AI literacy to the fore

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Brisbane, Australia. Photo by Mark Pegrum, 2025. May be reused under CC BY 4.0 licence.

XXIIIrd International CALL Conference
Brisbane, Australia
3-5 October, 2025

As expected, the International CALL Conference had a strong focus on integrating generative AI effectively into education, entailing the need for both educators and students to develop their AI literacy. Given the conference theme of Inclusive CALL, many papers also discussed the ambivalent role played by genAI in respect of diversity, equity and inclusion – and how best to use it to serve the purpose of inclusion.

In his keynote presentation on the first day, Ethical and emotional responses to AI integration in language education: Insights from a qualitative case study and a Q methodology investigation, Lawence Jun Zhang referred to Son’s (2023) comment that AI in language education is not a singular tool but a broad spectrum of technologies, and suggested that teachers need to take on different roles with respect to AI. He reported on a PRISMA review of teachers’ use of AI. Under AI literacy, researchers identified the following themes: understanding AI; AI application in pedagogical practices; prompting and interaction with LLMs; AI ethics and concerns; challenges and barriers; and professional development and training needs. He reported on a second study looking at teachers’ emotional reactions to AI. The themes to emerge were: positive emotions facilitating adaptation; AI-induced negative emotions like anxiety, stress and cognitive overload; emotional regulation and coping strategies, including adaptive and avoidance coping; ambivalence and mixed emotional responses, highlighting the coexistence of optimism and apprehension; and institutional and pedagogical implications, emphasising the influence of institutional structures.

In my own keynote, Where do humans fit in? CALL, AI and human agency, which opened the second day, I argued that the balance between human agency and AI agency is one of the most important issues in contemporary education, and is closely linked to questions of diversity, equity and inclusion. I began by taking a step back to observe the big picture of our contemporary era, viewing it through three intersecting frames – the postdigital, the posthuman and the sociomaterial – and asking how these might help to inform our understandings of human and AI agency. I went on to consider humanity’s two major encounters to date with AI, their impact on the so-called personalisation of both our networks and our learning, and the implications of such personalisation in terms of personal agency. I argued that personalisation may not in fact be a suitable term or concept to describe or capture these developments, with individualisation or customisation being preferable alternatives in many cases. My main focus was on three possible strategies that we as language educators can promote with, and for, our students: developing AI literacy to build and bolster human agency; promoting co-intelligence to balance human agency and AI agency; and practising design justice to develop human agency for the marginalised. Adopting such strategies allows us to capitalise on the benefits of AI while tempering its drawbacks, as we work to build human agency and promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

In their pre-conference workshop, Beyond access: Designing inclusive learning with AI and VR/AR tools for language learners, Wen Yun and Yuju Lan covered both AI and XR tools and their role in inclusive language learning. Yuju Lan explained that a pedagogical AI agent should be a proxy of a human teacher, who remains responsible for the overall design. She described teacher education classes where teachers develop pedagogical agents for their own contexts, including the possibility of agents embodied as robots. She also showed examples of AI agents embedded in VR environments. Ultimately, it is important that students can transfer the skills they are practising with AI and in VR environments to real-world settings. Wen Yun described a vocabulary learning tool called ARCHe for Singaporean Primary 2 students. In the newer ARCHe 2.0, students write a text to describe a picture, with the AI then generating a pictorial version of their text as a comparison. Students can further modify their description until the AI-generated image better matches their writing. AI literacy is a byproduct of this approach. She went on to describe a goal-driven conversational agent designed to improve the writing of Primary 4 students; this focuses on shared agency between the AI and the students, with the AI supporting students’ goal-oriented activities. There is a study currently underway to determine the efficacy of this approach.

In her paper, Bridging the AI divide: Exploring AI literacy among migrant and refugee adult learners in Australia, Katrina Tour stressed the growing importance of AI for everyday learning and life, hence the need to develop language students’ AI literacy. She went on to introduce the Sociocultural Model of AI Literacy by Tour, Pegrum & McDonald (2025). Reporting on a national survey of learners in a language education programme, she noted that the majority, as of late 2023–early 2024, had not even heard of, let alone used, generative AI: this is a group which is very much in need of learning about AI and developing AI literacy. Among those who used genAI, some used it for learning (e.g., supporting homework using multiple languages in a translanguaging paradigm), everyday tasks (e.g., finding recipes), leisure pursuits (e.g., scripting vlog episodes), and professional activities (e.g., creating marketing materials). However, capabilities were fragmented, with a lack of understanding of how genAI works and the need to apply a critical lens to genAI output. She concluded that there is a growing AI divide; while some learners are experimenting with basic operational and contextual AI, advanced critical and creative skills needed targeted support. AI literacy interventions and AI literacy programmes are thus needed for language learners.

