AI is a cross-cutting issue that affects different areas in teacher:ing education. Thomas Strasser from the PH Vienna is a media pedagogue, subject didactician, language teacher, teacher:in-service trainer and more. In August, he was a guest at the ZHAW Department of Applied Linguistics and attended the International Delegates Conference of the International Association of Teachers of German. In this interview, he talks not only about AI in the classroom, but also about the skills of teachers.
What added value does language-based AI provide in the classroom?
Applications like ChatGPT can contribute to the learner's learning path. The ever-increasing corpora allow for language level diagnostics. Based on the input, such AIs can then develop customized exercises or scenarios and also suggest individual learning and solution paths. Furthermore, automated correction mechanisms can be adopted by AI.
What skills are needed to use AI in the classroom?
This is a huge topic: There are already very many models that address so-called AI literacies. But I would be cautious in general: In my opinion, what is needed is not another competency model of a disruptive technology, but rather the adaptation of proven models. Language teachers especially need skills in information literacy such as reflecting on sources or discussing media ethical implications. So a kind of lexical-instrumental set to be able to communicate coherently with bots, that is, to ask specific questions about practice practices or giving feedback.
How should AI systems be embedded in teacher education?
It is not so much a matter of trying out nice tools and technologies, but rather of anchoring them in the respective disciplines. Digitality and AI are cross-cutting issues that affect pedagogy, educational sciences, psychology, and subject didactics. But in order to position the relevance and impact of digitality for schools, universities, and teaching, we need evidence: We need to be able to measure and prove whether AI actually delivers the much-vaunted added value. Unfortunately, however, anecdotal rather than empirical evidence still predominates here.
Thomas Strasser is a professor of foreign language didactics and technology-enhanced teaching and learning at the Vienna University of Teacher Education. At the conference of the International Association of Teachers of German, he spoke about «why AI technology in language teaching has more to do with mindset than technocracy.»
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