Does Google Translate enhance English writing skills? - A mixed methods study of essay quantity and quality in Vietnamese higher education

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Ophelia

This study examines the impact of Google Translate (GT) on the quantity and quality of essays written by Vietnamese students in academic settings. As GT use becomes increasingly common among L2 writers, its role in English essay tasks warrants closer investigation. Using a mixed methods design, 30 English majors produced two timed essays with and without GT assistance, and screen-recordings plus interviews captured writing processes and attitudes. Quantitative results showed no significant differences in word count or error frequency, while qualitative findings revealed diverse perceptions of GT use.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages28

Reading Time1 h 11 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Literature review

Theoretical frameworks

Machine translation

Does Google Translate enhance English writing skills? A mixed methods study of essay quantity and quality in Vietnamese higher education Thảo N. Đ . Đào1 Hà T. V. Nguyễn2 1HUTECH University, Vietnam 2Tôn Đức Thắng University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Abstract This study examines the impact of Google Translate (GT) on the quantity and quality of essays written by Vietnamese students in academic settings. As GT use becomes increasingly common among L2 writers, its role in English essay tasks warrants closer investigation. Using a mixed methods design, 30 English majors from a public university in Southern Vietnam wrote two timed essays (250 words), one with GT assistance and one without, using a shared prompt unrelated to regular coursework. The writing processes were recorded using screen-recording technology, and follow-up interviews were conducted to explore student attitudes towards the use of Google Translate in essay writing and the factors influencing their utilization of the tool. A paired-samples t-test showed no statistically significant difference between the two essays in terms of word count or error frequency. Qualitative data revealed diverse attitudes towards the Correspondence Hà T. V. Nguyễn [nguyenthivietha@tdtu.edu.vn](nguyenthivietha@tdtu.edu.vn) Publication Received: 18 March 2025 Revision: 13 October 2025 Accepted: 19 November 2025 Published: 23 November 2025 Copyright ©2025TESOL in Context This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – ShareAlike 4.0 International License. GT use, shaped by enactive mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological or affective states. These findings contribute to our understanding of the impact and students’ perceptions of using Google Translate in the writing process. Keywords: Attitudes; essay writing; Google Translate; influencing factors; writing quantity, writing quality. Introduction English is widely recognized as the global language of communication (Hoang, 2020) . In Vietnam, it is compulsory from grade 3 to 12 under Prime Minister ’s Decisions 1400 and 2080 and the national English curriculum (Bộ Giáo dục và Đào tạo, 2018) . At universities, students must master Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing—with writing being especially critical for academic tasks like essays. Yet, writing is challenging due to required subskills such as vocabulary selection and essay coherence (Mantasiah, 2020) . Vietnamese candidates consistently score lowest in Writing and Speaking in exams like IELTS, with 2024–2025 band scores at 6.5 (Listening), 6.4 (Reading), 6.1 (Writing), and 5.6 (Speaking) (Test taker performance, 2024) . At the study’s university, English majors must reach a 6.5 overall IELTS score before graduating, contributing to stress and test anxiety. Consequently, students increasingly use tools like machine translation to support writing development (Faradiba & Aini, 2024; Ismail et al., 2013; Kruk & Kałużna, 2024; Li et al., 2024; Rahman & Unsiah, 2025; Santosa et al., 2024) . Machine translation tools simplify learning by enabling direct translation from L1 to English (Aliliche & Yakoubi, 2020) . Among these tools, Google Translate (GT) is the most used due to its speed, accessibility across devices, and intuitive interface (Garcia & Pena, 2011; Wirantaka & Fijanah, 2021) . However, GT’s limitations surface in academic contexts where writing quality and quantity matter (Chung & Ahn, 2022) . Previous studies assessing GT’s impact have relied primarily on holistic scoring (Abraham, 2009; Garcia & Pena, 2011; O’Neill, 2019) . While these studies have contributed useful insights, their focus on overall writing quality rather than specific linguistic features limits their diagnostic value for classroom instruction, where detailed feedback is of utmost importance. Despite growing interest, few studies explore GT’s impact using metrics like error frequency or user behavior, espe

FAQs

How did the study measure the effect of Google Translate on students’ essays?

Students wrote two timed essays (with GT assistance and without) using a shared prompt. Writing processes were recorded via screen-recording, and interviews explored attitudes and decision factors.

What did the quantitative results show about word count and errors?

A paired-samples t-test found no statistically significant difference between the two essays in terms of word count or error frequency.

What kinds of factors influenced students’ attitudes toward using Google Translate?

Qualitative data indicated attitudes were shaped by enactive mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological or affective states.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Ophelia