Integrating Machine Translation Into EFL Writing Instruction: Process, Product and Perception

Although there is a great demand for machine translation (MT) among language learners, its potentials as a computer-assisted language learning aid remain under-explored. Against this backdrop, this study adopted a mixed research method and conducted a semester-long empirical investigation into how EFL learners in mainland China used MT to assist their writing, whether MT helped improve their writing competence and how they perceived MT in EFL writing instruction. The major findings comprise: 1) By using MT students made more lexical and grammatical changes in essay revision; 2) MT helped improve the learners’ overall writing competence, and particularly had a greater effect on writing accuracy and lexical complexity than on other dimensions; 3) Students generally held a positive attitude towards incorporating MT into EFL writing instruction.

Students’ Perceptions on Online Peer Feedback Practice In EFL Writing

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the implementation of online peer feedback practice, the students’ perceptions toward online peer feedback practice, and the students’ challenges toward online peer feedback practice. The study employed a mixed-method design with SMA PGRI Blahbatuh students as the population, while the sample was 132 students. The data were collected through observing the online classes using an observation checklist, conducting a survey using a questionnaire, and conducting an interview using an interview guide through focus group discussion. The study’s findings imply several strengths and weaknesses in the online peer feedback practice. It was also revealed that the students had positive perceptions toward the online peer feedback practice. Meanwhile, the interview results revealed several contradictory results regarding the students’ challenges. The students preferred the teacher’s feedback after the practice since it would make them feel safe. The students also suggested anonymous peer feedback practice since they could give the comments honestly, with details, and specifics. Through this study, students can learn to improve their skills in communicating and collaborating with their peers. The study also provided the teacher information to create more effective and efficient online peer feedback practice. ABSTRAKPenelitian ini didesain untuk menyelidiki penerapan praktik umpan balik rekan secara daring, persepsi siswa terhadap praktik umpan balik rekan secara daring, dan tantangan siswa terhadap praktik umpan balik rekan secara daring. Penelitian ini menggunakan desain kombinasi dengan siswa SMA PGRI Blahbatuh sebagai populasi, sedangkan sampelnya hanya 132 siswa. Pengumpulan data dilakukan melalui observasi kelas online menggunakan lembar observasi, survei menggunakan kuesioner, dan wawancara menggunakan pedoman wawancara melalui diskusi kelompok terfokus. Temuan penelitian menyiratkan bahwa ada beberapa kekuatan dan kelemahan dalam praktik umpan balik rekan secara daring. Terungkap pula bahwa siswa memiliki persepsi positif terhadap praktik umpan balik rekan secara daring. Sementara itu, hasil wawancara mengungkapkan beberapa hasil yang kontradiktif terkait tantangan siswa. Siswa lebih menyukai masukan dari guru setelah latihan karena akan membuat mereka merasa lebih aman. Para siswa juga menyarankan praktik umpan balik rekan anonim karena mereka dapat memberikan komentar dengan jujur, dengan detail, dan spesifik. Melalui penelitian ini, siswa dapat belajar meningkatkan keterampilannya dalam berkomunikasi dan berkolaborasi dengan teman sebayanya. Penelitian ini juga memberikan informasi kepada guru untuk menciptakan praktik umpan balik teman secara daring yang lebih efektif dan efisien.

An Investigation into Learners’ Perception Towards Peer Assessment in Tertiary EFL Writing Class

The current paper attempts to investigate learners’ perspectives towards the strengths and weaknesses of peer assessment in academic writing in the context of tertiary education at a private university. The study was conducted on 55 third-year university students who had finished the academic writing module that applied peer assessment in writing. The research adopted the mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approaches via the questionnaire with both close and open-ended questions. The results of the study reveal that the use of peer assessment was feasible for large-size classes at university to provide learners with the opportunities to reflect and enhance their language scope and social knowledge to improve their writing performance. However, certain limitations were acknowledged, such as the lack of assessment competence among learners and the time constraint in the classroom, especially the hesitation to violate the positive face of their peers.

