This article was written by AI
Artificial intelligence is beginning to change the way languages can be learned and taught. For teachers, it offers new ways of creating materials, explaining language and providing practice. For learners, however, its most significant contribution may be even more fundamental: AI can give individuals access to forms of help and practice that were previously available only from a teacher, a language class or another fluent speaker.
This does not mean that AI replaces teachers. Rather, it changes what learners can do for themselves and may make independent language learning considerably more practical.
From information to interaction
The internet has already transformed language learning by giving learners access to dictionaries, grammar explanations, videos, podcasts, news sites and exercises in almost unlimited quantities. AI adds something different: interaction.
A learner can ask an AI system a question in much the same way as they might ask a teacher:
What is the difference between say, tell and speak?
But the learner can go further. They can ask for examples, test their understanding, produce their own sentences and ask the AI to correct them. They can then ask why an answer is wrong and request further examples at an appropriate level.
This makes the process much less dependent on finding the right exercise or explanation in advance. The learner can start with a question and allow the interaction to develop from there.
A patient conversation partner
One of the greatest difficulties for learners of a foreign language is finding opportunities to use the language. A learner may understand a great deal of English but have relatively few opportunities to speak it.
AI can provide a conversation partner at any time. A learner can ask it to discuss a particular subject, play a role, simulate a situation or simply have a conversation. The learner can choose the level of difficulty and, if necessary, interrupt the conversation to ask about a word or expression.
This is particularly valuable because independent learners can practise without worrying about making mistakes in front of other people. They can try something, receive feedback and try again.
The important point is not that an AI conversation is equivalent to a conversation with another person. It is not. Human conversation involves relationships, intentions, emotions and unpredictable responses that an artificial system cannot reproduce completely. Nevertheless, AI can provide something that many learners lack: a readily available opportunity to use the language actively.
Writing becomes a process rather than a product
AI can also change the way learners approach writing.
Traditionally, a learner might write a composition and hand it to a teacher. The teacher would correct it and return it, perhaps several days later. The learner might then see the corrections without necessarily understanding the reasons behind them.
With AI, a learner can obtain immediate feedback while the writing is still being developed. They can ask:
- Is this sentence grammatically correct?
- Is this the natural way to say it?
- Can you explain this correction?
- Is this word too formal?
- Does this paragraph have a clear structure?
- Can you suggest alternatives without rewriting the whole thing?
This last possibility is especially important. If AI simply produces a polished version of a learner's writing, the learner may end up with a better text but learn relatively little. If, instead, AI identifies problems, explains them and allows the learner to revise the text, it can become part of a genuine learning process.
The learner remains the writer.
Vocabulary learning can become more personal
Vocabulary is another area in which AI can support independent learning.
A learner can ask for examples of a new word, related words, common collocations, differences between synonyms, and typical contexts in which the word occurs. They can then ask AI to create a short exercise based specifically on the vocabulary they have encountered.
For example, someone learning the word issue might discover that it can mean a problem, a topic under discussion, or an edition of a publication. They can ask for examples illustrating these different meanings and then test themselves.
This is potentially more useful than learning an isolated definition because vocabulary knowledge involves much more than knowing what a word means. Learners need to know how it behaves in sentences, what words commonly occur with it and in what situations it is appropriate.
AI can help learners explore these relationships whenever they encounter a new word.
Grammar explanations on demand
Grammar is another area in which AI can be useful because learners often need explanations at precisely the point when a problem arises.
A learner reading a text may encounter:
I wish I had known.
Instead of putting the question aside, the learner can ask why had known is used and how the sentence differs from I wish I knew. They can then ask for examples and create their own sentences.
This makes grammar learning more closely connected to actual language use. Rather than studying a grammatical structure because it happens to appear in a syllabus, the learner can investigate it because they have encountered a problem that they want to understand.
AI therefore has the potential to make grammar more learner-driven.
Adapting material to the learner
A further advantage is the possibility of adapting language to an individual's needs.
A learner can ask AI to:
- simplify a difficult text;
- make a text more challenging;
- explain difficult vocabulary;
- produce questions about something they have read;
- create exercises based on particular mistakes;
- provide examples using familiar subjects;
- practise a particular grammatical structure;
- simulate an everyday situation;
- or rewrite something in a more formal or informal style.
