Written by Melody Zhou
A discussion topic came to my mind during technical writing class that presented itself as food for thought. Do AI tools help language learners? Most people agree they do, while others do not think so. There are pros and cons. It depends on the expectations of individuals and how to use these tools.
From my perspective, for the reading and writing side, I do not think it could be a great supporter. The more you use AI to fully generate texts and summaries, the less evolved your independent language use will get. The majority of people rely on AI tools to write. Before AI tools, people had more room to think and correct grammar and spelling errors after writing articles, but now they rely more on tools to rewrite or paraphrase. It has also affected me a lot in recent years, I cannot write smoothly, and I get stuck on word spelling and simple words come out first; it is annoying when I need to write an academic paper. Many people do not care about the specific content or reasons for the changes after using AI to generate text. Over time, our independent writing ability will be declining. Moreover, for our reading skills, AI tools can quickly read for us and give us the gist of an article or a whole book. It does save time, and make things efficient for us, but due to high reliance on AI, people will gradually reduce the habit of reading and analyzing texts independently. At the same time, we will gradually lose the desire to read and explore ideas over time.
On the one hand, AI tools may not be conducive to the development of people’s independent ability in speaking and writing which will directly affect their critical thinking abilities. On the other hand, AI tools show great potential in helping with listening and reading. AI can also bring different results under different usage habits and methods. In the case of correct use of General AI tools, learning a language can be very helpful. For instance, use ChatGPT to role-play, and practice language dialogue in real life, such as ordering food, booking tickets, or interviewing for a job. You can also ask to level up the difficulty of the conversation and then correct grammar and vocabulary errors based on our response. Moreover, AI tools with speech recognition technology can detect whether language learners’ pronunciation is correct and give specific suggestions for improvement, which is also a great help in improving spoken fluency.
Therefore, does AI really help language learners? I do believe it depends on how you use it. There are two sides to the help of artificial intelligence in language learning. AI tools may go against people’s independent capabilities, leading to over-reliance on automatic revisions and affecting fluent communication skills. But in other aspects, AI tools can effectively improve language learning through role-playing, grammar correction and pronunciation practice. So, the key lies in the use of AI in language learning. Reasonable use can bring positive results, while over-reliance on AI can contribute to a lack of communication skills and language development.