Language helps individuals to communicate with each other and distinguishes humans from other living things. With the help of language human can share with their opinions, desire, wish and problems. It is the fact that English language is the global language in the world; which has four academic skills like: listening, speaking, writing and reading. Writing is one of the best ways for a person to express himself/herself appropriately. Success in our professional lives depends on having strong writing skills. Many of us aspire to become skilled writers. However, only a few of us who lack basic writing skills see the need for improvement. But, learners who are not native speaker can face with troubles with this academic skill. In that case, various types of methods, approaches and application can help to overcome these kinds of challenges. Today's worldwide challenges include Grammarly's contribution to the development of students' writing skills and the solution of writing-related problems. The aim of this study was to determine how well the Grammarly program helps students to develop their writing skills. Descriptive research design and quantitative research method was used to answer research questions. Overall 37 learners took part from International University of tourism and hospitality in Turkestan, and questionnaire was surveyed among participants. After obtaining data Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23 was used to calculate the results. Descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney U-test was utilized in order to calculate the results. According to the outcomes learners’ attitudes was positive and there was no significant difference between gender and grade of participants.

Keywords: writing skill, challenges, grammar errors, Grammarly application, effectiveness of Grammarly, tourism learners.

Introduction

Language is used in almost every aspect of life to understand and clarify different thoughts, feelings, beliefs and value judgments and to express cultural accumulation. Individuals can perceive and understand the universe and social environment by using language, which is an important tool in expressing their thoughts. Nowadays, it is very important to know and teach other languages in order to carry out successful communication. English is the only language widely used for international communication. Foreign language teaching has been developed as a social, political, educational, cultural, etc. process in the historical process of humanity. In order to ensure communication, human languages are established within the boundaries of various systems and norms. Language is an organized system of signs and rules, and every language in the world has its own laws. Instruction in reading, writing, speaking and listening can improve the literacy of English language learners in school settings. Basic language skills are covered by these skills. Writing proficiency is seen as something difficult to learn both in the teaching of mother tongues and in the teaching of foreign languages.

As Gaffarovna (2022) [8] stated like other basic language skills, writing skills play an essential role in learning a second language. These roles include teaching and developing the grammatical structures of a second language, using words and phrases appropriate to the situation and communicating. The development of writing skills promotes personal development and is closely linked to one's capacity for critical thinking.

According to Chicho (2022) [5] receptive skills include reading and listening. Language learners take in concepts, perspectives and ideas by reading or listening. Speaking and writing are utilitarian skills. Accordingly, learners develop ideas, concepts and meanings from context through speaking and writing. Training in writing, one of these productive skills, should be emphasized. However, most learners find writing challenging. When writing, language learners need to concentrate on a few things such as correct punctuation, correct use of vocabulary, sentence patterns and paragraph organization. Coherence in writing refers to the process of connecting concepts to the primary topic, which is another characteristic of a strong paragraph.

As Moses & Mohamad (2019) [14] when teaching learners to write, it is far-reaching to explain to them the concept of creative writing that takes place in this environment. Writing is a complex activity involving both cognitive and motivational factors. English language teaching has received a lot of attention recently. As interest in this subject grows, new techniques and strategies for practice are beginning to emerge. In essence, teaching and learning how to write is considered its own discipline in the English classroom. Narrative capacity is the ability to write in any language. In order for students to be able to convey their feelings, thoughts, dreams and impressions in line with the norms, writing skills are developed in teaching English as a foreign language and learners who have writing skills need to improve their writing skills. The key to teaching and learning a foreign language is writing. When students first learnt to write letters properly, they were given writing training. If a student has a weak foundation in writing, this can have various negative effects, including major deficiencies in their academic achievements. Writing is important for their social and emotional development as well as helping them to do better academically.

