Artificial Intelligence in English Language Teaching: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Abstract

The use of educational technologies in English language teaching (ELT) has become widely accepted in the post-pandemic era, and, for better or worse, some of these technologies rely on artificial intelligence (AI). As an area of technological growth and increasing financial investment, we are likely to see more AI-driven technologies in teaching and learning in the post-pandemic ELT world. We are currently in the stage of ‘weak’ AI, which typically performs restricted tasks within specific domains relatively well. However, ‘strong’ AI, equivalent to human intelligence, is the long-term goal, and although this is no more than a theoretical construct at present, we can expect ‘stronger’ AI to emerge over time. ELT will not be immune to this development, and it behoves us as language teachers to be familiar with AI's current benefits and challenges, so that we can better prepare for that future. This article describes how AI is currently used in ELT, and explores some of the opportunities and challenges that AI can provide for learners, teachers and institutions. Ethical issues such as collecting learner data, surveillance and privacy are considered, as well as learner wellbeing and the digital literacies that teachers and learners will need to develop to co-exist in a brave new world of educational AI. Chatbots are examined as one example of AI-driven technology for language learning. There are of course many more, such as machine translation, intelligent tutoring systems and automated writing evaluation to name just a few; however, a detailed consideration of these is beyond the scope of this article.