In their paper, Enhancing EFL students’ human-centred AI literacy and English motivation via ChatGPT co-writing, Hsin-Yi Huang, Chiung-Jung Tseng and Ming-Fen Lo described an advanced writing course where students took a translanguaging approach to strategically using ChatGPT for writing support. They mentioned the importance of students developing critical and creative skills to apply to all generative AI use. Teachers have an important role, they suggested, in guiding students to embrace human-centred values and creativity.

In their paper, Beyond standard English: AI-driven language learning for inclusivity in South Korea, So-Yeun Ahn, Han Jieun, Park Junyeong and Kim Suin demonstrated an AI chatbot capable of conversing in multiple World Englishes and responding to students’ comments and questions in a conversational format. They reported on a study with 200 Korean learners, where one group could access multiple World Englishes and the other was exposed only to Inner Circle Englishes. Initially students indicated more satisfaction with Inner Circle Englishes, but the World Englishes group tended to produce more complex utterances to elaborate about their personal experiences. It was found that Inner Circle accents reinforced traditional curricular topics, while World Englishes accents elicited more diverse, identity-linked or cultural topics. World Englishes changed how students talked; AI wasn’t only a language partner but also a cultural persona, with students positioning the AI as representative of a national identity. This does however raise ethical and pedagogical questions about how AI voices should represent national identities.

In their presentation, Feedback in the generative AI era: A critical review of generative AI for L2 written feedback, Peter Crosthwaite and Sun Shuyi (Amelia) described a PRISMA-informed scoping review of 51 empirical studies of genAI feedback on L2 writing. The most common aim of such research was to identify an impact from ChatGPT on improving writing; in second place was reporting student/teacher perceptions of genAI feedback; third was comparing genAI to teacher-generated feedback. Most of the studies looked at post-writing feedback, rather than feedback at the planning or early stages of writing; this is an area for future investigation. Many studies showed significant gains, with teacher and AI feedback being complementary, and a combination of teacher and AI feedback being more effective than either alone. One methodological problem identified was that assessments of writing quality were not necessarily related to the type of genAI feedback; another was small sample sizes; yet another was that many studies did not provide information on the genAI prompts used. Overall, it would seem that there are gains from genAI L2 writing feedback, but the field is still developing.

In their paper, TPACK co-construction of pre- and in-service EFL teachers toward the integration of corpus and AI, Oktavianti Ikmi Nur and Qing Ma described the Indonesian school teaching context where internet access is quite varied, and where pre-service teachers are often tech-savvy but lack pedagogical expertise, while in-service teachers are strong in pedagogy but lack digital skills. They described a study looking at how pre-service and in-service teachers co-construct TPACK with respect to corpus linguistics and AI. It was suggested that AI tools are now becoming normalised in teaching, while there is less familiarity with corpus tools. Collaboration between pre-service and in-service teachers is an important mechanism for bridging technology gaps in teacher repertoires.

In their presentation, A large-scale mixed-methods study of Japanese university students’ use of ChatGPT for L2 learning, Louise Ohashi and Suwako Uehara reported on a July 2024 survey of 2,521 Japanese university students looking at whether and how they were using ChatGPT. It was found that 50.1% were using it for language learning, with a focus on writing, grammar and vocabulary. They reported on the top six themes to emerge: feedback on own work; translation; vocabulary; grammar; conversation practice; paraphrase or summarise. Around 2% of responses indicated academic integrity issues ranging from obvious cheating to suspected misuse. They concluded that students were typically using ChatGPT for basic support, with deeper exploration limited; generative AI literacy is needed.

In their paper, Fostering inclusivity through the incorporation of e-readers in online Mandarin classrooms, Liu Chuan and Jing Huang suggested that e-readers can be powerful tools for inclusion, autonomy and plurilingualism; can promote student agency and choice; and can support equitable, responsible and identity-affirming teaching practices. They reported on critical dialogue between teachers which led to reflective, transformative practice.

In his paper, The effects of a personalised learning plan in a language MOOC on learners’ oral presentation skills, Naptat Jitpaisarnwattana quoted Downes’ (2016) distinction between personalised learning, which involves tailoring learning to individual needs, and personal learning, which emphasises learner autonomy and self-directed engagement. Considerations include technology infrastructure, learner traits, learner culture, and the nature of the subject matter. He reported on a study of personalisation in MOOCs which found that many students did not follow personalised pathways to the end, with those who deviated from the prescribed pathways showing a greater preference for more autonomous approaches to their learning. He then went on to describe a more recent study looking at 178 science major students in an Academic English course in Thailand, where a personalised learning plan was generated for each student, with course analytics used to track whether students followed their plan. Significant improvements were found across a range of language areas and skills. He concluded that personalisation is often associated with adaptive learning, where students are offered adaptive recommendations (a strong form of personalisation), while here the personalised learning plan provided students with a possible pathway tailored to their profiles and self-identified needs, leaving students some room for autonomy (a weak form of personalisation). This weaker form of personalisation may a valuable feature in an era increasingly dominated by algorithm-driven edtech.

