IATEFL 2025 Highlights
by Burçin Şenyurt
At IATEFL 2025 in Edinburgh, Alper Çakmak and I delivered a presentation titled “Addressing the Challenges and Opportunities of AI in Academic Writing.” Our talk focused on the integration of AI in a freshman-level humanities course (SPS 102), where academic writing plays a central role in the curriculum.
Drawing on data from student surveys and an analysis of plagiarism cases, we explored both the potential benefits and the risks associated with AI use in academic settings. Key issues discussed included maintaining academic integrity, integrating AI into assessment practices, and ensuring fairness in how student work is evaluated. We also examined the limitations of AI tools and questioned their overall efficiency in the assessment process.
We concluded by sharing some of the recent challenges we’ve faced in evaluating student writing, and reflected on how the rapid evolution of AI technologies may impact academic assessment and raise new concerns about integrity.
I attended several insightful sessions at IATEFL 2025, and one that stood out was the plenary talk by Dr. Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology & Neuroscience at the University of Glasgow. She specializes in applying cognitive psychology to education and shared recent research findings on how Spaced Practice and Retrieval Practice can improve information retention and test performance.
Spaced Practice is based on the idea that learners retain more when study time is spread out across multiple sessions rather than crammed into one. In other words, repeated exposure to the material over time is far more effective—especially for young and adult language learners—than trying to absorb everything in a single sitting. Dr. Kuepper-Tetzel explained that introducing some forgetting, followed by reactivating the knowledge, actually strengthens memory. Greater spacing between study sessions also introduces more varied contextual cues, which are stored in memory and improve future recall. One practical classroom strategy she recommended was asking students to regularly revisit older material by summarizing key points and explaining concepts in their own words. Although this approach can feel challenging—and forgetting can be frustrating—it plays a crucial role in long-term learning.
Retrieval Practice, meanwhile, shows that the “Study–Practice Test–Final Test” pattern leads to better learning outcomes than simply “Study–Restudy–Final Test.” The key idea is that actively retrieving information, as in a test situation, strengthens memory more effectively than re-reading. However, Dr. Kuepper-Tetzel pointed out that these short-term gains don’t always translate into long-term retention. To address this, she recommended using interim tests throughout the learning process. These tests help reset the learning context, improve test-taking strategies, and encourage students to put more effort into learning new material—all of which can lead to better performance in the long run.
Another session I found particularly engaging was delivered by Noha Khafagi from The American University in Cairo. Khafagi teaches academic reading and writing in an EAP program and shared her own classroom strategy for addressing the growing reliance on AI among students when reading complex academic texts.
She began by highlighting a common issue: many students are now using AI tools to summarize texts rather than reading and engaging with them themselves. While this may seem like an efficient shortcut, Khafagi pointed out that it often leads students to miss opportunities for critical reading and active engagement with ideas.
To counter this trend, she introduced a group reading project in which each student is assigned a specific role that encourages deeper analysis of the text from a unique perspective. The roles include a Reporter, Detective, Librarian, Interpreter, and Author. For example, the Reporter is tasked with reading critically, verifying the accuracy of information by cross-checking with other sources, and considering key questions such as:
• What is the most important aspect of the article that the public needs to know?
• How might this event or issue impact the community or broader society?
• Are there any biases in the information, and how can its accuracy be verified?
Each group member reads the same text but from a different analytical angle, and they take turns explaining the content based on their assigned roles. This collaborative approach not only fosters deeper comprehension but also promotes critical thinking and meaningful discussions. Students learn to dig deeper, uncover underlying ideas, make connections, and ultimately become more thoughtful readers and thinkers.
Khafagi grounded her approach in Piaget’s cognitive learning theory, which emphasizes the how of learning rather than just the what. By focusing on how students process and interact with information, this strategy helps learners develop the skills and confidence to tackle new tasks, solve problems, and apply knowledge to different contexts and scenarios.