Copyright©2018 P-ISSN: 1978-8118 E-ISSN: 2460-710X 395 Lingua Cultura, 12(4), November 2018, 395-403 DOI: 10.21512/lc.v12i4.4582 THE ROLE OF GRAMMARLY IN ASSESSING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL) WRITING Muhammad Ali Ghufron1; Fathia Rosyida2 1English Education Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts Education, IKIP PGRI Bojonegoro 2Indonesian Language Education Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts Education, IKIP PGRI Bojonegoro Jl. Panglima Polim 46, Bojonegoro, East Java, Indonesia 1Ali.Ghufron@ikippgribojonegoro.ac.id; 2fathia_rosyida@ikippgribojonegoro.ac.id Received: 25th April 2018 /Revised: 01st May 2018 /Accepted: 23rd May 2018 How to Cite: Ghufron, M. A., & Rosyida, F. (2018). The role of grammarly in assessing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing. Lingua Cultura, 12(4), 395-403. https://doi.org/10.21512/lc.v12i4.4582 ABSTRACT This research aimed at investigating the use of Grammarly software and in what terms it was more effective in reducing students’ errors in EFL writing compared to teacher corrective feedback (indirect corrective feedback). This research used the quantitative approach with a quasi-experimental design. There were 40 university students from English Education Study Program of a private university in Indonesia who were selected and randomized clustered into two; experimental and control groups. The students were tested at the beginning and the end of the research. The quantitative data were analyzed by using t-test formula. The results of the research confirm that the students whose work is evaluated by using Grammarly have a significant reduction in their errors compared to those whose work is evaluated by the teacher (indirect corrective feedback). The software is shown to be more effective to reduce the errors in terms of vocabulary usages (diction), language use (grammar), and mechanics of writing (spelling and punctuation). However, it is less effective to improve the content and organization of students’ EFL writing. This research can suggest EFL/ESL teachers with an alternative assessment for students’ writing that supports an autonomous learning environment. Keywords: Grammarly software, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing, indirect corrective feedback, teacher corrective feedback INTRODUCTION The rapid development of technology has caused significant changes in human’s life. A computer has been regarded as a revolution affecting all areas of human life, including education, throughout history. In the traditional view of learning, the teaching and learning activity was done both by the teacher and the learners through face-to-face manner (Qassemzadeh & Soleimani, 2016; Talebinezhad & Abarghoui, 2013). Today’s learners are well-known as digital natives or members of the Net Generation. They are born in the digital age and have been interacting with digital technology from an early age (Arteaga Sánchez, Cortijo, & Javed, 2014; Prensky, 2001, 2010; Tapscott & Williams, 2008, 2010; Thompson, 2013). Nowadays, students may not join a teaching and learning process by attending a classroom. Some educational institutions have already provided a blended learning course and even online learning course. Through the blended or online learning, the students can easily access the materials from their teachers. By using smartphone or computers, students can easily input their assignments into an online form, which is then sent to a spreadsheet. The teacher can then easily assess assignments manually as well as by using a variety of automated grammar/language tools (Schraudner, 2013). One of the challenges faced by EFL teachers in this digital era is integrating technology into the EFL classroom as an effect of globalization. Besides, the teachers must be able to make the students participate in this global written English-language culture. In an EFL writing class, it is a natural extension to provide students with opportunities for authentic foreign language interaction through technology (Daniels & Leslie, 2013). In this case, in EFL writing class, the teachers may use sophisticated software to check students’ grammatical errors, spelling, vocabulary usages, punctuation, and even plagiarism action. To improve students’ EFL writing, some efforts have been done by teachers. The teachers have implemented various teaching techniques, corrective feedbacks, and automatic internet software (Daniels & Leslie, 2013; Dodgson et al., 2016; Godwin, 2016; Jafarian, Soori, & Kafipour, 2012; Qassemzadeh & Soleimani, 2016). The Internet has been widely used as a potential tool in 396 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 12 No. 4, November 2018, 395-403 facilitating learning and processing information. It can encourage learners to change their mind to be the person in charge of their own learning and perceive the teachers as facilitators in the teaching and learning process (Kabilan & Rajab, 2010). Teachers, in this digital era, are familiar with some computer software (automatic internet software) to help them in their teaching and learning process, such as