It’s clear that, while we are still in the early days of generative AI adoption in education, important understandings are already beginning to emerge concerning the need for both educators and students to develop AI literacy, and the need to take a nuanced and judicious approach to using genAI if it is to support diversity, equity and inclusion.

Gen AI takes front stage

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Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi, Vietnam

Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi, Vietnam. Photo by Mark Pegrum, 2024. May be reused under CC BY 4.0 licence.

GloCALL Conference
Hanoi, Vietnam
22-24 August, 2024

Unsurprisingly, the 2024 GloCALL Conference in Hanoi was dominated by discussions and debates about generative AI, as educators and educational institutions seek to come to terms with its uses and challenges. While there was a general acknowledgement that genAI is having and will continue to have a major impact on education, numerous speakers sounded notes of caution about the need to keep its novelty and power in perspective, to use it in line with established pedagogical principles, and to be wary of its pitfalls.

In his opening keynote, The transformative role of technology in language teaching and learning: Seeing through the hype, Glenn Stockwell began by noting that digital technologies change how and what we learn, and even our goals for learning, but they may sometimes sit beneath the surface of our awareness. He spoke about the rapid development of generative AI, and indicated that there are sometimes differences in teacher and student perspectives – teachers may worry that students will cheat, while students worry that they will be accused of cheating. Educational institutions are currently sending mixed messages about genAI; clear guidelines for usage are needed. He mentioned the AI paradox: the idea that teachers are using AI to create tasks that students are using AI to complete. He also mentioned Bryson and Hand’s 2008 notion of false engagement: students may engage in tasks simply for the sake of completing them, if they don’t fully understand their pedagogical purposes.

Although genAI brings enormous changes, we can learn a lot from discussions of the arrival of past educational technologies, and should remember that good pedagogical practices must remain the core of what we do. Among its possible pedagogical uses, genAI can be used as a writing assistant, or as a chatbot to provide non-judgemental feedback. However, he suggested that the relationship between technology and autonomy is tenuous; it is doubtful whether genAI promotes learner autonomy, though it is certainly used by autonomous learners. It is definitely necessary to rethink assessment, and ensure it is preparing students appropriately for today’s world. We should consider assessing both the process and the product.

Current research on AI in language education is still largely focused on perceptions and impressions, but we need research on actual practices. Teachers, meanwhile, have a sense of precarity with technology (Stockwell & Wang, 2024), with concerns over job security, funding cuts, workload, and training. This raises the issue of digital wellbeing in an AI era (Bentley et al., 2024). Legal and ethical issues also loom large. Much more discussion is needed of these issues, locally and globally.

In his plenary, Artificial intelligence in the language education context of Vietnam: From theory to practice, Nguyen Ngoc Vu traced the history of the development of neural networks from the early 1980s onwards, explaining the increasing parameters as GPT was developed. He referred to the biological theory of emergent properties (Saltzer & Kaashoek, 2009), that is, properties not present in the individual components of a system, but which show up when those components are combined. He argued that large language models (LLMs) have the potential to dramatically impact the landscape of education. One issue with the production of certain materials, such as videos, is that AI-made materials may seem too perfect in comparison with human-made materials.

He demonstrated the TARI AI Tools developed by the Training and Applied Research Institute (TARI) at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages and Information Technology (HUFLIT). These include chatbots for general university inquiries; teaching assistant chatbots with domain-specific knowledge; and healthcare chatbots that can draw information from reputable health information sources. He then went on to demonstrate tools designed to improve the teaching of linguistics, such as tools to parse or analyse texts according to particular linguistic frameworks. Students who have tried these tools have reacted positively but have stressed some ethical issues: the need for informed consent, anonymisation, legal/copyright compliance, review by ethics boards, and transparency and training.

