THE EDUCATIONAL USE OF CHATGPT IN AN INTERMEDIATE-LEVEL JAPANESE WRITING COURSE: A SURVEY-BASED STUDY OF STUDENT PRACTICES, PERCEIVED BENEFITS, AND PEDAGOGICAL CAUTIONS

Abstract

Abstract—This study investigates how university students used ChatGPT in an intermediate Japanese writing course and what learning effects and instructional concerns emerged when its use was permitted under explicit conditions. The participants were 21 third-year Japanese-major students at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University who attended the course for approximately five months. After the course, a questionnaire was administered via Google Forms, and the results were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings show that many students used ChatGPT mainly for supportive purposes, such as grammar checking and paraphrasing into more natural Japanese, and reported benefits including reduced psychological burden toward writing and improved understanding of errors. At the same time, some students expressed concerns about overuse, dependency, and a potential decline in independent thinking. In addition, a strong need for teacher guidance on “how to use ChatGPT effectively” was identified, suggesting that when generative AI is introduced into foreign-language writing education, it is essential to clarify the scope of permitted use, provide concrete guidance on prompting, and foster learners’ ability to evaluate AI outputs critically rather than banning the tool uniformly.