Wiki, Facebook, Ms. Word computer software, Grammarly software, and others (Kabilan, Ahmad, & Abidin, 2010; Kuteeva, 2011; Melor & Salehi, 2012; Yunus, Salehi, & Chenzi, 2012; Yunus et al., 2011). One of the computer software (automatic internet software) that can be implemented in EFL writing class is ‘Grammarly’. It is an online proofreading website that can be used to scan documents for grammar mistakes. Besides, it also provides a correction for spelling, punctuation, synonyms (vocabulary usages), and plagiarism detection. As Schraudner (2013) states: “….. It also offers style-specific correction for a variety of different types of writing. In this particular study, the “Student/Academia” setting was used to assess student writing samples. The site also offers “context optimized synonyms” and an “Adaptive Spell Checker” which claim to offer both spelling and word choice suggestions based on content. Another feature of the site is plagiarism detection, which checks writing against a database of eight billion web pages.” Grammarly software is effective to help teachers and learners in correcting EFL writing. It is because Grammarly is not only able to identify punctuation (such as the missing spaces after the periods) and the spelling mistakes, including the proper noun and provided several alternative possibilities for the misspelled words, but also identify fragments and offer advice on verb form, although often no suggested corrections are presented, and explanations were complex (Daniels & Leslie, 2013). Another most common way, which has been used for many years, to correct students’ errors in EFL writing is teacher corrective feedback. Feedback is a traditional instructional tool for writing the course to improve the students’ writing skill. It can be used to highlight the errors in EFL writing tasks, i.e., grammatical errors, spelling errors, diction errors, and so on (Wichadee, 2013). Corrective feedback is widely used by teachers to educate students’ inductively, by criticizing and providing comments on students’ work. Corrective feedback has become a necessity for all educators and students, and it has been carried out for centuries throughout students’ learning, either in their exercise books, exam papers, or throughout the lesson itself (Dodgson et al., 2016). In EFL classroom, especially EFL writing, Corrective feedback (CF) is an inevitable teaching strategy implemented by teachers. Several researches have revealed that corrective feedback is effective; however, it seems to have a variety of issues that have caused it to be unsuccessful. The students are still having difficulties in dealing with and learning from the corrective feedback itself. When they have to deal with complex linguistic errors all by themselves, they could not cope with their errors as they do not have sufficient linguistic knowledge to facilitate them (Dodgson et al., 2016; Van Beuningen, De Jong, & Kuken, 2012). There are many types of corrective feedback. One of them is indirect corrective feedback. According to Bitchener, Young, and Cameron (2005), indirect corrective feedback is where the students are given indications (highlighted parts) by their teacher on errors that have been made by the students. The indications are given in different ways such as highlighting, underlining, or coding. After the teacher gives the indirect feedback, the students will make self-correction and self-reformulation. Self-correction is the learner’s ability to correct the errors by themselves (Firth, 1987). Self-reformulation is where students’ reformulate, by themselves, the correct version of the sentences that have an error. Consequently, this provokes students’ cognitive beliefs and boosts their learning (Tocalli-Beller & Swain, 2005). In Indonesia, EFL writing course in higher education, especially in English education department, is a compulsory course. EFL writing course takes a lot of portion in teaching and learning process. This is because writing also becomes one of the requirements before the students graduate from their institutions (Ghufron et al., 2016). Therefore, to help the students in order to be able to meet the requirements, they are given a writing course during their study. Although the students have been taught a writing course and various techniques have been implemented by teachers, it does not mean that they do not have difficulties when they write their final project. Most of the students commonly have a problem with the grammatical aspect, vocabulary usages, misspelling words, and incorrect punctuation. These problems are also agreed by the students as they stated below: “… yeah, sometimes we are still confused by our grammar during EFL writing”. (AW) “… not only grammar, we often get confused with the choice of words, and we also frequently ignore the punctuation, therefore, the meaning of our sentences is ambiguous”. (ANR) “….Spelling. Yeah, spelling is sometimes a thing that we do not pay attention to. Actually, we know the correct spelling, but frequently it is a typo”. (AFM) To deal with the above-mentioned of students’ problems, this research is intended to examine the effectiveness