September 2023 - This week has been about welcoming students back to our online and face-to-face courses. More than half of them are pre-teens or teenagers, so it's always a moment to appreciate just how quickly children grow and change. Another lovely moment is realising that, even when students haven't been actively studying English, their brains seem to keep connecting concepts unconsciously. The same is true of adult students: a short break can actually improve fluency and accuracy in speaking, almost as though the brain had spent the time quietly piecing together everything we'd worked on before — even without the teacher around. A remarkable (f)act of the human mind.
This year was also marked by another striking fact: gadgets seem to speak to young people far more than written text does. I used to give my students a short list of activities to try over the summer to keep up their English — a genuinely nice, engaging list, mind you. Needless to say, these lists were never printed, opened, found, or used in any way whatsoever, aside from being recently filed away in my Archive folder. So this year, I went digital instead, sending my students a short video with a question, a five-minute reading or listening task, a song with a quick follow-up activity, and so on, once a week. It took me about an hour a week, and it gave a bit of purpose to the time I'd otherwise spend scrolling through funny videos on social media. Differentiation was key: apart from a few close-knit groups, most students received something tailored to their own recurring mistakes. It worked.
It also told me a great deal about my students' preferences: surprisingly, nobody responded to the written task, but everyone watched the funny video about shoe-related vocabulary. So I had material ready for my first lesson back too: what did — or didn't — we learn over the summer?
A fair question follows: does this mean I'm now bound to teach only through funny videos, abandoning written texts altogether? My generation was raised on the idea that intelligent people read, and that visual input (television, back then) couldn't really give you factual information. I never quite agreed with that. Hollywood films do play fast and loose with historical facts, and that's a problem, but the film industry is evolving too, and more and more material is now available with genuinely reliable content. (Incidentally, remember the old saying that history is written by the victors — so what, exactly, is "factual" about history? HERE is a genuinely interesting example, in Italian, from GeoPop, of a widely held historical belief with no real source behind it.) Documentaries, too, are gaining ground precisely because they combine visual appeal with entertainment value, so there's now a wealth of multimedia material available for lessons.
None of this takes away from the value of good reading, or the importance of writing — but I would reconsider the type of texts we ask students to read and write. Outside Academic English, where classic novels remain essential, General and Business English courses need to consider what students actually need in real life. Very few people need to write an article, unless they're a journalist — but plenty of us post on social media. Very few people need to write a short story, but many of us leave comments on review websites and have to justify our star rating. Digital citizenship means knowing how to communicate in writing, whether that's a social media post, a work email, a well-written profile, or a comment under a YouTube video. Why not teach students how to write for the digital world? Because we already do write — a great deal of it.
Read between the lines here: it's worth being sceptical of any language course that claims to be "conversation only". Do you really only need spoken language?
Our role in teaching writing is also being challenged by the very current — and very real — rise of AI. I doubt I'm the only teacher who has already received a stack of suspiciously perfect essays courtesy of ChatGPT, or overheard comments like "Siri, come si dice 'non ho fatto i compiti' in inglese?", or Alexa quietly supplying the correct answer in the background during an online lesson. As with any new technology, people are quick to predict an apocalypse. What's genuinely puzzling about this particular technology, though, is that even its own developers can't say for certain how it will affect our lives in the near future — by their own admission, the range of possible outcomes is essentially limitless. So let me focus instead on the most obvious changes teachers are likely to face:
Essays written by AI: It would be useful to know whether there's a searchable database of everything AI generates (or should that be plural?). Such a register could be invaluable for checking whether a piece of written work is genuinely original. For teachers, the practical message is: test students in class. This will almost certainly reduce the volume of written homework we set (no bad thing), pushing it either towards more creative alternatives or out of existence altogether. It may also bring about something of a renaissance for face-to-face teaching and testing. We're seeing the same pattern on social media, and even more so on dating sites: as these platforms become flooded with fake accounts and bots, people are gradually being pushed back towards real life for genuine experiences.
Students increasingly prefer automated online courses, where they can set their own pace, supported by AI-driven features such as personalised materials, reminders and instant correction. I've recently discovered you can even have conversation lessons with an AI. This kind of technology will serve a huge number of people, and many of them may well succeed with it. What I think matters most, though, is human attention. If someone messages you "Happy birthday!", you feel genuinely seen and appreciated — that feeling evaporates the moment you find out Facebook simply reminded them. We know exactly what computers are capable of, but they can't make us feel special, because they're only following an algorithm. People make an effort; computers execute code. This means teachers will increasingly need to make the effort to personalise and differentiate materials even further than before — quality control, guaranteed. So I doubt an AI-run course could ever truly imitate genuine human rapport or conversation. Which raises the question: what else might you be hoping to get out of learning a language?
AI could turn schools into individual study spaces. Real or robotic teachers may one day teach one or more students directly in their own living space, with nobody needing to leave home to get an education. I've dreamed of a blend of teachers and technology ever since watching Star Wars: one day, perhaps, teachers will be projected as holograms into students' living rooms while working comfortably from their own home or office. VR technology has been able to create virtual classrooms with avatars for some time now, but imagine the same experience without the headset — your students sitting as holograms on your sofa, you right there among them, talking naturally. Strange, perhaps, but not impossible. This challenge simply asks teachers to adapt their materials and methods, exactly as we did when everything first moved online. The change itself isn't a real threat — just another challenge to rise to.
