Presentation Good Respondents But Poor Inquirers? Comparing Human-initiated and GenAI-generated Questions in Taiwan EMI Classrooms more

Accountable Talk can promote verbal exchanges and facilitate EMI classroom interaction. AT is an instructional strategy encouraging productive classroom discourse and student engagement. Consequently, 38 EMI learners enrolled in an EMI course were obligated to generate questions with and without GenAI assistance to engage in meaningful discussions with their peers based on the content knowledge they learnt. The discoursal functions of each verbal interaction were categorised by recording and transcribing it: commenting, expressing an opinion, making a prediction, clarifying something, posing a question, soliciting a response, making a connection, or acknowledging other people's ideas. The findings reveal that self-initiated questions elicited deeper peer discussions than those generated by GenAI, although both methods encouraged opinion articulation and commentary. While students viewed AT activities positively, they expressed reservations about GenAI’s ability to generate meaningful and contextually appropriate questions. Despite these concerns, AT activities significantly enhanced learners’ motivation and confidence in peer verbal exchanges. These results suggest that while GenAI can assist in content-based learning by providing answers, it falls short in fostering the dynamic inquiry processes essential to effective classroom discourse. The study underscores the enduring importance of learner agency in leveraging AT strategies, even in contexts augmented by advanced AI tools.