of Grammarly in reducing the errors made by the students in terms of grammar, vocabulary usages, and mechanics (spelling and punctuation). This Grammarly is compared to teacher’s corrective feedback. Teacher’s corrective feedback is done manually through students’ paper. The teacher gives some comments and notes dealing with the students’ writing. The teacher highlights the paper when it is found some mistakes there. This research would enable educators and researchers to identify and comprehend how computer software such as Grammarly could contribute to English language learning. In addition, people could have a better picture of how EFL learners could improve their language ability through online software, especially in terms of writing. With such knowledge, researchers and practitioners will be able to devise and develop specific, appropriate, and creative pedagogical ideas or methods that make effective use of Grammarly for EFL learning. The researchers find many types of research dealing with the use of online software/computer software in teaching and learning process, including EFL writing class. There are also many articles with different length and depth in the use of online learning such as the use of FB for EFL writing, the use of online grammar checkers such as Grammarly, Ginger, Ms. Word, and many more, appear in various educational as well as personal pages. 397The Role of Grammarly.. (Muhammad Ali Ghufron; Fathia Rosyida) Those articles discuss the effectiveness, the advantages and disadvantages of using computer software, the reasons to use computer software in teaching and learning process, and so on (see Razak, Saeed, & Ahmad, 2013; Naba’h et al., 2009; Barani, 2011; Chappelle, 2004; Daniels & Leslie, 2013; Fageeh, 2011; Qassemzadeh & Soleimani, 2016). All the above articles indicate that the use of certain computer software has great potentials for EFL learning, especially in the higher education context. Hence, the researchers concur with the view of Daniels & Leslie (2013) that grammar checker tools and platforms such as Grammarly and Ginger, “That such kind of tools can help us to be a better writer” and become a new site for potential research (Bloch, 2008; Daniels & Leslie, 2013; Qassemzadeh & Soleimani, 2016). However, there are only a few researches focus on the use of grammar checker tools. Qassemzadeh and Soleimani (2016) have revealed that the use of Grammarly is effective in helping students in reducing the errors of EFL writing. It can identify the errors are made by the students and propose the alternative answers. Ware and Warschauer (2006) have said that electronic feedback is a term which is used across different approaches to the teaching of writing. When the purposes of literacy take on different meanings and use in a range of contexts, so do the uses of technology come to bear in a variety of ways depending on the research lens and pedagogical frame. Giving feedback to the learners can enhance their self-confidence to do their best to succeed. Teacher’s feedback is the teacher’s verbal reaction to grammatical errors committed by the learners in the process of teaching and learning (Prvinchandar & Ayub, 2014). Some researches are explaining how corrective feedback and self- correction impedes students’ improvement in EFL writing. For example, Ghandi & Maghsoudi (2014) have revealed that indirect corrective feedback is more effective than direct feedback in correcting spelling errors. Furthermore, Ahmadi-Azad (2014) has concluded that indirect corrective feedback has a positive influence on learners’ accuracy of using grammatical structures. Storch & Wigglesworth (2010) have also confirmed that indirect corrective feedback facilitates better writing accuracy compared to direct corrective feedback. It is also found that indirect corrective feedback is effective as it allows students to have deeper processing of the language, hence, improving grammatical accuracy compared to direct corrective feedback. While Maleki & Eslami (2013) have found that indirect corrective feedback group is better than direct corrective feedback group in term of delayed posttest. Indirect corrective feedback and self-correction involve students’ engagement. In indirect corrective feedback and self-correction, the students need to be actively involved in learning by doing extra work cognitively. On the other hand, in the direct corrective feedback, the students are merely directly shown where errors occur and are provided the correct input straight away. The work of indirect corrective feedback requires immense cognitive engagement and social interaction (Ahmadi-Azad, 2014). In dealing with and learning from indirect corrective feedback, the students must be intelligent, since the nature of corrective feedback guides students through indications and trains them to solve problems, leading them towards discovery learning (Chandler, 2003). Decoding and doing inductive referencing are two things that must be done by students before comprehending what type of feedback the teacher is providing and why it is given (Vickers, 2001). METHODS This research is carried out in English