According to Haerazi, Irawan, Suadiyatno & Hidayatullah (2020) [10] learning to write words and word combinations, to connect word combinations with expressions and to write thoughts correctly is part of the writing process. Writing is seen as one of the student's productive and active skills. Speaking performances involve the oral communication of ideas and points of view, and writing skills involve putting the same ideas into written form. As Yundayani, Susilawati & Chairunnisa (2019) [16] learning to write involves a number of challenges. Writing performance involves both subjective and grammatical components. Learning a second language can be difficult because of grammatical gaps, incorrect punctuation, incorrect sentence structure and tenses. The importance of acquiring and teaching other languages has increased recently. When a person learns a foreign language, his/her world view begins to change as he/she gets to know the customs and culture of that language. Writing is a highly sophisticated and powerful act. As well as facilitating communication, writing helps to organize ideas logically and is a crucial tool for learning. It is very important to develop writing skills and qualify children in this age of global knowledge and expanding options for self-discovery. One of the best ways to develop writing skills is to make writing distinctive and give students the freedom to express their own personality, thoughts, aspirations, expectations and projects. To reduce writing anxiety, writing disposition should be increased and students should be convinced that writing is a learnable skill. EFL/ESL teachers should focus on methods to improve their students' writing skills because teaching students to write is difficult.

Learning English has become a trend among secondary school students in Kazakhstan and a necessity for university students to study and easily find employment. Literate scholars continue to regard writing skill as one of the most important elements supporting cultural progress, individual freedom and the main form of commerce. Students should check their writing performance to demonstrate their degree of comprehension. EFL learners often write topics, essays, paragraphs, dissertations, scientific papers and other types of writing. Grammar construction when producing any material is a time-consuming process. However, writing will be a challenging assignment for non-native speakers of English and also for students with limited grammatical skills due to grammatical accuracy and proofreading. EFL learners' abilities and outcomes are influenced by numerous factors. Thanks to technological advances that improve EFL learners' language literacy, there are now a variety of online platforms for editing, spell checking, and sentence structure and grammar services. EFL students' written work can show a range of techniques, approaches and tactics.

One of the best known interactive tools for developing and producing the greatest writing helper tool on the planet is the Grammarly application. It was developed by Maz and Alex in 2009 as a great spelling correction service that detects even the smallest mistakes. The Grammarly app helps users produce better written artifacts by checking grammar and spelling mistakes. Grammarly is the most popular tool to help children with literacy writing. The programme aims to help EFL learners write more effectively. Thanks to Grammarly, grammatical, grammatical, phonological, spelling and punctuation errors are significantly reduced. Grammarly is also helpful and easy to use.

As stated Huang, Li, & Taylor (2020, May) [11] a free online grammar checker called Grammarly can find and correct errors in spelling, punctuation and other areas. It also helps students use synonyms more effectively and understand terminology. Because it is a simple programme, anyone can use it easily. Grammar can help students write more effectively and use grammar rules more consistently. Grammar supports students by offering constructive writing criticism and advice. Numerous problems can be found with this tool, including spelling mistakes, grammatical and punctuation errors, lexical inaccuracies, and stylistic and lexical errors. It is available free of charge.

According to Karyuatry (2018) [13] one of the effective programs that make it easy to review user content for grammatical problems, possible stylistic flaws and other features of interest is Grammarly. The free online proofreading tool Grammarly can be used to check written materials for grammatical errors.

Fahmi & Cahyono (2021) [7] argued that Grammarly can detect errors in punctuation (such as spaces after periods) and spelling (including proper names), and also offers several possible replacements for misspelled words. It can also detect sentence fragments and give advice on verb tense, but this is not always the case and the explanations are lengthy. All in all, Grammarly is useful in helping teachers and students organize written work. Grammarly application one of the far-reaching tool that helps foreign language learners to overcome challenges while writing. It is a support, help and effective feedback for learners. The current research study aimed to determine effectiveness of «Grammarly application» on evolving academic writing capabilities of learners. In addition, the recent research study seeks out following research questions.

Research questions

1. How much does Grammarly help Kazakhstani EFL learners’ academic writing skills?
2. What is the perception of male and female learners towards use of Grammarly application?
3. Are there significant differences towards using Grammarly app according to academic years of the study at the university?

Methods and Materials

Descriptive research design was utilized in order to investigate effectiveness of «Grammarly application» in the current research study. It is also called statistical research design. As stated Akhtar (2020) [2] descriptive research design answers the questions of what, who, where, how and when. It is used to evaluate the current situation. The questionnaire was conducted among participants in order to identify the effectiveness of «Grammarly application». Quantitative survey was used to achieve the aim of the present research study. According to Aliaga & Gunderson (2002) [3] quantitative research provides a description of the specific research studies through analysis, and in addition it shows data with numbers and percentage.

