Generative AI in language learning: text and image generation in L2 an L3

Generative AI in language learning – text and image generation in L2 an L3
Bente Meyer, Aalborg University, Copenhagen, and Annette Søndergaard Gregersen, University College, Copenhagen

The introduction of generative AIs to education has reinitiated discussions of agency, centered e.g. on how learners collaborate with technology to produce text and written language and how this affects practices of teaching and learning (Godwin-Jones 2024, Thorne 2024). In this paper we investigate how generative AIs become part of language teaching through a project in which teacher students in English, German and French were introduced to generative AIs and experimented with ways in which they could be used in classrooms as part of their pre-service teaching in schools. Our research draws on workshops and group interviews with teachers and observation data in classrooms (4th and 6th formers) where teacher students taught as part of their pre-service training. In the project both independent platforms such as ChatGPT and Copilot and integrated AI functions in Padlet (image generation through “I can’t draw”) were used. We also chose to work with SkoleGPT, a curated, data-safe GPT developed for use in schools by the participating teacher college (skolegpt.dk).
The paper draws on sociomaterial perspectives to understand how classroom didactics are formed by GenAIs and how this affects pupils’ agency in terms of how they produce text and images in language learning (Toohey 2018, Meyer & Gregersen, forthcoming). Our analysis centers on a specific example of how French was taught to 6th formers using text and image generation in a complex material set-up that connected natural artefacts with AI technologies to teach children French vocabulary.
Our preliminary findings suggest that Generative AIs become part of language teaching and learning in different ways, depending for instance on the status of writing in respectively L2s and L3s. As our research has involved both image and text generation with AI, our data contribute with specific knowledge of how these can be used in teaching and how they affect agencies and ecologies of language learning

References:
Godwin-Jones, R. (2024) Distributed agency in second language learning and teaching through generative AI. Language Learning & Technology. Volume 28, 2. p..5-31 https://doi.org/10125/73570
Meyer, B. & Gregersen, A. (forthcoming) Collaborative language learning through generative AI: the case of French. Academic Quarter, Special issue: Generative AI in Cllaborative Learning Environments. vol 31
Thorne, S. L. (2024). Generative artificial intelligence, co-evolution, and language education. Modern Language Journal, vol 108, 2, p. 567-572 https://doi-org.zorac.aub.aau.dk/10.1111/modl.12932
Toohey, K. (2018) Learning English at School. Identity, Socio-material Relations and Classroom Practice. Multilingual Matters