In his presentation, The impact and perception of using an AI writing platform to improve narrative essay writing performance, Wang Yi (with his supervisor, Kean Wah Lee, as a co-author) described an AI narrative writing prototype tool called ‘Tale-It’, where students answer set questions step-by-step, describing the opening scene, setup, inciting incident, and so on. Students also have the option to obtain suggestions for improving their expression in terms of vocabulary or grammar. Students are able to compare their own original stories and the AI-supported stories side-by-side. In a study to examine the effect of the AI tool on improving students’ narrative writing, a significant pre-test to post-test improvement was found. In a study of student perceptions involving a survey enriched by interviews, all participants agreed that the tool improved their writing, two-thirds that it improved their confidence, and the majority that it helped facilitate their understanding of narrative structure and increased their creativity. Ultimately it improved not only their writing performance, but their understanding of genre structure, creativity, confidence in their storytelling abilities, their expression and grammar.

In his presentation, Generative AI-powered critical reading in academic contexts: An exploratory study, Haoming Lin listed some affordances of genAI technology: contextual understanding, coherent responses, reinforcement learning by human feedback, and a multilingual environment. He described three levels of reading comprehension: literal meaning, interpretative/inferential meaning, and evaluative/critical meaning. He reported on a pilot study in China examining which dimensions of critical reading postgraduate students found most and least supported by ChatGPT, and what the best and worst aspects were of using ChatGPT for critical reading support. Students were provided with readings and critical reading reports from a GPT-based Chrome extension app, Full Picture, which analyses papers according to overall reliability, reading time, three takeaways, content analysis, trustworthiness and bias check, and research topics. Students felt the app helped them to evaluate the arguments, evidence and generalisability of texts, but didn’t provide much help in comparing and contrasting the findings with others’ work, or evaluating how well theoretical frameworks were applied. At the literal level, it can provide sometimes irrelevant but new perspectives and allow quick comprehension; at the interpretative level it could be relevant to personal reading goals, inspire readers, and answer questions; and at the evaluative level it can align with personal beliefs in critical reading. Ultimately what is needed is a partnership with AI rather than relying on AI; development of AI literacy; and development of critical reading and writing together.

In my closing keynote of the conference, Not a(nother) revolution! Generative AI, language and literacy, I wrapped up our discussions of genAI by arguing that it will not revolutionise education (any more than any previous technologies have done) but that, used appropriately, it could help to support the evolution of education in areas where change may be needed. I began by looking at the technology itself and how it is developing and is likely to develop in the future; then I looked at the educational and assessment implications, and concluded that the future of study and work will belong to human-AI collaborations; and finally I looked at the societal and environmental implications, and stressed the need to maintain a critical perspective on genAI tools. Ultimately, all of us, educators and students, need to develop the AI literacy to ensure that genAI is being used appropriately and effectively to support the ongoing evolution of education.

In her presentation, Advancing TPACK: Unravelling contextual knowledge (XK) among Indonesian secondary school teachers, Ella Harendita (with her supervisors, Grace Oakley and myself, as co-authors) explored how teachers at various schools develop and employ their different levels of contextual knowledge. This XK influences their approaches to content (e.g., knowledge about students’ daily lives and values), pedagogy (e.g., knowledge about students’ learning preferences and levels of ability), and technology (e.g., knowledge about students’ technology access and interests). She concluded that teacher agency is a driving force in XK development; that teachers capitalise on the relational, collectivist culture of Indonesia to develop XK; that teachers engage in self-directed professional learning, for example on social media; and that classroom contexts are the major determining factors for teachers’ pedagogical decisions.

In his featured presentation, ‘I take it as a defeat if I work alone’: CALL, co-operation and professional development, Chau Meng Huat referred to Anne Burns’ statement that TESOL has only recently undergone a ‘collaborative turn’ in professional development and research. He spoke about key beliefs which can underpin successful collaborations, including positive interdependence (from the area of co-operative learning), abundance not scarcity, being more rather than having more, and kampung (community, village) spirit. He finished by quoting Betsy Rymes’ comment that we need to move from ‘applied’ to ‘collaborative’ linguistics. He suggested that issues of diversity, equity and inclusivity come to the fore in such collaborative approaches.

In his keynote, Integrating CALL to teach ESL and STEM: Interdisciplinary critical pedagogical approach, Kean Wah Lee described a design-based research project based on McKenney and Reeves’ 2019 framework, using four stages: analysis and exploration; design; implementation; and evaluation and reflection. Such a project, he said, has a collaborative, iterative nature focusing on practical application.

He stressed the importance of a project being tailored to its context, and he spent some time describing the issues for STEM learners in Malaysia, many of whom face discipline-specific language challenges. In addition, heterogeneous learners – some with interrupted schooling or trauma – need tailored English support. Work is underway on trying to shift teacher-centred approaches towards inquiry-based learning involving active participation and critical thinking. Educational strategies must focus on enhancing language proficiency alongside STEM content learning. Indeed, the integration of STEM and English language teaching has emerged as a global trend in recent years, to support student success in both areas, but there is still a need for more research in this area. He proposed an interdisciplinary multiple learning approach (bringing in blended learning, CLIL, PBL, IBL, and project-based learning) involving CALL/technology, which allows for multimodal teaching and innovative pedagogical practices. But this must also be a critical pedagogical approach, drawing on critical theory, and involving critical pedagogical competence, critical technological competence, and critical cross-cultural communicative competence.

