EdTech and the Saudi EFL learners: Bane or boon?

Abstract

Educational technology in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom has great potential to usher in innovativeness and authenticity in the language instruction and learning processes apart from facilitating collaboration, cooperation, and engagement.  Consequently instruction can take newer pathways that ensure these qualities along with enhancing learners’ language skills. Data on the application of edtech tools were gathered from 60 undergraduate EFL learners and four teachers at Qassim University, Saudi Arabia. The free version of Grammarly was found to be the one most accessed by the participants for grammar and language enrichment in academic writing assignments, followed by Writer, Scribens, and Ginger, in that order. Teachers, on the other hand, were apprehensive of learners’ dependence on apps and perceived these as hurdles in their learning as they got corrected and improved versions of their writing but without detailed explanations which encouraged a tendency in the learners to rely on these free apps.