'GRAMMARLY' AS A TEACHERS' ALTERNATIVE IN EVALUATING NON -EFL STUDENTS WRITINGS

In evaluating students’ EFL writing, lecturers nowadays can implement corrective evaluation by using an online automatic software. Grammarly is automated online software that is comonly used in EFL writing classes. It is an internet proofreading service that evaluates the correctness grammarl, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary as well as detects plagiarism. This paper reports research aimed at exploring the use of Grammarly software for evaluating non-EFL students’ writings. This research employed descriptive-qualitative method with students of ITB AAS Indonesia as the data sources. The results of analysis show that in correcting students' language errors, lecturers can evaluate and analyze in details without a lot of correcting efforts or improvements. Grammarly can be considered as a useful tool for lecturers who need to correct non-EFL students’ writings. Grammarly will automatically check or detect the work being typed from various related aspects. Various writing errors made by the students were found in Grammarly’s reports, both in the aspect of correctness and clarity. Correctness is concerned with the mechanical norms in writing, whereas clarity deals with concise and direct language use. The spelling errors found in students’ writings are text inconsistencies, misspelled words, and improper formatting whereas for grammatical there are subject-verb disagreement, passive voice misuse, as well as unclear, wordy, and incomplete sentences. Meanwhile, the errors in punctuation are shown by inappropriate use of punctuation marks in compound/complex sentence, comma misuse within clauses, and improper formatting. It can be concluded that Grammarly can be an alternative for lecturers’ in evaluating non-EFL students' writings.

Formulating EFL Writing Lecturers' Expectations: Lessons from Islamic Tertiary Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This research was designed to investigate which factors influenced the formation of lecturers’ expectations amid online learning during the COVID-19 outbreak in an Indonesian Islamic university. The recent study employed an exploratory case study by observing online EFL writing learning activities, interviewing the three lecturers, and collecting documents. The data was then analyzed qualitatively using an interactive model. Lecturers' expectations in this study were viewed from the key focus of expectation: feedback provided by lecturers. They established class-level expectations, not individual ones as primary and secondary levels. This study elucidates Islamic university lecturers' factors contributing to form expectations: lecturers’ past teaching experiences and teaching self-efficacy. Lecturers have not highly adjusted to any change that emerged in online learning. Accordingly, they have not shown firm belief in grouping students and assuring students’ originality in composing essays. At the same time, the students' demographic factors were motivation and gender. Female students showed higher motivation through participating more often during discussions. It yielded more learning feedback they received. Implications of this study were noted for self-reflection among lecturers to establish high expectations for students to enhance their learning.

Genre Effect on L2 Syntactic Complexity and Holistic Rating for Writing Quality of Intermediate EFL Learners

This exploratory study examines whether genre has an impact on syntactic complexity and holistic rating in EFL writing. Over 300 sample texts produced by intermediate learners were collected from a test and some regular after-class assignments for English writing courses. Each participant completed two writing tasks, one argumentative and the other narrative. Results show that genre type has a significant impact on L2 syntactic complexity. Genre effect is found stronger with timed writing tasks. L2 holistic ratings show correlation with syntactic complexity on the different measure(s) depending on genre type and planning conditions. Regression analyses reveal that for timed writing tasks, clausal density (clauses per sentence) is a reliable predictor for holistic assessment on intermediate EFL learners’ writing quality. It is found to account for 6% of the score variance for timed writing and 10% for timed argumentative writing. Genre is evidenced to be related to EFL writing holistic ratings. Closer examination indicates that while syntactic complexity is predictive of holistic writing scores for argumentative writing, it does not correlate with holistic scores for narrative writing. Other linguistic features rather than syntactic complexity may be accountable. Overall, the study lends support to genre effect in the relationship between syntactic complexity and L2 writing quality holistic rating.