THE EFFECT OF AI CHATBOTS (E.G CHATGPT) AS A PERSONAL GRAMMAR TUTOR ON GRAMMAR ACHIEVEMENT IN THE WRITING OF ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDENTS

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the effect of ChatGPT as a personal grammar tutor on the grammar achievement of English Education students in narrative writing. The study used a pre-experimental method with a one-group pre-test and post-test design. The participants were 12 undergraduate students from an English Education program. The data were collected through three stages: pre-test, treatment, and post-test. In the pre-test, students wrote a narrative paragraph without AI assistance. During the treatment, students used ChatGPT through structured prompts to identify grammar errors, receive explanations, and learn from corrected sentences. After that, they completed a post-test writing task without using AI tools. The students’ writing was assessed using a grammar-focused rubric covering tense consistency, subject-verb agreement, sentence structure, article usage, and punctuation. The results showed that the mean score increased from 10.58 in the pre-test to 14.33 in the post-test, with an average gain of 3.75 points. The paired-sample t-test also showed a significant difference between the scores, t(11) = 10.68, p < .001. These findings indicate that ChatGPT can support students’ grammar development in narrative writing when used as a structured personal grammar tutor.