Some students will prefer AI teachers. We'll all have to work through this a little, having grown up on films about robot teachers and machine friends. I fully intend to try one myself, for a language I'd like to learn in future. But communication is fundamentally about connecting people. When you choose a teacher — and you should always be able to choose — you're choosing a piece of someone's world: something you admire, or aspire to be more like. You might be drawn to your teacher's background, education, life experience, or the way they present themselves; their approach to problem-solving, their positivity, their easy-going manner, their precision, their reliability — qualities you'd like to bring into your own life, personal or professional. That kind of experience can genuinely prepare you for your next presentation, or your next job interview. It can even give you the confidence to make friends or find a partner in your private life. Language is self-presentation. A machine can only analyse data and draw conclusions from it — but human unpredictability is notoriously difficult to build into a machine-generated answer. So, much like humans, robots will always have their limits.
AI can already provide live translation in meetings, in an authentic-sounding voice — so why would anyone still bother learning a language? I remember introducing myself at a networking event as a language teacher, and one new acquaintance replying, "Oh, I don't need language teachers — my Siri speaks every language for me." She was running a successful international B&B without speaking a word of any foreign language. This is only compounded by AI voice-cloning, which can now deliver a translation in your own voice and tone. We're one step away from this being built directly into video-conferencing platforms, at which point nobody will feel they need a language teacher at all. This will undoubtedly shrink the market for language learners, quite drastically — but it won't wipe it out. Consider this: many situations in life still rely on genuinely human judgement, where technology has real limits. Even with a robot by your side around the clock, you'll still want to make your own decisions — you might skip the soup, even as your AI doctor nudges you towards a healthier lifestyle through your devices, and order the chicken curry instead. You're still the one deciding. The same applies to translation: there's always more than one way to carry meaning from one language into another. The Italian word "viziato", for instance, can be translated into English as either "pampered" or "spoilt" — I probably don't need to spell out the difference. If your AI simply picks one option for you, you're no longer the one making that decision. In human-to-human communication, language is power; hand that over to a bot, and you give up a piece of that power too. In this sense, language learning could increasingly become the dividing line between those who follow and those who choose to lead. We could debate the likely numbers on each side for quite a while.
Technology could cause problems and breakdowns between humans. I know little about the wider world, but in my own experience, technology mostly offers solutions. Whenever I'm faced with a fluent but inaccurate student, a voice recorder often does the trick: listen back to yourself. Whenever a student forgets their book, we simply send a photo of the exercise over messaging apps: no more excuses. Whenever a student complains about parking, we simply move the lesson online: no more excuses for lateness, either. All of these solutions could only be sharpened further by AI. While a teacher is listening, AI could simultaneously analyse patterns in mispronunciation or flag the most common grammar mistakes a student makes, helping the teacher give more targeted feedback. AI could also track down a PDF version of a course book, often available free to anyone who's already bought the paperback. As for the parking excuse — let's be honest, even ordinary common sense sees through that one.
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It's always worth remembering the enormous gap between what humans are theoretically capable of and what we actually do in practice: reality tends to be far more basic than technology's potential would suggest. Even after years of teaching online, we teachers are still fighting the same battles — getting students to switch on their cameras (and stop eating mid-conversation), to mute their microphones to cut background noise, and to answer a question straight away rather than quietly googling it, since ten seconds of silence weighs rather heavily on the person listening. We still have students who struggle to find the chat icon in a video call, or who point their camera at their ear the entire time they're talking to the screen. So, for now, students might find online lessons convenient, since they never have to leave their living room — but that doesn't necessarily mean they're making the most of their classroom time, particularly in a group course. A great many people simply aren't very tech-savvy: they feel uneasy using a computer, or they use one but only ever touch a handful of its functions, ignoring the rest entirely. They might use social media without really understanding how it works — plenty of people post photos or click "Like" with no idea what a filter bubble is, or how they're being profiled behind the scenes. Many don't realise their comments will remain visible indefinitely: your interviewer at your next job interview has very probably already looked you up online. We're still teaching people the basics of online conduct — like swapping a bikini photo for a more professional, neutral one as their WhatsApp profile picture. Honestly, we could talk about profile photos for hours.
As for businesses, everyone enjoys positive feedback, but even in a professional context, people often bristle at criticism. If your company receives a negative comment online, that's actually your chance to show real professionalism, in full view of everyone watching — rather than simply dismissing the person. I've personally chosen restaurants on more than one occasion based purely on how well they responded to a negative review, and every single one was worth it. So AI is a genuine boon to a fairly small group of people so far, while most of us are still catching up to being able to use it properly.
AI is likely to push us away from the online world in some respects, while simultaneously encouraging us to live a more mindful online life in others. So here's my final message:
- Live offline as much as you can — enjoy real human contact, real experiences, and be part of ordinary, un-augmented reality.
- Use technology, but know its predecessors too: make sure you can still write by hand, just in case the power goes off.
- Stay conscious of the digital footprint you leave behind. Remember, AI doesn't actually know human beings — it only understands online behaviour and digital traces. Make sure the ones you leave truly reflect who you are.
PS: This article was originally published on LinkedIn on 23 September 2023.