Assessing the English Language Lecturers' Skill in Identifying Originality in Essay Writing Among Moroccan S2 Students
Meryem Aherrahrou, Moulay Ismail University (Morocco)
Abstract
The review of recently published research studies on the use of Chat-GPT and Grammarly in writing academic essays showed that no published research study has investigated English language Lectures’ ability to detect essays generated by students and those generated by Artificial Intelligence in the context of Moroccan Higher Education. Given this concern, the current study aims to test Moroccan English Language lecturers’ ability to detect and identify semester 2 students’ originality in writing essays within the Department of English of Errachidia, Meknes, Fes, Agadir, Oujda and Beni Mellah cities in Morocco. In order to achieve the goal of this study, 75 English Language Lecturers from various Moroccan universities were selected to evaluate 1200 descriptive essays. Among these, 400 essays were generated solely by Chat-GPT, 400 were produced by students with the assistance of Chat-GPT and Grammarly, and 400 were written by students without the use of neither Chat-GPT nor Grammarly. Obtained results showed that the scores of those essays which were produced by students with the help of Chat-GPT and Grammarly scored higher results compared to those essays generated either by Chat-GPT or those that were produced by students. The current study also found that Moroccan English language lectures from different Moroccan universities cannot identify students’ originality in writing academic essays and distinguishing human-generated essays from AI-generated essays. More research is required to investigate the use of AI chatbots in English Language Learning and Teaching at the university settings.
Keywords: Chat-GPT, Grammarly, descriptive essays, English Language lectures, originality, English department, S2 students