He described a key project outcome, namely the Gene Detective e-Learning Module/Toolkit for STEM-EL; each ‘capsule’ in the digital platform involves a pre-test, a video, interactive activities, a virtual experiment and a case study, and is accompanied by hard copy activity books (these are extremely important in low bandwidth areas). The project is now in an evaluation stage. Students have reacted positively to the materials to date. Data collection is ongoing to improve the toolkit and make it culturally appropriate and relevant for classroom use. It is hoped that it can eventually be adapted for use in Malaysian school biology classrooms.

It was a conference full of informative presentations and rich discussions. It will be interesting to see how our discussions of technology in education – and especially genAI in education – have continued to evolve when we gather again at future GloCALL conferences.

Grappling with AI

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Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. Photo by Mark Pegrum, 2024. May be reused under CC BY 4.0 licence.

2024 Q2 Update
Singapore & Hong Kong, SAR China
April-May, 2024

In April this year, I co-presented a workshop on AI literacy for schools: Principles, practices and problems for the Academy of Principals, Singapore (9 April; with Grace Oakley) and presented a seminar on Generative AI and the evolution of education for Hong Kong Baptist University (30 April). In addressing, firstly, an audience of schoolteachers and Ministry of Education staff in Singapore and, secondly, tertiary educators from across Hong Kong, it became clear that everyone, across countries and education levels, is grappling with similar challenges as we seek to balance the opportunities and risks for teaching and learning presented by generative AI.

In my own presentations, I began by zooming out to look at the big picture of the technology itself and how it has developed and is developing; continued by zooming in to look at the implications for education and assessment; zoomed out again to look at challenges from the pedagogical to the societal; and concluded by emphasising the need for both educators and students to acquire AI literacy.

Discussions during and after these sessions revealed that many educators are keen to explore how gen AI can support their students’ learning and help them develop skills they will need in future workplaces, but that there are pedgogical concerns over how to teach and assess in this era, and ethical concerns over issues ranging from privacy and surveillance through to the environmental impact.

And rightly so. As I argued in a podcast on Digital ethics for Hong Kong Baptist University (3 May), gen AI is a new, more powerful stage of technology development and therefore potentially more valuable and potentially more risky at the same time. The task before us is balancing out the value and the risks. This will keep educators very busy in years to come as we seek to develop our own AI literacy and that of our students, and, I hope, offer some public leadership in this area.

At the interface of AI and language learning

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Melbourne Skyline from Southbank, Australia. Photo by Mark Pegrum, 2023. May be reused under CC BY 4.0 licence.

VicTESOL Symposium
Melbourne, Australia
13 October, 2023

I was invited to be a member of a panel on Generative AI in EAL learning: Promises and challenges at the VicTESOL Symposium held at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership in North Melbourne. Hosted by Melissa Barnes (La Trobe University) and Katrina Tour (Monash University), the other members of this 3-person panel were Shem Macdonald and Alexia Maddox (both from La Trobe University). Perhaps reflecting the degree of interest in this area, the panel ran twice, with different audiences.

We started off each time by considering the opportunities presented by generative AI in terms of language learning inside classrooms (explaining vocabulary or grammar points; acting as a concordancer to provide examples of language-in-use; improving language, register and style; creating self-study revision questions; collaborative story-writing; and engaging in immersive conversation, with AI acting as a Socratic tutor – an approach currently being explored by the likes of the Khan Academy and Duolingo in its Max premium subscription version) as well as in terms of preparation for present and future life needs outside classrooms (including the need to use AI in professional workplaces, as well as when interacting with chatbots and automated services provided by government organisations and corporations).

We then quickly moved on to discussing the challenges raised by generative AI, and the need for teachers and students to take a critical stance towards this rapidly evolving technology. In particular, this entails the development of AI literacy, which intersects with a number of other key digital literacies: prompt literacy, search literacy, attentional literacy and, perhaps above all, information literacy and critical literacy. We should also remember that not all students are ready or able to use this technology: accessibility is a major issue for many, especially in communities of recent migrants and refugees. Neither are all teachers ready: in some cases, some of our students may have more awareness of and facility with the technology that we do, but it’s crucial that we upskill ourselves and help students develop the aforementioned critical perspective that may sometimes be missing.