Participants of the study

Overall 37 EFL learners took part from International University of tourism and hospitality in Turkestan.19 male and 17 female learners selected from 1 ^st (22 learners) and 2 ^nd (15 learners) courses in order to investigate their perception towards use of Grammarly app. Participants were selected using a method known as «purposive sampling», a type of non-probability sampling in which the researcher relies on his/her own judgment in selecting participants for the survey. The participants were first and second year students. The survey was conducted in the autumn of the 2022–2023 academic years.

Data collection instrument

The questionnaire regarding to the effectiveness of using Grammarly application was developed by Dewi (2022) [6]. The questionnaire called Grammarly as automated writing evaluation has 9 items which help to analyze benefits of using Grammarly application. The instrument was used as a form of 5 Likert scales. The questionnaire was prepared in Google form and send to Whatsapp chat to fill. Participants were asked to select SD (Strongly Disagree), D (Disagree), N (Neutral), A (Agree) or SA (Strongly Agree) in response to each of the 9 items. The Cronbach’s alpha score of α=,809 presented that the questionnaire had high reliability for the amount of items in the recent questionnaire (See Table 1).

Table 1

Reliability scale

Data collection procedure and analysis

The questions of the questionnaire were primarily related to the age and grade of the student. Each question was easy to understand, did not cause difficulties and provided alternatives that were explained in advance. Even a beginner in learning English should be able to understand all items. The students were given a preliminary explanation. They were told that the answers would be used for academic purposes only and would be kept confidential. Finally, after collecting the necessary data, the results of the study were produced using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23. Normality Testing was used as a first step before applying an inferential statistical test to the data to assess whether parametric or nonparametric analysis was acceptable. Since the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk test findings showed that the participant's reading awareness data did not show a normal distribution, it was preferred to perform nonparametric analyses on the data.

Findings and Discussion

The first research question was about «How much does Grammarly help Kazakhstani EFL learners’ academic writing skills?». The descriptive statistics was used in order to calculate. The results were given in Table 2.

Table 2

Descriptive analysis

According to clear results of descriptive analysis the effectiveness of Grammarly application showed high results, M=4,03. It demonstrated that learner’s perception towards use of Grammarly application was positive. Participants believe that Grammarly help them to evolve academic writing capabilities. In addition, with the help of this app they can check grammar errors, punctuation, word choices.

According to Ghufron & Rosyida (2018) [9] research using the findings and results of the study, it can be concluded that using Grammar in writing in English in EFL helps students to make fewer errors with word usage (diction), language usage (grammar) and mechanics (spelling and punctuation).

Astuti, Darmahusni, Sumarni & Suseno (2023, June) [4] argued that there is an app called Grammarly that looks for errors in written English. It achieves this by taking errors out of context. This app tracks or follows the correct writing flow to prevent further errors from occurring. In addition, Grammarly provides plagiarism-free writing help to correct spelling and grammar mistakes. This technique can also detect unethical academic activities such as plagiarism by reviewing and comparing other literature available online. In addition to services for detecting plagiarism, the programme includes grammar and spelling checks, passive voice usage checks, compound punctuation, hard-to-read text correction and sentence length correction. It also offers tips on writing clarity, vocabulary, presentation style and tone. It can also determine the error Grammarly ads at the end of each document, a useful indicator of how much editing and improvement work remains for the user. The use of vocabulary (diction), language (grammar) and writing mechanics (spelling and punctuation) have been found to be more successfully reduced with this technique. In addition, Jupri (2021) [12] stated that the use of Grammarly Chrome can improve students' rhetorical and grammar skills, which can have a good impact on how they prepare their English report paper.

According to Perdana, Manullang & Masri (2021) Grammarly then suggests adding different terminology. In addition, avoid repeating yourself even if the idea is the same because writing by default requires tool assistance, which in turn changes the terminology used in the writing. This is the most appropriate thing to do and will help the writer to avoid using the same language, term, tense or structure more than once in the same context. This application tool offers some suggestions. This is what applicable grammar software does or how it reacts to academic writing styles. One of them is a Grammar tool to improve writing skill or academic English style. In addition, academic writing uses formal terminology different from normal speech.

