A Study of Thai EFL Students’ Attitudes in Using Google Translate
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Abstract
Google Translate (GT) is one of the popular machine translations used pervasively by foreign language learners for various purposes. This study investigated Thai EFL students’ attitudes towards the use of GT as well as the problems and drawbacks of using Google Translate. A set of questionnaires were administered to the 3rd and 4th years of Thai EFL students majoring in English for Business Communication at a university in southern Thailand (N =310). Then, in order to gather more in-depth information, ten students from each student batch were randomly selected for in-depth interviews. The quantitative data from the questionnaire were analysed for percentage and mean scores, and the qualitative data were analysed by content analysis and presented in both percentage and a descriptive way. Based on the findings, the students showed overall positive attitudes toward using GT for their English language learning (=3.70). The results from the interviews about the problems and drawbacks of using GT showed that most students received inaccurate outputs from GT. The results of the in-depth interview reported the students admitted that they rarely learn new vocabulary or sentence structures using GT because they always copied the translation outputs for their assignment submission without even double-checking. In addition, the results also reported significant factors encouraging the use of GT among EFL students, including three main causes why the students had to use GT; their limited knowledge of English, excessive amount of assignments and activities, and the difficulty of assignments. The study concluded with the recommendations for administrators, EFL teachers, and students.
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