Questions and comments from the audiences at both panels were revealing: it’s clear that for many educators, the initial wave of consternation that accompanied the release of ChatGPT and the following wave of genAI has subsided, and teachers are finding productive ways to build such technologies into their teaching, their students’ learning activities, and even their assessments. Our reflective conversations and exchanges of ideas about how to best incorporate these technologies into education augur well for the future.

In coming years, we’ll no doubt be hearing a lot more presentations and panels about generative AI and its place in language learning and education more broadly. Meanwhile, photos from the panel are available on Twitter/X.

Literacy, wellness, and digital tech

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Mark Pegrum presenting 'Digitally literate, digitally well?', ConnecTalks, Honolulu, Hawai'i, 2222 July 2023.

Mark Pegrum presenting ‘Digitally literate, digitally well?’, ConnecTalks, Honolulu, Hawai’i, 22 July 2023. Source: YouTube, rb.gy/rmojy

ConnecTalks 2023
Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
22 July, 2023

It was a great pleasure to be one of the two presenters at this year’s annual ConnecTalks, hosted by the The Language Flagship Technology Innovation Center at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and filmed in a TV studio in front of a live audience as well as being streamed on YouTube. Following the opening presentation by Amy Ebesu Hubbard on the importance of non-verbal aspects of communication, I addressed the topic of literacy, wellness and digital technologies.

In my presentation, entitled Digitally Literate, Digitally Well?, I noted that the technological, informational and sociopolitical developments of the last decade have led to a changed landscape for language teaching and learning: new educational possibilities have opened up, but new demands are also being made of education. I charted the changes that have taken place, examined the ways in which digital literacies can help to deal with these changes, and suggested that improving digital literacy skills can be a way of beginning to promote digital wellness. More specifically, by considering two key digital literacies – attentional literacy and critical literacy – I aimed to show how a focus on digital literacies and digital wellness can be interwoven with the teaching and learning of language. In conclusion, I argued that the time has come for language teachers to promote digital literacies – and digital wellness – alongside the teaching of language itself.

Feedback from the audience suggested that the digital wellness message struck a chord for many people, with some listeners commenting that they felt the need to make changes in their own lives, and others mentioning that they wanted to suggest to their children or their students that they should consider making changes in their lives, in order to avoid some of the attentional pitfalls of contemporary digital communications, particularly on social media platforms with their attention-hungry algorithms. The aim is ultimately to use digital technologies in more balanced and reflective ways, making the most of their benefits while also preserving our own physical and especially mental health. There’s a lot more to be said about this topic, and we’ll hear a lot more about it in years to come.

The full presentation is available on the ConnecTalks 2023 page on YouTube.

Generative AI meets language learning

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ChatGPT-based avatar Call Annie

Chat GPT-based avatar Call Annie. Source: Animato Inc. (2023), Call Annie, V. 1.0.1, App Store. bit.ly/3ATU181

EuroCALL Spring Festival
UK/online via Zoom
29 April, 2023

On Saturday 29th April I had the pleasure of taking part in the EuroCALL Spring Festival, both as a presenter and an audience member, as we focused on the ever greater role of technology in language education – and in particular, the arrival of generative AI like ChatGPT.

The day was opened by Mike Sharples in his keynote, Introduction to Generative AI for Student Writing, where he described GPT-4 as a highly trained text completer and style copier, which he sees as offering a vast improvement over GPT-3.5 (which underpinned the original version of ChatGPT, and continues to underpin its free version) and as having changed his working practices around writing.

There are a number of issues with ChatGPT, including student plagiarism (AI detection software is essentially an unpredictability matcher, with independent verification needed of its accuracy levels, and with educators needing to decide whether a rate of 2% false positives, as currently claimed by TurnItIn, is acceptable) and inaccuracy, as seen in ChatGPT’s occasional hallucination of incorrect information and non-existent references (as a language generator, not a database, it is of course not designed to look up facts, has no inbuilt model of the world, and is essentially amoral). When it comes to generative AI, educational institutions have four choices: ban, evade, adapt (requiring new methods of assessment, policies and guidelines) or embrace (involving a long process of building trust). Most universities seem to be taking adapt or embrace approaches.

He mentioned some creative approaches to the use of ChatGPT and similar software. It can be a possibility engine (where an educator or student uses AI to generate multiple responses to an open question, and each student then critiques and synthesises the responses to create their own written answer); a Socratic opponent (where students engage with ChatGPT in a Socratic dialogue as a way of developing arguments and thinking skills); a guide on the side (along the lines of its coming incorporation into Microsoft’s productivity software; a student might instruct it to act as an expert tutor in computing and tutor them as an undergraduate in quantum computing, after which ChatGPT could provide a summary of their current state of knowledge of quantum computing to be sent to their professor); and as a language playground (where it can provide a starting point for academic writing, or translate back and forth between languages and compare the documents generated).