According to Akbar (2023) [1] one of the most popular tools that can be used in writing lessons is Grammarly. Grammarly is said to be a simple application that can help schools and students with their writing by checking spelling, grammar and punctuation. In addition, it provides in-depth and helpful comments, including corrections and suggestions to improve the clarity, accuracy, effectiveness, readability, no errors, and impact of writing with high accuracy rate and review speed. Currently a well-known online grammar checker is Grammarly. Many students in schools and colleges use this grammar checker to check for errors. Students can correct their mistakes and get feedback with the help of Grammarly. It is accessible to students anywhere and anytime. However, using Grammarly as a tool for grammar checking only helps; the most important thing is to keep relying on the students' own skills and not directly or only on Grammarly.

In addition, each item from questionnaire analyzed separately in order to analyze learners’ attitudes. The results demonstrated in Table 3.

Table 3

Descriptive analysis

The descriptive analysis carried out to calculate results of each item from questionnaire. As a result of descriptive analysis the highest results obtained items like (1,2,7 and 9). «Grammarly is easy to use» (M=4,18), «Grammarly is accessed quickly» (M=4,18), «Grammarly is accessed anytime and anywhere» (M=4,10) and «Grammarly helps you to enhance your summarizing skills» (M=4,55). It means that this Grammarly application easy to utilize, accessed and in addition you can use this app anytime and anywhere. Grammarly helps not only checking grammar errors but also helps evolving ability to summarize. Moreover, the average score obtained by items (3,4,5,6 and 8). «Grammarly helps check grammar errors» (M=3,94), «Grammarly identifies errors simpler and quicker» (M=3,68), «Grammarly helps you to minimize errors in grammar, punctuation, and word choices» (M=4,02) and «Grammarly helps you to enhance paraphrasing skills» (M=3,89). It demonstrated that Grammarly application helps overcome grammar errors, challenges and it is quicker than other apps. By using this application users can develop paraphrasing skills.

The second research question was about«What is the perception of male and female learners towards use of Grammarly application?». The results are presented in Table 4.

Table 4

Results of Mann-Whitney U -test

According to the second research question differences between male and female participants were calculated. In order to obtain clear results Mann-Whitney U -test was used. It is used to calculate differences between two independent variables. According to the results of Mann-Whitney U -test there was no significant difference between male and female participants. Male learners (M=16,74) and female learners (M=20,47). Female learners’ perception towards use of Grammarly application was higher than male participants. It means that female learners demonstrated positive attitudes towards Grammarly.

The last research question was about «Are there significant differences towards using Grammarly app according to academic years of the study at the university?». The crystal clear results are given in Table 5.

Table 5

Results of Mann-Whitney U-test

Differences between first and second course participants were calculated in response to the third study question. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to obtain definitive findings. It is used to calculate differences between two unrelated variables. The results showed that first and second course learners’ attitudes towards use of Grammarly application were positive, and also grade differences analyzed. There was no significant difference between first and second course learners. There can be slightly difference according to number of participants. First course learners showed higher results than second course learners. There are can be presented several reasons like: numbers of participants from first course were more than second courses. In addition, freshmen learners need such kinds of applications, approaches and methods than other courses.

Conclusion

Although teaching English to foreigners is a matter of competence, research and studies on how to teach the language more effectively are ongoing. Since the beginning of the study and teaching of languages globally, various approaches, methods, tactics and strategies have been used. Language teaching has long been based on traditional methods, approaches and procedures. Due to the rapid updating of electronic resources used in classrooms, the use of information and communication technologies in education has long been a topic of interest to scholars.

Groundbreaking technology Grammarly has changed the way we speak and write. Grammarly provides a critical platform to improve your writing skills with cutting-edge features and a simple user interface. Clarity is a crucial component of good writing. Grammarly helps you in your quest for clarity by pointing out and correcting grammar and spelling errors in your content. Its intelligent algorithm analyses your material, finds errors and suggests corrections. Making sure your writing is error-free with Grammarly can help your readers clearly understand your message. Grammarly's real-time checking tool catches errors as you type, helping you spend less time correcting them. Instead of tedious manual editing, you can focus on the artistic qualities of your work because it eliminates the need for it. Grammarly serves as your virtual writing assistant, making writing simpler and more effective.

The purpose of the study was to determine effectiveness of «Grammarly application» on evolving academic writing capabilities of learners. In addition, the recent research study seeks out following research questions. According to the results of descriptive statistics learners’ showed positive perception, moreover, there was no significant difference between grade and gender of participants.

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