This means that the learner does not necessarily have to find a resource that is exactly right for their level. They can increasingly modify resources themselves.
That is a significant change.
The teacher's role also changes
The growing availability of AI does not make teachers unnecessary. It may, however, change what is most valuable about teaching.
Teachers have traditionally spent considerable time providing explanations, correcting written work, preparing exercises and answering individual questions. AI can assist with some of these activities.
This potentially gives teachers more time to concentrate on aspects of language learning that are much harder to automate: motivating learners, organising meaningful interaction, observing how students actually communicate, identifying persistent misunderstandings, choosing appropriate learning goals and helping learners develop confidence.
Teachers can also help learners evaluate AI itself. An AI system can produce an explanation that sounds convincing but is incomplete, unnatural or simply wrong. Learners therefore need to develop the ability to question its answers rather than accepting them automatically.
In this sense, AI literacy is becoming part of language learning.
The danger of doing too much
There is an important paradox here. The easier AI makes language work, the easier it becomes for learners to avoid learning.
A learner can ask AI to write an essay, translate a passage, correct every sentence, produce vocabulary lists and answer comprehension questions. The result may look impressive while requiring very little effort from the learner.
But language is learned through use, attention, memory, experimentation and repeated retrieval. If AI does all the difficult work, the learner may be left with very little to learn.
The best use of AI is therefore not necessarily to obtain the finished answer. It is often to obtain help with the process of reaching the answer.
For example, instead of asking:
Write an essay about the advantages and disadvantages of living in a city.
a learner might ask:
Help me plan an essay about the advantages and disadvantages of living in a city. Ask me questions so that I develop the ideas myself.
That is a very different kind of activity.
AI as a personal learning environment
Perhaps the most interesting development is that AI can bring together many activities that were previously separate.
A learner might read an article, ask AI to explain unfamiliar language, discuss the subject with it, practise vocabulary from the article, write a response and receive feedback on the writing. They could then ask for a short quiz based on their mistakes and return to the subject several days later.
In effect, AI can become a kind of personal language-learning environment.
The learner decides what is interesting, what needs to be understood and what should be practised. The system can provide explanations, examples, questions, feedback and opportunities for further practice.
This is particularly significant for learners who are outside an English-speaking environment or who cannot attend regular classes.
Independence does not mean isolation
Independent learning should not be confused with learning alone.
Language is fundamentally social. Learners need interaction with other people, exposure to different voices and opportunities to communicate for real purposes. Teachers, classmates, friends and fluent speakers remain extremely important.
AI is most useful when it expands these opportunities rather than replacing them.
A learner might use AI to prepare for a conversation with another person, practise vocabulary before joining a discussion, rehearse a presentation or analyse mistakes made during a real conversation. In this way, AI can support human communication rather than compete with it.
A shift in responsibility
The most important change brought about by AI may therefore be a change in the balance of responsibility.
In a traditional classroom, the teacher controls much of the learning environment. The teacher selects the material, explains the language, sets the exercises and provides feedback. The learner responds to these activities.
AI makes it increasingly possible for learners to take greater control.
They can ask the questions.
They can choose the subjects.
They can request explanations.
They can generate practice.
They can experiment with language.
They can obtain immediate feedback.
They can repeat an activity as many times as they wish.
They can decide what they want to understand next.
This does not automatically make someone an effective independent learner. Learners still need goals, discipline, judgement and an understanding of how languages are learned. But the tools available to them are changing dramatically.
The future of language learning
The contribution of AI to language learning is therefore not simply that it can produce more exercises or correct more sentences. Its deeper contribution may be that it makes active, personalised and responsive learning possible on demand.
For teachers, AI can reduce some routine work and provide new ways of supporting learners. For learners, it can make help available whenever a question arises and provide opportunities for practice that were previously difficult to obtain.
The most successful learners may not be those who ask AI to do the most for them. They may be those who learn how to use it to do more for themselves.
That distinction is crucial.
AI can give learners answers, but its greater educational value may lie in helping them ask better questions, notice how language works, practise more effectively and become increasingly capable of learning without someone else having to direct every stage of the process.
In that sense, the most important contribution of AI to language education may not be automation.
It may be learner independence.