Education Study Program, Faculty of Languages and Arts Education of IKIP PGRI Bojonegoro, East Java, Indonesia. IKIP PGRI Bojonegoro is the first higher institution in Bojonegoro regency which focuses on Educational field. English Education is one of the leading study programs in this institution. In this research, 40 out of 60 students of the third semester were involved that are selected through cluster random sampling technique. Since this research uses a quasi-experimental design, the subjects are divided into two groups, experimental and control group. Each group consists of 20 students. The selection to become the experimental and control group is done through cluster random sampling. The two groups, then, are treated by using the different treatment. The students in the experimental group are treated by using Grammarly software. In the initial of the teaching and learning process of EFL writing course, they are introduced to what Grammarly software is. They are trained on how to operate or use the software to rectify their writing in terms of grammatical errors, vocabulary usages, and mechanics (spelling and punctuation). After they have clearly understood how to operate this software, then, they are asked to use it in EFL writing course for one semester. They are also asked to save the original text they have written and the revised version after corrected by using Grammarly. This is done in order to know the improvement they have made in EFL writing in one semester. In this case, the students are independently asked to check their writing with the help of Grammarly. The teacher is merely as a facilitator. At last, the students submit their work to the teacher to be assessed. On the contrary, the students in the control group are treated by using teacher indirect corrective feedback. In this case, after the students write a text (in term of pencil and paper test), they must submit their work to the teacher. The teacher, then, checks and reads the students’ writing. When the teacher finds some mistakes in terms of grammar, vocabulary usages, and mechanics, she/he makes an indication by highlighting the errors and gives some notes on it. Then, the paper is returned to the students and the students independently decode the teacher’s corrective feedback and revise their work based on the teacher’s notes. The last, the paper is also returned to the teacher to be assessed. The instrument used in this research is the writing test. Arikunto (2004) defines that test is, “A set of questions or exercises or other means used to measure skill, knowledge, intelligence, ability, or talent of an individuals or group of people”. Based on the definition, the test is a profile of the research results in the written form. This profile is then used to know the standard of students’ achievement. For educators, this profile will be used to determine the next learning process. In administering a test, it is important to set and determine an understandable instruction. The essay writing test is administered at the end of the semester. The test is in the form of the essay writing. For the experimental group, the essay writing must be written in Ms. Word file, since it will be evaluated by using Grammarly software. On the contrary, the students’ essay must be written in a piece of paper since it will be evaluated conventionally by using teacher corrective feedback. Before administering a test to the students, the researchers should firstly check the readability of the instrument. Readability is defined as reading ease, especially 398 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 12 No. 4, November 2018, 395-403 as it results from a writing style. To know the readability of the writing test, the researchers, firstly, ask the students who are not the members of the experimental or control group to read and understand the instruction of the writing test. The validity and reliability of writing test instrument are validated by using expert judgment. Budiyono (2004) mentions that to judge whether a test instrument has high validity, it is necessary to ask for expert’s opinion. The expert judgment is to know if the test is based on the given materials, if the test is understandable, if the test is based on the blueprint, and if the instruction is clear and understandable (Budiyono, 2004). In this research, the expert judgment is done by consulting the test instruction to experts. The instruction of the test, then, is evaluated its readability and its suitability with blueprint and indicators. In administering a test, it is important to set and determine understandable instruction. It is necessary since there have been some cases in which students fail to do the test due to their inability to understand the given instruction. Hughes (1996) mentions some factors to write good instruction. First, the instruction should be clear and explicit. Second, it should avoid the supposition that all students know what is intended. Third, the test writer should not rely on the students’ power of telepathy to elicit the desired behavior. The data of this research is taken from pre and post- test data. The pre-test data is used to know that the two groups come from the same condition (balance) and have the same starting point. