Abstract
Given the recent technological advancements and the critical role that grammar plays in students’ writing development, several digital tools that provide computer-mediated corrective feedback have emerged. One such tool is Grammarly, which identifies duplicate content and errors in grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, and language style. This tech review, therefore, provides an overview of its affordances and how they can be used in English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing. While Grammarly can be a powerful tool that teachers and students can explore in their writing classrooms, it has some limitations that require further enhancements.
Introduction
Second language (L2) scholars and practitioners have long acknowledged the critical role that grammar plays in students’ overall writing development (Guo and Barrot, 2019; Polio, 2012; Spada, 2018). Thus, several digital tools that provide computer-mediated corrective feedback have emerged. One such technology is Grammarly (https://www.grammarly.com/) which is a digital writing tool that identifies duplicate content and errors in grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, and language style. As a way to move forward, it is critical to understand the viability of Grammarly in the English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing classrooms. This tech review, therefore, provides an overview of its affordances and how they can be used in ESL/EFL writing.
Affordances for ESL/EFL Writing
Grammarly is accessible online through popular web browsers such as Chrome, Safari, and Firefox and is compatible with Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS devices (Grammarly, 2020). It has recently redesigned its interface to be available as a web application, as an extension to a web browser, as an extension to Microsoft Word, and as a native desktop application. To set up an account, the users need to register at https://www.grammarly.com/signup. Once the account is set up, Grammarly will direct the users to a neat and intuitive dashboard that runs according to how English texts are read and organizes related metrics. This dashboard displays the user profile and other applications integrated with it (see Figure 1).
Grammarly dashboard.
Grammarly is useful for writing classes, in particular, during the revision and editing stages. During the revision stage, it can be used to screen for plagiarism, allowing the students to eliminate any duplicate content and to credit sources. Grammarly’s plagiarism detection feature flags specific portions of the text that are rendered plagiarized, offers reference information that users need to properly credit, and provides the overall originality score of the text. Grammarly’s originality score report does not require any special skills or knowledge because it only shows the percentage of text matches based on the number of similar fragments found in other sources. Note that this feature is only available in paid versions. To date, it can detect duplicate content from over 16 billion web pages and academic documents. Given these affordances, students may be required to submit the Grammarly plagiarism report and their revised paper before they can proceed to peer and teacher feedback. This Grammarly feature can save students from committing intentional or unintentional plagiarism. Although this feature is originally designed for students, the plagiarism checking feature is also useful for writers across fields of interest.
Grammarly’s editing affordances can be used during the last stage of the writing process; that is, the editing stage. As a language editing tool, it provides real-time feedback by underlining the errors and inappropriate language use found in the text (see Figure 2). Red underline indicates an error in spelling, grammar, and punctuation, whereas blue underline relates to issues in conciseness and clarity. Purple underline corresponds to tone, formality, and politeness of language, while green underline indicates suggestions that can make the statement more engaging. One flagship feature of this AI-powered writing assistant is it offers corrections along with their corresponding explanations. It also displays the overall text score (1 to 100) based on the different suggestions that appear in the document. The fewer the suggestions, the higher the score of the document is. Although the focus of the last stage is language editing, students can use the plagiarism checker to further eliminate any duplicate content which they might have used during the revision stage.
Editing textbox.
For more meaningful writing, the most recent version of Grammarly goes beyond grammar by checking the tone, consistency, clarity and readability, formality, and engagement of the text. It has also recently added some affordances for a more adaptive experience. First, it has a writing assistant feature that automatically checks the document as the users type the text; thus, allowing them to spot and correct the errors in an instant. Second, it gives users an option to choose the English variety they prefer (i.e. American, British, Canadian, and Australian English). This feature could fit the paradigm of English as an international language (Marlina, 2018; Ware et al., 2012). Third, it generates a performance analysis report that details how your text fared with other texts as well as its word count and readability. Finally, Grammarly incorporates set goals feature that allows the tool to customize suggestions according to the defined factors, namely intent, audience, style, emotion, and domain. This affordance is in line with the activity theory, which claims that learning is a product of interaction among learners (subjects), automated writing evaluation systems (physical tools), and self-regulation (symbolic tools) (Razak et al., 2018).
To harness Grammarly’s benefits to language learning, students reflected on the new language forms that they learned from using the tool and the mismatch between what they used and what the correct language form is. This noticing of forms and gap allowed students to make cognitive comparisons between the two versions of the language form (Barrot, 2020; Rahimi and Zhang, 2016; Schmidt, 1990; Swain and Suzuki, 2008) and restructure their interlanguage system (Polio, 2012). The annotations provided by Grammarly allow students to engage in meaningful self-directed learning, experience individualized instruction, and practise grammar individually or collaboratively, face-to-face or remotely without human-to-human interaction.
The use of Grammarly as a language learning tool found support from current empirical findings. For instance, Koltovskaia (2020) found that Grammarly promoted students’ use of their cognitive and metacognitive operations through noticing. She further argued that it could serve as a useful writing resource, especially when students are actively engaged. Similarly, O’Neill and Russell (2019) reported that Grammarly provided effective grammar support in a variety of learning contexts whether they involve international or domestic students or adopted via online or face-to-face mode.
Despite its flexible affordances, I found some weaknesses in Grammarly that require serious attention. First, it sometimes suggests enhancements that may render the statement inaccurate. For example, it threw false positives when it corrects proper nouns such as Dayz Hotel and technical/uncommon words such as generalizability and ebook. In the case of plagiarism detection, Grammarly tends to highlight some common phrases as potentially plagiarized items. Some examples are ‘Therefore, it is important to observe the following. . .’ and ‘I agree with what you said about the issue’. These unnecessary corrections require further filtering from the users.
Plans, Pricing, and Technical Support
Users may choose from any of the three available plans. These are the free version, premium version, and business version. The free version offers basic writing corrections which include grammar, spelling, and punctuation. The premium version has the features of the free version plus language style checking (i.e. fluency, readability, word choice, inclusive language, formality, and other advanced corrections) and plagiarism detection. While the free version can be used at no cost, the subscription for the premium version starts at $11.66 a month and is only good for one user. The most advanced of the three is the business version, which offers the features of the premium version plus other advanced features such as admin panel, centralized billing, priority email support, single sign-on, and style guide. Unlike the first two versions, the business version can be simultaneously accessed by three to 149 users.
Comprehensive technical support to its users is available on the Grammarly website. Among these are account basics, which provides assistance on issues relating to signing-in, account update, and account setting. Also available is the billing and subscription section where users can upgrade their plan and manage payments. An important part of the technical support is the resolve issues section where users can check troubleshooting tips on some of the most frequently encountered technical problems. Finally, the technical support page provides additional tips and tutorials that users may find useful as they explore Grammarly (see https://support.grammarly.com/hc/en-us).
