Over the years AI tools seem to overwhelm our daily activities and it is no wonder that AI tools have been introduced in the second language acquisition classroom. Surprisingly, both teachers and students seem to rely on these tools to perform tedious tasks such as writing correction, score accumulation, students’ assessment, and on the students’ part AI helps them with creating content for assignments, refining their writing, improving their accent and so more. AI offers innovative tools and methods that promise to revolutionize traditional learning paradigms. However, as with any technological advancement, its integration into the classroom brings both benefits and challenges. This article delves into the advantages and potential pitfalls of AI applications in the SLA classroom.
Starting from a student’s perspective, AI tools offer a plethora of options to polish off their assignments, offering improvements in terms of style, layout, presentation and why not content. Apps like Quillbot and Grammarly, help learners improve their grammar, sentence structure and writing style by indentifying common mistakes and suggesting corrections. The AI evaluates the student’s writing, identifies errors that are made frequently and suggests context-aware corrections. It can also adjust its feedback based on the learner’s level, offering simple explanations for beginners and advanced grammar insights for proficient users.
Another benefit for the students is pronunciation improvement through AI speech recognition. Many learners struggle with pronunciation due to differences between their mother tongue and English phonetics. AI-driven applications like ELSA SPEAK and Google’s speech-to-text use speech recognition technology to analyze learner’s pronunciation and provide real-time feedback. This is proven to be extremely helpful not only with students facing difficulties in pronunciation but with students experiencing learning difficulties as well. When a learner pronounces a word or a sentence incorrectly, the AI compares it to native speaker models and highlights errors in stress, intonation and articulation. For example, if a student mispronounces the word “through”, the AI detects the issue and provides audio examples, phonetic breakdowns and exercises to correct pronunciation.
Moving on to vocabulary expansion and retention, AI can be really helpful to students struggling with words. Apps like Quizlet and Anki use AI to track students’ progress and determine which words they remember and which they frequently forget, ensuring challenging words appear more often while mastered words are reviewed less often. For instance, if a student repeatedly forgets the word “meticulous”, the AI will prioritize it in future study sessions, reinforcing learning.
Apart from the students, teachers can also be greatly benefitted by the use of AI tools in the lesson planning process and during the delivery of the lesson. Let’s consider some of the features AI has to offer to teachers. First of all, they can use these tools to plan personalized learning experiences for their learners. AI- driven platforms can tailor educational content to individual learner needs, adapting to their proficiency level, learning speeds and styles, and specific challenges. For instance, if a student struggles with pronunciation, AI can provide targeted exercises to address this issue, enhancing overall learning efficiency.
Moreover, AI tools offer enhanced engagement through gamification. Many AI learning applications incorporate gamified elements, such as points, badges and leaderboards, to boost learner motivation and engagement. This gamification transforms traditional exercises into interactive experiences, making language learning more enjoyable. Imagine practicing present simple tense through a leaflet, with 3 or more activities and on the other hand, having prepared a game, let’s say an escape room game, practicing the tense. I am sure that students will enjoy the latter more and also have fun practicing the tense. Gamified platforms take advantage of the inherit urge learners have for games.
Another advantage for teachers is that AI tools can provide instant feedback on exercises, quizzes and even spoken language, allowing learners to recognize and correct mistakes in real time. This immediate response mechanism accelerates the learning process by preventing the reinforcement of errors. It also takes away hours of teacher’s correcting material, tests or quizzes, valuable time which could be well invested into creating engaging and fun lessons.
Besides the afore mentioned benefits, AI tools can also have some pitfalls which should be taken into serious consideration before opting for using them. For a start, we shouldn’t ignore the limited human interaction going in hand with these tools. Language learning is inherently social, relying heavily on cultural nuances and real-life conversations. AI tools, while advanced, cannot fully replicate the depth of human interaction, potentially limiting learner’s ability to grasp contextual and cultural subtleties. In other words, interacting with other people cannot be replaced by any machine as advanced as it may be.
Furthermore, if both students and teachers heavily rely on technology to perform tasks that they should, it may lead to reduced development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Learners might become dependent on technology for answers, hindering their ability to navigate language complexities independently. More often than not, students present teachers with compositions supposedly written by them, but actually copied from Chatgpt or other platforms, which limits students’ creativity, and their potential for academic success.
Another issue worth mentioning is the quality and accuracy of AI feedback. While AI can offer immediate feedback, its accuracy may not always match that of human instructors. Teachers can provide a more personalized feedback, based on the student’s progress, highlighting the improvements in the writing style and the things that need to be corrected. Misinterpretations by AI could lead to reinforcement of incorrect language usage, necessitating human oversight to ensure quality.
While it cannot be argued that AI tools have significantly improved the quality of language teaching, it is also true that they should be used cautiously and under timid inspection. Learning a language is a journey that students should enjoy with the guidance of their teachers. AI tools are nothing more than another arrow in the teacher’s armory. And we should not forget that teaching is the connection with our students which cannot be replaced by any platform or tool.