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The findings of this research are presented in two sections, i.e., pre-test data and post-test data. Based on the result of pre-test that is given to the samples and is conducted before treatment, it is found that the two groups are in balance condition. This balance condition is a condition in which that the two groups have the same starting point. This pre-test is focused on students’ initial skill in EFL writing. The students are asked to write based on a certain topic. After that, the students’ EFL writing is evaluated based on the five criteria, i.e., content, organization, diction, language use (grammar), and mechanics (spelling and punctuation). The students’ writing is scored analytically based on Reid’s (1993) modified scoring rubric. The summary of the pre-test is presented in Table 1. As it can be seen from Table 1, the mean scores of the two groups are compared to know whether or not they have the same starting point (balance condition). The results clearly reveal that both groups are in balance condition (it can be seen from the value of tobs which is lower than ttable); therefore, the two groups can be used as the samples for the further research process. For the post-test data, after the samples are tested for the initial condition and are concluded that they are in balance condition, the researchers, then, treat them with different treatment in EFL writing class. For the experimental group, the researchers implement the Grammarly software in assessing and correcting students’ EFL writing. In this case, Table 1 The Summary of Pre-test Results Groups Number of Students (N) Mean Score Normality Test Homogeneity Test Balance Test (T-test) T-table (α=0,01) Conclusion Experimental 20 48,15 Normal Homogeneous 0,246 2,711 tobs2,024). Therefore, it can be inferred that Grammarly software is more effective in reducing students’ errors in EFL writing compared to teacher corrective feedback (indirect corrective feedback) to teach EFL writing. It can give a better effect on students’ EFL writing skill. From Table 3, it is revealed that Grammarly software gives the better effect on three indicators of EFL writing, i.e., diction, language use (grammar), and mechanics (spelling and punctuation), but it gives less effect on content and organization. On the contrary, the teacher corrective feedback (indirect corrective feedback) gives a better Table 2 The Summary of Post-test Results for All Indicators of Writing Skill Groups Number of Students (N) Mean Score Normality Test Homogeneity Test T-test (T-obs) T-table (α=0,05) Conclusion Experimental 20 79,58 Normal Homogeneous 2,415 2,024 tobs>ttable, Ho is rejected Control 20 74,83 Normal Homogeneous Table 3 The Summary of Post-test Results for Each Indicator of Writing Skill EFL Writing Indicators (Reid, 1993) Groups Number of Students (N) Mean Score Normality Test Homogeneity Test T-test (T-obs) T-table (α=0.05) Conclusion Content Experimental 20 20,58 Normal Homogeneous 1,517 2,024 tobsttable, H o is rejectedControl 20 15,65 Normal Homogeneous Language Use Experimental 20 21,45 Normal Homogeneous 8,311 2,024 tobs>ttable, H o is rejected Control 20 17,00 Normal Homogeneous Mechanics Experimental 20 7,00 Normal Homogeneous 2,517 2,024 tobs>ttable, H o is rejectedControl 20 5,75 Normal Homogeneous 400 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 12 No. 4, November 2018, 395-403 effect on two indicators of EFL writing, i.e., content and organization, but it has less effect on diction, language use, and mechanics. However, for overall indicators, it can be inferred that Grammarly software is more effective than teacher corrective feedback. During the implementation of Grammarly software, the students are asked to evaluate their own writing independently. This encourages them to get engaged deeply in teaching and learning process. This also makes them more motivated and have positive attitudes towards the use of online learning system (Fageeh, 2011). This is in line with Kabilan, Ahmad, and Abidin’s (2010) research which reveals that online learning could motivate students well. According to Blattner and Fiori (2009); Gass and Selinker (2008), students’ motivation is a “strong predictor of success in language classes”. Moreover, the use of Grammarly software in evaluating EFL writing can make the students identify their writing mistakes in terms of vocabulary usages, language use, and mechanics clearly and directly. Besides, this software also provides alternative answers (feedback provision) for their mistakes. The students can directly opt which answer suits best for their writing. Therefore, after working with Grammarly software several times, the students are able to identify and choose the correct diction, grammar, and mechanics. This makes their language skill, in this case, is writing skill, improves significantly. This research is also supported by the research findings of Daniels & Leslie (2013), they argue that Grammarly is one of software that can