In November 2024, the British Council organised a two-day International Workshop in partnership with France Education international. Our goal was to bring together teachers, teacher trainers, academics and policy makers from across Europe to reflect on the future role of AI in language teaching. In this blog post, Sarah Quinn, a teacher of English at the British Council in France, shares her reflections on the event.
An eye-opening two days
From the first moments of the International Workshop on AI, hosted by the British Council and France Education international, it was clear that it would be an eye-opening two days. As our hosts welcomed us in French, an AI-generated English translation appeared live on a screen behind them. It was an inspired way to raise some big questions. If everyone who owns a smartphone has an AI translator in their pocket, what is the future of language teaching? Will AI threaten language education, or can we work with the technology to make positive change?
The conference brought together professionals in diverse roles across language education, from policymakers, researchers and academics to innovation leaders, curriculum designers and teacher trainers. From a teacher’s perspective it is an understatement to say that change is on the way. Here is a round-up of some key ideas from the two days.
Revolutionising language teaching
For teachers, AI can already take on some of our most time-consuming tasks, leaving more space for creativity and expertise in materials creation and lesson planning. An inspiring demonstration by Jérôme Nogues gave us a taste of how we can adapt practically any media to our teaching goals by:
- Creating chatbots for specific scenarios (Mizou).
- Transforming text into audio with different accents (TTS maker).
- Creating transcripts from audio or video (Turboscribe).
- Generating quiz questions from documents or video (Quizzizz, Brisk teaching).
- Turning learners’ creative ideas into reality by generating music and video (Udio, Vidnoz).
With these tools, there is already huge potential for personalisation - helping teachers to differentiate materials and make them accessible for all students.
Concerns and limitations
Despite the potential, our discussions brought up ethical issues around AI use in education.
- AI could limit our autonomy and create dependence.
- Access to the best tools depends on what schools and educational institutions are prepared to pay, potentially creating a wider resource gap in schools.
- The digital divide means that younger students are racing ahead of teachers, who need access to training.
- Plagiarism is a current issue with students using AI assistants freely, sometimes for assessed work.
- AI misses cultural and ethical cues, making it ill-equipped to select resources.
- AI shows bias, meaning there are risks involved in exams where stakes are high for candidates and more widely for inclusive learning.
