THE ACCURACY OF THE MERCI APP -  AN ERROR CORRECTION TOOL - IN FRENCH INSTRUCTION

Do Thi Bich Thuy

Do Thi Bich Thuy	thuydtb1976@vnu.edu.vn	University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Pham Van Dong street, Cau Giay district, Hanoi, Vietnam

Summary:

This study aims to measure the accuracy of the free version of the Merci App, an automatic error correction tool used in teaching French writing. The research data consists of 30 B2 level essays written by 30 second-year students majoring in French Language. The results show that the number of errors accurately detected by the Merci App accounts for 82.7% of the total errors detected by the application and 45.3% of the total number of local errors made by students in the drafts. The number of errors being well detected, diagnosed, and corrected by the Merci App represents 63.4% of the total errors detected by the application and 34.7% of local errors appearing in the essays. Merci App often incorrectly identifies errors in gender and number agreement in a noun phrase; misses a large number of errors in expression, vocabulary, gender and number agreement, prepositions; wrongly diagnoses and corrects many vocabulary, verbs, gender and number agreement. We recommend that language teachers instruct learners to use automatic error correction tools, provide a meta-linguistic vocabulary to help them understand error diagnoses and error corrections in the Merci App, and focus on correcting high or low level errors that can not be found or inaccurately detected, diagnosed and corrected by this tool.

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Keywords:

Automatic error correction

accuracy

foreign language instruction

Merci App

French.

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Journal:

No. 6, June 2024

VIETNAM JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

THE VIETNAM NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

THE ACCURACY OF THE MERCI APP - AN ERROR CORRECTION TOOL - IN FRENCH INSTRUCTION