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Description
This study investigates the attitudes of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at the University of Economics in Da Nang, Vietnam, toward the impact of using ChatGPT on their writing performance. With the rapid integration of AI-powered tools into educational contexts, understanding their influence on student writing is essential. This research focuses on three key areas of writing: lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and idea development and organization—components central to writing assessments in frameworks such as the CEFR and IELTS.A hybrid descriptive-exploratory design was employed to gather both quantitative and exploratory insights. A structured survey questionnaire was used as the primary data collection instrument, consisting of multiple Likert-scale items targeting students’ perceptions across the three writing domains. The questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 140 B1-level students, whose English proficiency ranged from pre-intermediate to intermediate. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to identify trends in students’ beliefs about the effectiveness of ChatGPT in supporting their writing development. The findings revealed mixed to moderately positive perceptions among the participants. Students generally agreed that ChatGPT contributed positively to their lexical variety, grammatical accuracy, and sentence structure, although some uncertainty remained in areas such as idea generation and logical coherence. These results suggest that while students value AI writing tools as supportive aids, they may not yet fully trust them for more complex or creative writing tasks. The study's findings carry important implications for EFL writing instruction, particularly in contexts where students are beginning to integrate AI tools into their learning processes. Educators should consider incorporating AI literacy and critical use strategies into the writing curriculum, helping students use tools like ChatGPT to enhance rather than replace key writing skills.
Keywords: EFL, ChatGPT, writing skills
Biography
Nguyen Thanh Bach is a lecturer in the Department of English for Specific Purposes at the University of Economics – University of Danang, Vietnam. He earned his Master’s degree in TESOL from Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom. His MA dissertation compared the impacts of deductive and inductive teaching methods on the effectiveness of vocabulary acquisition. Her academic interests mainly center around English language education, including language pedagogy, learner motivation, vocabulary instruction, digital literacy, classroom management, and effective teaching methods for the four English skills.
Huynh Thi Nguyen Phuong is a lecturer in the Department of English for Specific Purposes at the University of Economics – University of Danang, Vietnam. She earned her Master’s degree in TESOL from University of Huddersfield in the United Kingdom. Her academic interests mainly center around English language education, including language pedagogy, learner autonomy, vocabulary instruction, and material development.
