Reflection on “the effective use of AI in ELT”
EAQUALS Online Conference, 2024
By Selin Şenay
This year, I had the opportunity to attend several sessions during the EAQUALS Online 2024 event. The virtual conference, held on October 11th and 12th, 2024, centered around the theme of “Quality Practices in Language Teaching” and included plenaries, presentations, and panel sessions focusing on a variety of topics including the effective use of AI in ELT, creativity, emotional regulation, assessment, sustainability in education, and the steps in creating a student-centered educational setting. In this reflection, I would like to focus on the use of AI in ELT and share some key points from the related sessions.
In Friday’s plenary session “Beyond the Hype: Building Institutional Frameworks for Effective AI Use in ELT”, Dr. Hakan Tarhan discussed the reactions of educators and institutions to ChatGPT following its launch in November 2022 and explained why a detection and prevention approach does not align with developing AI technologies’ integration into educational settings. He emphasized the need to create a proactive and structured framework to promote the ethical and responsible use of AI technologies in ELT. He proposed five stages to develop a contextual framework:
0. Creating a team of educators to collaborate on integrating AI into the classroom and to share their experiences with their colleagues, aiming to develop a culture for AI integration.
1. Building a shared understanding by educators and learners on the abilities and limitations of AI, and its potential impact on teaching and learning practices by following the current developments.
2. Exploring the needs of educators and students in terms of effective integration of AI tools.
3. Linking these needs with the organizational goals.
4. Designing a human-centered framework that aims to enhance, not replace, human interaction.
5. Providing essential support to educators and students by ensuring their access to necessary resources, tools, and training on how to use AI effectively, responsibly, and ethically. Additionally, the teachers should evaluate the effectiveness of AI tools through student progress and adjust this framework in line with outcomes and developing AI technologies.
In Saturday’s plenary session “Adopting a Pedagogy-first Approach to AI Integration in Language Learning”, Dr. Tarhan detailed how he uses AI tools to enhance his lesson planning and to create engaging learning activities to facilitate meaningful language practice and opportunities for students to develop essential human skills such as communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and information literacy. Dr. Tarhan stressed that AI tools are not inherently good or evil, and the way we utilize them in our lessons should include our pedagogical expertise and promote students’ essential human skills. He introduced TPACK, a technology integration framework that emphasizes the need to combine technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge for successful EdTech integration, as an important tool and suggested some AI-integrated classroom activities to promote the following skills:
● Problem-solving and Critical Thinking: Students can use generative AI tools to identify and solve problems and critically assess these solutions regarding their relevance to the context.
● Enhanced Language Learning: AI-generated personas can create engaging conversations and help students improve communication skills.
● Collaborative Learning: Students can use generative AI tools to get new perspectives after brainstorming ideas in their groups.
● Information Literacy: Students can develop critical thinking and information literacy skills by fact-checking the content created by generative AI tools.
In his concurrent session “Responsible Use of Generative AI in Language Education”, Christopher Sanders addressed some concerns about AI, such as data privacy, security, bias, plagiarism, and skill deterioration. He also emphasized the importance of structured and human-centered use of AI tools. He suggested the following guidelines to integrate them into educational settings responsibly and ethically.
● Educators and schools should establish policies for responsible AI use in the classroom to set clear expectations and limitations.
● They need to align the use of generative AI tools with their educational philosophy and goals to support specific learning objectives and outcomes.
● Educators should be transparent about their use of AI tools and involve students in the design and integration process to address their needs.
● Educators should also review the AI-generated input before using it in their classroom, and teach their students the essential skills to evaluate the credibility of AI-produced materials.
● Educators should see generative AI as part of a continuous learning process and adjust their prompts and strategies based on student progress to enhance its educational effectiveness.
Lastly, in her concurrent session “Leveraging AI for Language Learning and Teaching”, our former SL colleague, Nazan Gelbal talked about how she integrated Google Docs and ChatGPT to help her students learn new vocabulary items. She used a shared document for her students to use as a digital vocabulary journal, monitored their progress by herself, and then encouraged them to use ChatGPT to receive feedback on their production of the target items. She also guided them on how to use generative AI tools responsibly and ethically during this process.
In conclusion, the EAQUALS Online 2024 conference provided valuable insights into the evolving role of AI in language education. The related sessions underscored a proactive and ethical approach to AI integration, focusing on building structured frameworks and aligning AI use with pedagogical goals. Key takeaways include establishing collaborative teams, fostering a shared understanding of AI's potential, and promoting responsible practice in classrooms. Overall, they encourage me to learn more about how to use AI as a supportive tool, complementing human interaction and promoting meaningful language learning in my classroom.
