Students Attitudes and Perceptions Toward Using Google Translate at Ghor Institute of Higher Education

Abstract

The easiest and most accessible way for learners to meet their translation needs is by using Google Translate. Machine translation is now an integral part of learning a foreign language, particularly Google Translate (GT), which has influenced EFL learning as an online dictionary. It is used to translate from the source language to the target language. It is widely used by Afghan second-language learners today for translating between English and Farsi languages. The purpose of the present study was to explore students’ attitudes and perceptions toward using Google Translate in EFL classes at the Ghor Institute of Higher Education. The data for this study were collected using a five-point Likert questionnaire and interviews with 145 English-major university students at the English Department and were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. After analyzing the data, the results indicated that almost all of the participants reported using GT. The three most frequent uses of GT were to look up the meanings of unfamiliar words and to translate sentences from English to Farsi and vice versa, while translating paragraphs and articles (discourse level) was the least frequent. The results also showed that a majority of the population frequently used GT in their classes, and less than half said they used it sometimes, but the rest stated they used it always and rarely, with a very small percentage admitting they never utilized it. All in all, most of the students expressed a high level of positive attitudes toward using GT as a language learning tool in EFL classrooms. It is expected that GT will be better utilized in the future after knowing students’ perceptions and attitudes toward using it; that is, it may assist lecturers and educational practitioners in making informed decisions about its utilization in the classroom.