Workshop Building Our Replacements: An AI-Driven, Personalized, Anytime, Anywhere Language Teaching Expert System more

Co-presented with an AI, we describe and demonstrate our progress in developing a personalized language-learning expert system, tutor, and companion. We discuss the history, inspiration, and components of the model—including needs analysis, lesson creation, user interaction, and ability/knowledge banks. We examine the scarcities often taken for granted in language learning and how emerging AI technologies remove these constraints and create new possibilities. Through interactive demonstrations, we show how the AI supports, assists, and gives feedback with daily language tasks in real time and engages in conversations about movies, TV shows, and books while gradually introducing target language items tailored to your readiness and needs. We also take a critical look at the (rapidly diminishing) weaknesses and shortcomings of AI-driven education, pose essential questions about its role, and explore future directions for AI in language teaching and learning. Participants will come away with an understanding of the possibilities and limitations of AI in language learning, learn some prompts you can use to replicate some of what we’ll be doing in the presentation, and learn how to connect with other developers and users of the technology.