He noted that it is essential for educators and students to develop the AI literacy needed for a world where AI is becoming pervasive.

Following Mike’s keynote, I co-presented a 90-minute workshop, entitled From Chat to Fluency: When Humans and AI Collaborate for Language Education, together with Louise Ohashi and Antonie Alm, with our team presenting from three different locations in Australia, Japan and New Zealand. Our central theme was that to move from simply chatting with AI to using AI with digital fluency, we must develop our understandings and literacies, as well as developing our practices and techniques to allow successful collaboration between humans and AI. 

I began with a theoretical introduction which located ChatGPT in the context of recent developments in generative AI, introducing key terminology and outlining benefits and challenges (including highlighting the importance of prompt literacy). Louise and Antonie then demonstrated a range of language learning and language teaching uses of ChatGPT, before examining in more detail how to design appropriate prompts to get the best results from ChatGPT. Participants were invited to log in and try activities in parallel with the demonstrations. We finished with a demonstration of a ChatGPT-based digital assistant, Call Annie (see image above right), released less than a week earlier. This gives us some idea of likely near future developments in this space.

Given the time zone differences, I wasn’t able to stay for any more of the programme. This was not the first time I’ve attended or presented sessions on generative AI this year, and it certainly won’t be the last. Ongoing rapid developments, both technologically and educationally, mean this will be a key topic of our discussions over coming months.

Digital literacies in Italian

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Perth City Skyline, Australia

Perth City Skyline, Australia. Photo by Mark Pegrum, 2022. May be reused under CC BY 4.0 licence.

WAATI Conference
Perth, Australia
25 February, 2023

I had the pleasure of delivering the opening keynote at the WAATI (Western Australian Association of Teachers of Italian) Conference at the Telethon Speech & Hearing Institute in Perth on a warm, sunny, late February morning.

In my presentation, entitled Learning Languages Online: From Digital Literacies to Digital Wellness, I explored key literacies of relevance to language teachers and learners, looking at the nature and significance of each, before talking about activities in which digital literacies development can be integrated with language learning. The feedback from the receptive audience suggested that well-known literacies like information literacy and, of course, intercultural literacy find a lot of resonance among language teachers, while there was also considerable interest in attentional and critical literacy. Naturally, we touched on generative AI, especially ChatGPT, and how it can provide engaging learning materials while also sparking conversations about artificial intelligence and the need to exercise information literacy skills. Above all, teachers were keen to identify tasks which can serve the dual purpose of teaching students language while building their awareness of and facility with digital literacies.

Due to commitments later in the day, I was unable to stay to hear other papers, but there was a full and interesting programme ready to be delivered by speakers exploring many different ways of keeping language learning current in the 21st century.

Digital literacies, digital inclusion & digital wellness

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Pegrum, M. (2022). Digital literacies wordcloud. Created with EdWordle.

2022 Mid-year update
Perth, Australia
25 July 2022

As of 25th July – a day celebrated by many people in the southern hemisphere to recreate Christmas with a northern, wintery feel, and a day that also signals that we’re well past halfway through the year – it’s clear that Covid is not yet behind us, and that we’ll be continuing to do a lot of professional events like conferences, seminars and workshops online for the foreseeable future (and indeed, it seems likely that there will be few fully face-to-face events in the future, with hybrid approaches becoming the norm).

I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in a number of online conferences and panels over the first 7 months of 2022, and some key trends are becoming apparent. Following the publication of the second edition of my book Digital Literacies, co-authored with Nicky Hockly and Gavin Dudeney, I was invited to give a workshop entitled What have digital literacies got to do with digital wellness? for Tokyo JALT on 20 May, and a keynote entitled From digital disarray to digital literacies for TISLID, Madrid, on 27 May, both online via Zoom. There’s clearly widespread interest from educators in how to help our students develop the digital literacies they need to operate effectively in our increasingly digitally mediated world – and in particular, as reflected in the discussions that took place alongside these presentations, this flows into an interest in how to use our technologies in more socially just and responsible ways which take into account our own and others’ mental and physical health – that is, our digital wellness – and the health of the environment and the planet as a whole. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, these discussions focused extensively on literacies like intercultural, ethical, attentional and critical literacy.

I’ve also participated in an Asia-Pacific consultation for the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, focused on the role of educational technology in supporting progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals education targets, hosted by Monash University, Australia, on 1 June, and I was a panellist at The Role of Open Education, Service Learning and Digital Tools in Promoting Social Inclusion and Active Citizenship for Refugees and Migrants, hosted by the European Digital Education Hub, on 19 July. Again, there was a strong focus on how to capitalise on the potential advantages of digital technologies while mitigating their risks, with emphasis placed on access, equity and diversity. It seems to me that digital literacies may offer a pathway forward here; they can certainly help to mitigate technological risks, particularly through the harder-edged, more critical literacies which can support educators and students in raising their awareness of the implicit biases and dangers of our technologies.

