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, Kate Borthwick, Professor of Digital Education and Academic Lead for Generative AI at the University of Southampton shares her reflections on the event.
I recently had the pleasure of taking part in an event jointly organised by the British Council and France Education International (FEI) at FEI’s impressive headquarters in Sevres near Paris. The two-day event brought together educators, researchers, education leaders and teacher educators to discuss the timely subject of ‘Artificial Intelligence and the teaching of languages: progress or threat?’
The recent rapid developments in AI technology have thrown a harsh light on teaching and learning practices in all subjects, including languages, raising the questions: when AI can do so much, does this mean we have to transform how we teach and assess language learning? Will AI translation tools have such advanced capabilities that we don’t need to learn languages? What does this mean for language learning and teaching?
I participated in a roundtable that considered the future of language education and here are my thoughts from the event.
AI has enormous potential to enhance language education
The BC/FEI event showcased excellent ways in which AI can be used creatively for language production, resource production and learner activities (e.g. we had NotebookLM produce a podcast based on our group workshop discussions – it did a reasonable job in the space of moments). AI tools have enormous potential for language learners to demonstrate autonomy in their learning through personalising their interactions with AI tools to suit their level and learning requirements. And AI can be available for language practice 24/7. This provides the opportunity for personalised learning support tools to enhance classroom work.
AI can bring people from different linguistic backgrounds together
AI offers the possibility to enable us to communicate with anyone – regardless of their first language – verbally and in writing. It may enable space and opportunity to maintain vulnerable or endangered languages. This will enhance human understanding but will also require us to be aware of the possibility of flaws in AI translation. We lived the reality of this situation during the British Council / FEI event, as we successfully used an AI interpreting app to facilitate discussion in our multilingual group. It may not have been 100% correct all of the time, but it integrated well, was easy to access and enabled rich discussion to take place. A good example of using AI to enhance a communicative scenario.
The role of the language teacher in an age of AI
The role of language teachers will develop to encompass new skills and dimensions that both foster and critique the use of AI. Language knowledge is intimately connected to our nature as human beings and so language teachers are in a good position to clarify and contextualise effective human-machine working. AI will support teachers in completing routine tasks, freeing them up to engage in creative, active teaching and learning. At the same time, teachers will have a role in developing critical, digital and AI-skills in learners by encouraging them to see where AI can and cannot help with deep cultural and linguistic understanding. In this way, teachers have a role to play in shaping AI-practice to be human-centred acknowledging the value of both human and AI input in the teaching process.
