In November 2024, the British Council and France Education international organised an International Workshop looking at Aritifical Intelligence and language learning. 

Over 2 days, we were joined by 70 participants from around the world including France, the UK, Germany, Poland, Spain, the USA, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Italy and Belgium. The participants included primary and secondary teachers as well as researchers, teacher trainers and policy makers and our goal was to bring the group's collective intelligence to bear on the role AI will play in language teaching in the future, and on how teacher education will need to adapt to reflect this.

The event was made possible thanks to the support of many different international bodies including:

  • Ministère de l'Éducation nationale et de la Jeunesse, CNED, European Commission 
  • Goethe Institute, Instituto Cervantes, Institut français, Alliance Française
  • Académies de Creteil, Paris, Versailles, Rennes, Nancy-Metz, Poitiers
  • Sorbonne Université, Sciences Po, UPEC, University of Southampton, University of Barcelona.

On this page, you will find recordings of our round table discussions, interviews with the experts and blog articles sharing the reflections that were born out of our discussions. 

The page also includes an AI-generated podcast that captures the exchanges over the two days, as well as summary documents developed with the help of various AI tools. The conversation around the role of AI in language learning, teaching and assessment is a living discussion which is going to continue to evolve, and we hope that these resources will help feed conversations within Europe and beyond around how best to harness the potential of this exciting new technology.

Our participants reflect on their learning from the event

Take a look at the series of blog articles written by different participants in the event in which they reflect on what they learnt:

Documents and AI-generated podcast sharing the event's outcomes

With the help of different AI tools, we have collated the reflections that came out of the event into this report.

We also made use of the AI software Notebook LM to generate a podcast that captures the outcomes from the event, creating AI presenters to carry out the discussion. Check out the English version and the French version.

Recordings of round-tables and interviews with our experts

You can watch the recordings of the two round tables that took place during the event below:

  1. Round Table 1: A wide ranging discussion between George Wilson (British Council), Alain Thillay (European Commission), Jonas Erin (Inspection général de l'éducation), Dr Kate Borthwick (University of Southampton), Magdalena Bubula (Małopolska Teacher Development Center) and Dr Joan-Tomàs Pujolà (University of Barcelona).
  2. Round Table 2: A conversation focused on AI and language assessment between Radosveta Valkova (British Council) and Vincent Folny (France Education international).

You can see how our experts answered a series of questions about AI and language learning in this video and about the role of the language teacher in the future in this video.

Further reading

In July 2024, the British Council published its landmark study entitled AI and English Language Teaching: Preparing for the Future, which provides a systemic review of existing literature and presents the findings of new research into the perceptions of teachers and key witnesses concerning AI.

During the event, France Education international launched its comprehensive bibliography sharing research around language learning and AI. 

 

See also

External links

Share this