper noun, but Grammarly does not detect its incorrect capitalization. The tool only suggests inconsistent punctuation for We’ll in the given sentence. Another example, “I ordered my laptop from shopee.” Shopee is a popular online shopping platform in Southeast Asia. The example functions as a proper noun, but Grammarly detects Shopee as an incorrect spelling, but not capitalization. As evidenced from the sample sentences, Grammarly's inability to see context-based (Kiel, 2020) proper nouns is one of its weaknesses.
Considering these limitations, it is recommended that teachers develop an evaluation rubric that will assess the unnecessary corrections provided by Grammarly. This will make the digital software even more reliable and valuable in the classroom. Studies on Grammarly are still in their explorative stages (Barrot, 2021; Nova, 2018; Qassemzadeh &Soleimani, 2016). Further studies are still needed to study its application in the classroom and professional development beyond its basic use as a writing assistant.
Grammarly’s Trajectory as a Pedagogical Tool
Developers of Grammarly continuously upgrade the software based on the needs of its users. In the future, they may also add features that will check the macro-level issues in academic papers. More studies on the use of Grammarly, especially concerning the use of premium and business versions, must be done to further investigate its affordances as a learning and teaching tool. It is further suggested that other studies be conducted on Grammarly must investigate its pedagogical value in the writing classroom. In order to do this, teachers must subscribe to its premium version and explore its advanced features. This way, they will understand how this tool works and will be able to apply it in their L2 writing classrooms. Specific ways on how to apply this in the L2 writing classroom will vary depending on the learners’ contexts. Teachers need to know all of its functions before using Grammarly in the L2 writing classroom. With this, it will have a bigger impact on the field of L2 writing instruction.
In the meantime, L2 writing students and teachers may continue using Grammarly given that it has shown positive results based in the abovementioned studies. As a result of its relatively strong presence in the field, this tech review hopes to bring new perspectives to classroom teachers, education practitioners, and even researchers in teaching academic writing at both basic education and tertiary levels. Pedagogically, this paper hopes to provide implications in the teaching of academic writing that Grammarly has the potential as a teaching tool rather than focusing only on its functions as tool to check grammatical errors. Teachers may use it as a teaching tool to explicitly teach grammar to the students.
Acknowledgements
I am immensely grateful to the panel of examiners (Dr. Arlyn C. Marasigan, Dr. Ma. Jhona B. Acuña, Dr. Arceli M. Amarles, Dr. Cecilia F. Genuino, Dr. Mery Ruth M. Gutierrez, Dr. Florencia F. Marquez, and Dr. Judy C. Bautista) during my title defense for providing insightful comments and constructive criticism from which I got the idea of examining a different perspective of using Grammarly in L2 writing classroom.
References
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