The connection between digital literacies and larger issues around digital inclusion and digital wellness (for all!) seems to me worthy of much more in-depth exploration. I suspect I’ll be part of a lot more conversations in this area in the remainder of 2022!

FINDING OUR (ONLINE) FEET

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Slide from Pegrum, M. (2021). Going global, going local, going mobile, keynote, GloCALL, 16-18 Dec 2021, showing aspects of superdiversity

Slide from Pegrum, M. (2021). Going global, going local, going mobile, keynote, GloCALL, 16-18 Dec 2021; image source: Geralt. (n.d.). Silhouettes, people, group, diversity, personal. Free image from Pixabay. bit.ly/3yonROe

2021 Wrap-up
Perth, Australia
17 January 2022

As we all know by now, 2021 turned out to be yet another year of global challenges and widespread suffering due to the evolving situation with COVID-19. Nevertheless, we were able to build on a number of the lessons learned in 2020, engaging in some creative forms of online, hybrid and hyflex teaching, as well as learning from colleagues at well-organised, primarily online conferences and other professional development events. Clearly, problems of access and accessibility remain around much of the world, often tied to a lack of hardware, software and/or connectivity, but at the same time online events open up new possibilities of participation for many.

I was honoured to be invited to give keynotes for ALLT in Taiwan, and for GloCALL in Malaysia, where I reflected on the growing importance of mobile devices in learning languages, and the growing possibilities both for widening participation (mostly, though certainly not exclusively, in the Global South) and for increasing innovation (mostly, though again far from exclusively, in the Global North). In these presentations, I spoke about how mobile and other digital devices might play a role in catering to ever more diverse cohorts of learners – hence my reflections on superdiversity, as seen in my presentation slide in this blog entry – and suggested that there is simultaneously a need to help learners develop a greater array of digital literacies.

In a year when physical travel was still very constrained, I felt lucky to be able to stay seated at my desk in my home office while conversing and debating with colleagues from around the world. The downside of participating in conferences or PD events from home is that we lack the bracketed time for teaching, learning and reflecting which we have at physical conferences, and we’re often drawn away from the conference or PD schedule by ongoing day-to-day work commitments in our local environment. But the upside is the relative ease and affordability of attending these globally networked events. Even if face-to-face conference attendance becomes more common again in the future, I’d certainly hope that we see many, if not most, conferences operating in hybrid mode, giving more diverse educators a chance to attend, and attendees a chance to regularly encounter more diverse voices. In an increasingly superdiverse world, recognising and promoting and interacting with all forms of diversity should be fundamental to education and to the PD of educators.

A Year Like No Other

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‘Video conferencing’ by supalerk laipawat from the Noun Project (thenounproject.com), under CC-BY licence.

2020 Wrap-up
Perth, Australia
24 December 2020

As for many other people, 2020 started off for me with a spate of cancellations or postponements of conference and seminar presentations, thanks to the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. As the year wore on, however, conferences began to move online, and experiments began in how we can build online professional events which are both informative and interactive, using a slew of videoconferencing platforms such as Blackboard’s Collaborate, Microsoft’s Teams and, of course, Zoom. In the midst of the devastation of 2020, and among the repeated interruptions to face-to-face education and professional development, the educational community has shown remarkable resilience and inventiveness.

By the end of 2020, there were numerous highly successful online conferences, seminars and other PD events. Much has been learned about how to deliver professional development at scale while still retaining a participatory element. Aside from taking part in online conferences – notably the GKA Edutech Conference (based in Mexico) and mLearn (based in Egypt) – I also delivered or co-delivered online PD seminars, via Zoom, to teachers in Japan, China and Singapore. In November, I had the pleasure of delivering the opening presentation in an #UpskillwithAU seminar entitled Active English learning strategies for blended/hybrid classrooms, jointly run by the Graduate School of Education at The University of Western Australia and Phoenix Academy, and hosted on Austrade’s Webex platform. In this seminar, we addressed and responded to questions from English teachers – some 2,400 in total – from across the ASEAN region. Perhaps this was a glimpse of the future of online PD?

Hopefully 2021 will see a return to some normality globally, but at the same time, it would be good to hang on to the best of what we have learned about how to conduct online professional development at scale – and how to reach, and include, more educators in more places than ever before. Our educational future, it seems to me, should unfold in an increasingly blended mode.

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