SỬ DỤNG GOOGLE DOCS VÀ MERCI APP TRONG LỚP HỌC VIẾT TIẾNG PHÁP

Abstract

This study compares the effectiveness of two automated feedback tools, Google Documents, which will be further addressed as Google Docs, and Merci App, in improving writing ability in French as a foreign language. Forty second-year students used these two reviewer tools to correct their B2-level texts. The data includes 80 student drafts edited on two tools and a survey questionnaire after using these two applications. The results show that both tools help students correct many errors at the sentence, word, and fragment levels but cannot correct errors at the inter-sentence, idea, and coherence levels. Google Docs detects more grammatical errors than Merci App, but Merci App is superior when it comes to finding errors in spelling, vocabulary, expression, and punctuation. Students use the application's error correction suggestions to correct their papers at a very high rate, 92.6% with Google Docs and 81.7% with Merci App. The number of students who prefer Google Docs is also higher than the number of students who prefer Merci App. The study proposes to use both tools to correct students' writing errors and to help students become familiar with error explanations in Merci App to help them systematize language knowledge and develop auto-learning capacity.