Are we Ready to Deal With the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Language Teaching?

The incursion of artificial intelligence in language learning should lead us to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of our traditional teaching processes, considering the important benefits that new technological resources bring to language learning.

In addition to the promise of making faster progress in language proficiency with less effort, AI has the following strengths for language learning:

• Language learning focuses more on the context of conversations and the meanings of words or phrases, always promoting the development of listening comprehension skills. This emphasis on listening skills is a great advantage as this skill is the gateway to successful learning.
• It offers dynamic and creative learning, in most cases framed in a real context.
• The student is exposed to input from native speakers.
• It provides immediate feedback, allowing the student to evaluate her/his own evolution.
• Students have the power to choose the strategy to follow, the skill to develop, and the tool to use.
• AI adapts to the learning needs of each user.

As language teachers, how can we face such an attractive competitor?

The first step is to consider AI as a strategic ally instead of a competitor. But to achieve this we must accept the following:

Students are changing their way of learning. Therefore, we can no longer continue using the same methodologies or even think that they will learn as we did.

Important factors such as the massive use of smart cell phones, the use of technological resources during the lockdown years, as well as the new generations´ growing familiarity with the use of applications and platforms, have generated new ways of learning that have in turn generated changes in the role of the teacher.

However, despite the observed changes in learning styles, it is common to find language teachers who see AI as a threat to their profession. On the contrary, AI leads teachers, who are aware of changes, to develop important skills that will add value to their teaching careers, such as the following:

Teaching not only a language but how to learn it.

Although students can develop communication skills using AI resources, a teacher’s guidance is essential for the important process of developing personal learning strategies. Furthermore, students need to be trained to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials used, as well as their own linguistic progress, the usefulness of the technological tools used, and above all, the best way to use them to maximize their learning.

Going beyond form: working on content.

Although AI offers abundant learning content, much of it focuses on language form rather than on developing ideas logically and coherently. For example, in applications designed to write in another language, the existing technological resources are mostly focused on the product to be achieved: an essay, an email, a letter, etc. AI focuses on the achievement of a product but not on the process of how to achieve it. Here, the teacher´s role is to lead the student to develop critical thinking, to determine the ideas that will be developed, the relationship between them, and their logical sequence.

Commonly, the person who learns a language through the new resources available today requires the guidance of a teacher to determine the most effective way to interact with them. Learning to learn autonomously and systematically is not a simple task. For example, a student can become so enthusiastic about a certain application that he or she may use it intensively for some time and then abandon it. It is in the hands of the teacher to teach students how to maintain constant and autonomous learning. The teacher is the one who knows the learning process that takes place inside and outside the classroom.

An effective way to understand our new role and keep up with the advances in AI is to experience learning another language ourselves through innovative apps. By using them as students but with the eyes of teachers we will clearly see that our profession still has a lot to give.