be used in language learning, especially in assessing or evaluating EFL writing, and can give the good contribution to the improvement of language skills. The feedback provision in Grammarly gives the positive contribution that makes the students easily recognize their mistakes and improve their writing (Qassemzadeh & Soleimani, 2016). Saadi & Saadat (2015) reveal that that using electronic feedback such as Grammarly software creates a less intimidating environment for students. Further, they argue that electronic feedback fosters a student-centered environment in which students themselves are responsible for their own learning as well as their strengths and weaknesses in language skills. Figure 2 shows the example of Grammarly software using. It provides the optional answers or feedback provision. On the contrary, the students whose works are evaluated through teacher corrective feedback (indirect corrective feedback) only look at the feedback in exam papers and exercise books after the teacher returns their works. This return cannot be done directly after the students submit their work. The teacher needs more time to read, evaluate, and correct students’ works. Since this feedback is given by the teacher him/herself, sometimes the feedback is not comprehensive enough. It is because one teacher must correct and give feedback to a number of students’ works. However, sometimes the students do not make any effort to understand the indications of errors and comments given. The students will correct the results of their commented paper only when the teacher instructs them to do so. Otherwise, they do not put the high emphasis on indirect corrective feedback given, and there is the weak effort in learning from the errors made (Dodgson et al., 2016). Saadi & Saadat (2015) reveal that in teacher corrective feedback, the students feel ashamed if their work is corrected by their teacher because they sometimes make silly mistakes. From the explanation, it is understandable if the students whose works corrected through Grammarly software have better EFL writing skill than those whose works corrected by the teacher. The students who evaluate their works with the software have a significant reduction on the errors in EFL writing. That is why their writing is significantly improved. Therefore, it can be inferred that Grammarly software is more effective in reducing students’ errors in EFL writing compared to teacher corrective feedback (indirect corrective feedback) to teach EFL writing. To get more comprehensive data, this research also compares the use of Grammarly software to teacher Figure 2 The Optional Answers (Feedback Provision) Provided by Grammarly Software 401The Role of Grammarly.. (Muhammad Ali Ghufron; Fathia Rosyida) corrective feedback in all indicators of writing. Those indicators are content, organization, vocabulary usages (diction), language use, and mechanics (Reid, 1993). This is done in order to know whether or not the use of Grammarly software more effective in reducing students’ errors in each indicator of EFL writing compared to teacher corrective feedback (indirect corrective feedback). Based on the result which is presented in Table 3, it is clearly seen that the use of Grammarly software is more effective in reducing errors on three indicators, i.e., diction, language use, and mechanics. This is because Grammarly software can identify EFL writing mistakes and/or errors in terms of vocabulary usages, language use, and mechanics clearly and directly. Grammarly is also able to identify the missing spaces after the periods and the spelling mistakes, including the proper noun and provided several alternative possibilities (feedback provision) for the misspelled words. It also can identify fragments and offer advice on verb form (Daniels & Leslie, 2013). Further, Daniels & Leslie (2013) argue that Grammarly is one of software that can be used in language learning, especially in assessing EFL writing and can give the good contribution to the improvement of language skills. The feedback provision in Grammarly also gives the positive contribution that makes the students easily recognize their mistakes and improve their writing (Qassemzadeh & Soleimani, 2016). On the other hand, the use of Grammarly software has less effect on the rest two indicators of writing, i.e., content and organization. Based on this research, in this case, teacher corrective feedback (indirect corrective feedback) is more effective than Grammarly software. The students whose works evaluated by teacher corrective feedback tend to have better content and organization. This is because in Grammarly software, the system cannot detect whether or not the content of students’ writing is appropriate with the topic. The system also has low detection on the sentence movement in each paragraph, whether the paragraph has a good coherence or not. On the contrary, teacher corrective feedback pays more attention to these aspects, content, and organization. It is because the corrector is the teacher by him/herself. The teacher will easily recognize if there is a gap between the topic and the content. The teacher also