Preparing Language Teachers for the AI-Age: What Teachers Need to Know to Use GenAI Tools Productively, Critically and Responsibly

Since the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022, there has been intense wonder, surprise, excitement, concern, and worry about the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools. When well-prompted, these tools can efficiently and (often) accurately perform many tasks commonly associated with human intelligence, including text generation, text summarization, translation, analysis, as well as, image, code, audio and video generation. They can assist language teachers with knowledge development, lesson preparation and assessment and facilitate personalised learning (Moorhouse, 2024). However, these tools raise significant ethical issues that language teachers should be aware of (Moorhouse et al., 2023).
This workshop aims to provide an accessible introduction to GenAI tools and their application for language teaching and learning. It will define GenAI and give an overview of types of GenAI tools, consider the utility of GenAI for language teaching and learning purposes, and raise some issues language teachers should consider when integrating GenAI into language teaching. It concludes by proposing some fundamental knowledge that language teachers need to interact with GenAI tools effectively.