EXPLORING THE POSITIVE CHANGES IN ENGLISH WRITING SKILLS OF FPT UNIVERSITY STUDENTS THROUGH THE USE OF GOOGLE DOCS

Abstract

Google Docs is a free web programme and it is quite popular among English language learners and teachers worldwide. Recently, Google Docs has been introduced to schools and universities in Vietnam to support learning and teaching, especially in writing learning and sharing information. Although Google Docs has been used for a while as a learning and teaching aid, the positive effects of this programme on university EFL students’ learning, especially EFL writing learning have not much been explored in-depth. The study adopted mixed methods to analyse data collected from a student survey and interviews. The survey involved 72 EFL FPT university students and interviews were conducted online with 20 students. The data analysis indicated that a majority of the survey participants had experiences with Google Docs in supporting EFL writing learning. The results showed that a large number of the students had positive perceptions of the effectiveness of Google Docs on students’ EFL writing learning. Moreover, all aspects of EFL writing were found to be improved after using Google Docs to support EFL writing learning and practising for a while. However, these aspects were reported to be supported and enhanced at different extents and benefited by different ways. The study indicated some new findings about positive changes in students’ EFL writing learning using Google Docs. The study also provided some practical recommendations to EFL writing learning and teaching using Google Docs and future research