can feel sensitively if he/she finds that the paragraph has bad movement and bad coherence. If it is so, the teacher, then, highlights those parts and gives comments by writing some notes on students’ paper. The students who understand the feedback given by the teacher will try to revise their works based on the suggestion. However, they have to wait for their paper until it is returned in the next meeting. In fact, the teacher does evaluate not only the content and organization, but also the other three indicators, diction, language use, and mechanics. Unfortunately, the students mostly get confused with the feedback given since the comments are sometimes not clear enough, and this makes them reluctant to revise their works. Actually, if the teacher is very thorough in giving the feedback, the students’ errors may also be overcome, since the students will pay more attention to the comprehensive feedback given by the teacher. However, Dodgson et al., (2016) argue that teacher corrective feedback (indirect corrective feedback) is important to be implemented in EFL writing class as it encourages students to find their weaknesses, understand their weaknesses, and find a solution to their weaknesses. Through teacher corrective feedback, the students will learn a process of personal knowledge discovery of what they know and what they do not know. They will also be able to bridge the gap by finding the correct answer. The students will internalize what they have learned through the experience of finding the correct answer. CONCLUSIONS To sum up the findings and discussion, it can be inferred that the use of Grammarly software in EFL writing gives positive contribution in reducing errors made by the students in terms of vocabulary usages (diction), language use (grammar), and mechanics (spelling and punctuation). It also encourages the students to be autonomous and independent learners as it requires the students to independently evaluate their own works with the help of feedback provision given by the system (Qassemzadeh & Soleimani, 2016). However, it is less effective in terms of two writing indicators, content and organization, as the system cannot detect whether or not the content of students’ writing is appropriate with the topic. The system also has low detection on the sentence movement in each paragraph, whether the paragraph has a good coherence or not. On the contrary, those two indicators, content, and organization are significantly improved when teacher corrective feedback (indirect corrective feedback) is implemented. The teacher will easily recognize if there is a gap between the topic and the content. The teacher also can feel sensitively if he/ she finds that the paragraph has bad coherence. However, in overall, the students whose works evaluated through Grammarly software have better EFL writing skill as the software can help them to reduce the errors they have made significantly. The negative finding is also found from this research. Some of the students are not skillful enough in using Grammarly software accurately. Some of the students still get confused with the feedback provision given by the system. Consequently, they could not optimally self-correct their works. This mostly happens to the case of grammatical feedback for long sentences. It is due to their low linguistic knowledge; therefore, they get confused with the options provided. Van Beuningen, De Jong, and Kuken (2012) assert that students with low linguistic knowledge may not be able to deal with the interlanguage process occurs during self-correction since they have limited knowledge in the English language that can help them in finding the correct answer. This reveals that not all internet software and websites are reliable enough to be referred to. Without adequate knowledge and information, some websites could not give the direct correct answers needed by the users. The findings from this research have implications to the EFL writing teachers and students. The teachers should ensure that the students are skillful enough to operate the Grammarly software before they ask them to use it in teaching and learning process of EFL writing. It will be better if the teachers guide the students on how to operate the software and give them adequate linguistic knowledge before operating the software. The students also should learn independently and make sure that they are ready to use the software and have adequate competence in the English language. When the students are operating the software to check their works, it is suggested for the teachers to go around the class to help them if they have difficulties. It is also suggested to the teachers to not only rely on the software as it cannot comprehensively evaluate all indicators of writing, but also evaluate the students’ works 402 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 12 No. 4, November 2018, 395-403 through teacher corrective feedback thoroughly. Teacher corrective feedback can be used to check the content and the organization of the students’ EFL writing. REFERENCES Ahmadi-Azad, S. (2014). 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