We’ve seen it in Sci-Fi movies. We hear about it in the news. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is slowly creeping into our lives. It’s tiptoeing into our homes with smart speakers. It’s answering our phone calls and even translating our speech in real-time. Could AI-powered teachers be next?

Researchers and educators have discovered that technology-enhanced teaching methodologies can facilitate learning. Technology provides the framework and teachers guide the learner through it, offering corrective feedback along the way. This blended-learning approach is central to Global LT’s curriculum.

So as technology improves, could it entirely usurp the role of a human in the language learning process? At present, that doesn’t seem likely.

How can AI improve language learning?

AI can be helpful both to teachers and their students. For teachers, AI can take care of time-consuming activities like constructing personalized assessments and dynamically scaling the difficulty of course content to the learner’s language level. This frees up time for the teacher to focus on the things AI can’t do, like content creation, face-to-face interaction, and improvising creative strategies when a student gets stuck.

For students, AI’s speech recognition capabilities can aid in spoken interaction. When you utter a phrase in the target language, AI can match your pronunciation against a native speaker’s. It can graph out the phonological patterns and show how you should sound.

AI can also translate your native speech to a different language. However, if you’ve ever tried this, then you know that AI-powered translations are often faulty.  They lack context, misinterpret your meaning, and frequently generate grammatically incorrect outputs.

There are also “chat bots”, which are AI-powered conversation partners. These tools attempt to mimic the experience of instant-messaging with a real person. However, the chat bots rely on canned automated responses and are unable to discern whether your grammar is correct or contextually appropriate.

In many cases, while AI provides a helping hand, you’d be better off working with a language teacher.

The shortcomings of AI in language learning

Many of the issues with AI mentioned above may be resolved as technology advances. However, there are some fundamental shortcomings with AI that may never be resolved.

It is important to remember that AI isn’t magic -- behind every machine is a human. If a chat-bot says “Hello” or “Interesting”, that’s because a software developer programmed it to respond that way. Wherever humans are involved, there is always the risk that their bias is embedded in the technology. For example, if an assessment system is developed by a male software team, it might unintentionally favor masculine language constructs and erroneously penalize female constructs. Or it might favor one learner type over another learner type. 

AI also lacks the ability to contextualize language and use intuition to provide an answer. AI can’t answer a question like “Is this phrase similar to the funny one we learned last week?” AI doesn’t “remember” which phrase you found funny, but a teacher would. It also doesn’t possess the empathy to know if you are frustrated or confused, a situation that might prompt a teacher to take a break or switch tactics. AI just knows if you are “right” or “wrong”, which we also know might be subject to biases in the software.

What can we expect in the future?

AI will continue to improve, but there will remain many situations where a human plays a critical role in the language learning process, no matter how good AI gets. In fact, the real power of AI is to enhance the language acquisition process for teachers and students. It frees up valuable time for teachers to teach and innovate while offering students a more nuanced learning experience. It likely won’t replace us, but it certainly will help us!

Thank you for reading!!