Investigating EFL Students’ Writing Problems Through the Lens of Grammarly

Writing is the most challenging skill for EFL students who are confronted with grammatical issues. Recently, automated writing evaluation (AWE) has been dramatically used in the EFL writing context. This study aims to analyse the types of writing errors composed by EFL students by using Grammarly as an AWE tool. The four main types of writing errors investigated in this study are correctness, clarity, engagement, and delivery. This study employed a qualitative design, including a document analysis of 27 EFL students’ written productions before and after using Grammarly. The findings of this study revealed that grammatical correctness issues were primarily found in the form of ungrammatical sentences and incorrect phrasing, followed by engagement issues, namely word choice errors. However, misplaced words or phrases, comma misuse within clauses, and incorrect punctuations were found at a lower frequency. These findings are consistent with previous studies suggesting that Grammarly can improve grammatical accuracy and writing fluency. The conclusions of this study suggest using Grammarly as a supplementary tool in EFL writing classrooms, in addition to instructing students on how to use it effectively. The limitations of this study include a small sample size and the use of data collected from a single session, highlighting the need for further research in this area

• The Role of Grammarly in Saudi EFL Writing

  Open Access•Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Abdullah Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Abdullah•FWU Journal of Social Sciences•2026

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