The term Artificial Intelligence (AI) is recognized by Collins Dictionary as the word of the year of 2023. According to Zhong, AI is defined as “a branch of modern science and technology aiming at the exploration of the secrets of human intelligence on one hand and the transplantation of human intelligence to machines as much as possible on the other hand, so that machines would be able to perform functions as intelligently as they can”[11, p. 90]. Both theorists and practitioners have been trying to predict “whether it will be a force for revolutionary good or apocalyptic destruction”[2].
The aim of this work is to view the perspectives of AI implementation in the sphere of education, particularly, in teaching languages.
Some prominent technologists claim that AI is a “major influence on the state of education today, and has the potential to transform how our education system operates, heighten the competitiveness of institutions, and empower teachers and learners of all abilities”[4]. Bill Gates agrees that AI will transform education and learning, stating that AI will be “as good a tutor as any human”[3]. Scientists also admit that “over the past decade, the use of AI tools to support or enhance learning has grown exponentially”[6]. However, UNESCO’s conclusion is that “although there have been some notable successes, it is important to recognize that AI is still in its infancy”[1, p. 10 ].
Analysis of publications in this filed allows to conclude that AI is mainly useful for language teachers in two ways:
- in the management and delivery of education;
- in teaching and learning.
The first way includes automating aspects of school administration, built on Education Management Information Systems, which comprise admissions, timetabling, attendance and homework monitoring, school inspections[10], all of which substentially contribute to saving time.
The second one is more complicated and more debatable.
On one hand, there are some developments proving positive impact of AI on education. In language teaching, for example, using machine translation helps greater inclusivity allowing more students with different backgrounds to participate in a class discussion or listen to a lecture through AI-based translation. Speech recognition is applied to compare students’ pronunciation with sample recordings of native speakers, to provide automatic feedback to assist the students improve their speaking skills. Other systems detect and automatically analyse reading skills in order to give students individual feedback.
Besides, dialogue-based tutoring systems (DBTS) were created that use natural language processing and other AI techniques to simulate a spoken tutorial dialogue between human tutors and students. DBTS adopt a Socratic approach to tutoring, probing with AI-generated questions rather than providing instruction, to develop a conversation in which the students are guided towards discovering for themselves an appropriate solution for a problem. The aim is to encourage students to co-create explanations to reach an in-depth understanding of the topic[1]. Dan Ayoub sets the example of a successful AI implementation in teaching practice: creation of a question bot on the Microsoft Power Platform by David Kellermann at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who “has also built a dashboard using Power BI that plots the class’s exam scores and builds personalized study plans based on students’ past performance”[4].
Mobile learning, that “makes it possible to keep teaching process student-centric: giving students specific tasks and involving them in certain conversations”, also should be mentioned as a powerful tool for learning languages[9, p. 211]. Among the most popular mobile applications for study languages are: Rocket Languages, Pimsleur, Babbel, Duolingo, AI Teacher, Amazing English.
On the other hand, AI applications have been criticized for giving students credit for “surface features such as sentence length, even if the text does not make any sense”[1]. The systems are also unable to assess creativity. Moreover, the algorithms underpinning AWE are “sometimes biased, especially against minority students, possibly due to different uses of vocabulary and sentence structure”[1]. Essays that are written by AI, imitating the writing style of the individual student are likely to be very difficult to detect .
As for the ChatGPT , there are great number of cases of inaccurate responds, and only to specific commands, without a real conversation [1], [8]. In other words, “while its performance of some functions (such as finding patterns in data) is superior to that of human experts, in others (such as holding an in-depth conversation), AI performs below the level of a two-year-old child”[1].
A number of concerns are connected with the AI systems approach to pedagogy, the lack of robust evidence for their efficacy and potential impact on teachers’ roles, and broader ethical questions[5]. Considering decrease of investment in AI technologies, [1], it has even been suggested that progress in AI is soon to plateau[7].
To sum up, even though there are significant advancements, especially in AI applications for learning languages, further research and evaluation is required to distinguish its real significance for education in general and teaching languages in particular. Despite wide use of intelligent tutorial systems to do teacher tasks, it is still unlikely that language teachers will be replaced by machines in the nearest future.
References:
1. AI and education: guidance for policy-makers - UNESCO Digital Library URL: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000376709
2. AI named word of the year by Collins Dictionary - BBC News URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67271252
3. Bishop T. Bill Gates: AI will be ‘as good a tutor as any human,’ but payoffs in education will take time. URL: https://www.geekwire.com/2023/bill-gates-ai-will-be-as-good-a-tutor-as-any-human-but-payoffs-will-take
4. Dan Ayoub. Unleashing the power of AI for education | MIT Technology Review URL: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/03/04/905535/unleashing-the-power-of-ai-for-education/
5. Holmes W., Bektik D., Whitelock D. and Woolf, B. P.. Ethics in AIED: Who cares? C. Penstein Rosé, R. Martínez-Maldonado, H. U. Hoppe, R. Luckin, M. Mavrikis, K. Porayska-Pomsta, B. McLaren, and B. du Boulay (eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science. London, Springer International Publishing, vol. 10948. 2018b. P. 551–553.
6. Holmes W., Bialik M. and Fadel C. Artificial Intelligence in Education: Promises and implications for teaching and learning. Boston, MA, Center for Curriculum Redesign. 2019.
7. Marcus G., Davis E. Rebooting AI: Building artificial intelligence we can trust. New York, Ballantine Books Inc. 2019.
8. 'Most of our friends use AI in schoolwork' - BBC News URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/education-67236732
9. Shaparenko O.V. Current Trends in English-Teaching Methods. International scientific conference «Innovative aspects of the development of philological sciences» : conference proceedings (April 5–6, 2023. Częstochowa, the Republic of Poland). Riga, Latvia : «Baltija Publishing», 2023. 216 p. - P. 211. URL: http://baltijapublishing.lv/omp/index.php/bp/catalog/book/323p.
10. Villanueva, C. C. Education Management Information System (EMIS) and the Formulation of Education for All (EFA) Plan of Action, 2002-2015. UNESCO Almaty Cluster Office and the Ministry of Education of Tajikistan. 60 p. 2003. URL: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000156818
11. Zhong, Y. X. A cognitive approach and AI research. 2006 5th IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Informatics, Vol.1. 2006. P. 90-100.URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document
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