Artificial intelligence for training new service teachers to teach English as a foreign language

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) advances technologically, researchers began to explore the possibilities of independent AI teachers in actual classroom teaching (Edwards & Cheok, 2018). However, it is believed that coaching and assessing need skills beyond machines’ abilities, for instance, emotional intelligence, creativity and interpersonal communication (Manyika et al., 2017). Independent AI teachers will face multiple challenges, but the potential of AI is identified in teacher education and teacher training (Trust et al., 2023). AI claims to be able to support teachers’ teaching and assessing through designing activities, developing classroom management strategies, and creating assessment and evaluations. Meanwhile, researchers also identified the risks and misuses of applying AI in education, including the credibility of AI’s output, confidentiality of person and sensitive data, and widening the digital divide (Trust et al., 2023).

This project explores the potential of AI in training new service teachers to teach English as a foreign language. These new service teachers are university students in Hong Kong who will teach primary school students from lower-income families in local communities, adopting theme-based language teaching. The potential of AI in training these new service teachers is explored in a) designing of theme-based learning activities; b) writing activity plans; c) initiating instructional check questions and concept check questions; d) managing classroom situations. Semi-structured interviews are conducted after the teacher training sessions to examine to what extent these service teachers benefit from the use of AI.

Most of the new service teachers regard AI as a great help to brainstorm learning activities and look for sample texts in a very efficient way. But they also raised that AI is less helpful in coaching them classroom management strategies as those involve personal experiences and real interactions. This exploration will contribute to the investigation of benefits and risks of applying AI in teacher education.