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It was a mere three years ago that accessible Artificial Intelligence (AI) was put into the world. Doesn’t it feel much longer? Time in the digital age moves at a breakneck pace, and since that initial explosion, AI has woven itself into the very fabric of our daily routines. For businesses, it quickly became the ultimate “badge of honour”—a way to signal they were at the cutting edge of modernisation by adopting what many hailed as the most revolutionary milestone since the invention of the internet itself.
Since those early days, we have navigated through successive waves of AI mania and heated controversy, seeing the technology shoehorned into every conceivable niche, from smart toasters to complex web platforms. Initially, the experience was nothing short of miraculous and like something straight out of a science fiction novel.
With a simple click, we could conjure text, images, videos, and music tailored to our specific demands. However, this convenience created an avalanche of machine-generated content, characterised by uncanny visuals and a palpable sense of panic in education. Teachers and administrators alike began to lose sleep over the implications for the integrity of learning and the traditional assessment process.
Today, the landscape remains polarized.
Students and educators find themselves locked in a continuous dialogue about how to best harness this power without becoming subservient to it.
We are debating how to detect its footprints, how to leverage its strengths, and, crucially, whether we should be delegating “the hard work” to an algorithm at all. Meanwhile, the wider internet is experiencing a sharp backlash against the rising tide of ‘AI slop’ that threatens to drown out genuine human expression.
The debate is far from over, but one thing is certain: this technology is here to stay.
In this article, we’ll explore the pros and cons of AI in ESL classrooms. While the most consequential applications may still be yet to be discovered, we can look at the practical, tested ways you can enhance—or inadvertently hinder—your classroom experience today.
As said by the Norwegian poet Christian Louis Lange, “Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” – In the context of the classroom, the goal is to ensure the teacher remains firmly in the driver’s seat.
In this article: pros and cons of AI in ESL classrooms
While the popular perception is that generative text AI is a “magic wand” that will simply write your paper for you, the reality is often underwhelming. If left to its own devices, AI can produce prose that is dry, repetitive, and lacking depth. However, where it truly shines is in organization.
AI is exceptionally capable of taking raw input and scaffolding a course or a complex piece of writing with just a bit of strategic prompting. By feeding the model your specific content, the duration of the term, and the learning objectives, you can generate a comprehensive course plan in seconds.
The trick is to treat the AI as a junior assistant rather than a lead professor. You must fine-tune the output, check it for logical flow, and—most importantly—remember that no Large Language Model (LLM) knows your students’ unique personalities and needs as well as you do. It is also possible to ask LLMs (Large Language Models) to play roles. E.g imagine you are an experienced ESL teacher planning a course for a B2.1 General English class of adults.
Similarly, if you’re [staring at a blank page and waiting for a creative spark, AI can help out. While the initial suggestions might be uninteresting, they provide a structure to react against. Adding your own “human touch” allows you to flesh out these skeletons, turning a generic outline into a vibrant, engaging lesson or essay.
AI is fundamentally shifting the paradigm for English Language Learners (ELLs) when it comes to speaking skills. One of the greatest hurdles in language acquisition is getting consistent, objective feedback. A human tutor is wonderful, but they cannot be with a student all the time to correct any mistakes.
Tools like ELSA Speak are revolutionizing this space. Unlike general-purpose apps that focus on vocabulary, ELSA is focused on the nuances of phonetics. It provides a safe, judgment-free environment where students can record themselves and receive an instant score. It highlights specific mispronunciations, allowing students to zero in on their weak points with surgical precision.
For those looking to master a specific dialect, BoldVoice offers a similar advantage. By integrating video lessons with AI-driven feedback, it helps learners crack the code of difficult accents. These tools don’t replace the teacher; they allow students to arrive in class with more confidence and better-prepared vocal muscles. ChatGPT and Gemini also possess these functions, although without specific frameworks and structures for ESL learners.
Phrasal verbs and idioms are often the bane of an English learner’s existence. They are idiomatic, confusing, and frequently defy literal logic. Traditionally, teachers spent ages scouring Google Images or attempting to sketch rudimentary drawings on a whiteboard to illustrate the difference between “look up” and “look up to.”
Generative AI images allow you to create visual aids on the fly. You can generate an image for any phrasal verb, providing a vivid mental anchor for the student. However, a word of caution: AI often takes things quite literally. If you ask for “get around,” you might get a picture of someone physically walking around an obstacle rather than navigating a city.
This literal-mindedness can actually be turned into a fun classroom game. For example, using AI to visualize idioms often results in hilariously surreal images.
Can you guess these?
These visual metaphors stick in the mind far longer than a definition in a dictionary ever could.
As we embrace these tools, we must also be wary of the disadvantages. Recent data suggests that the “AI revolution” isn’t always a smooth ascent. In fact, a staggering 95% of AI pilots conducted in businesses have failed to meet expectations, according to MIT researchers. This serves as a sobering reminder that technology is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
In a world where everyone uses AI to draft their CVs, cover letters, and lesson plans, the digital landscape is becoming a sea of mediocrity. We are witnessing a phenomenon where everything begins to sound suspiciously similar. Experts warn of a “nightmare internet” where human-made text is overtaken by AI slop.
For educators, the risk is twofold.
First, relying too heavily on AI can lead to losing our creative muscle. Creativity is like a physical skill; if you don’t use it, you lose it. If we allow algorithms to dictate our lesson plans, we risk delivering stale, boilerplate content that lacks the warmth and “out-of-the-box” thinking that defines a great teacher.
Robots cannot sense the energy in a room; they cannot see when a student is struggling with a specific concept and pivot the lesson accordingly. To stand out in the modern age, we must inject a dose of humanity to all of our work.
As noted in several illuminating critiques, AI is essentially a “complex hammer” with no actual understanding of the nail. It is, at its core, an extremely advanced version of predictive text. It doesn’t “know” facts; it simply calculates the most likely next word in a sequence based on its training data.
This leads to the infamous “hallucinations.” Because these models are designed to be sycophantic (programmed to please the user) they will often invent sources, citations, and historical events rather than admit they don’t know the answer. This creates a dangerous positive feedback loop.
If an AI generates a false citation and that text is then published online, future AI models will scrape that data, amplifying the lie until it is accepted as digital truth. For students and teachers, this makes rigorous fact-checking an absolute necessity. We cannot take AI at its word; we must always check what is generated.
There is a common misconception that because AI is “in the cloud,” it is weightless and harmless. In reality, AI uses a great deal of energy. Generating a single high-resolution image or a minute of video consumes a significant amount of electricity and water for cooling data centers. In the midst of an accelerating climate crisis, we must ask ourselves if we really need to generate twenty different versions of a “cat in a spacesuit” for a five-minute warm-up activity.
Furthermore, the rise of AI-generated media is creating uncertainty in creative professions. While voice artists and videographers aren’t obsolete yet, their livelihoods are under threat. Many AI voices still sound uncanny and stilted, lacking the naturalness of human speech. If we rely solely on these models for pronunciation, we may inadvertently teach our students robotic speech patterns that sound “off” to native speakers. Sometimes, a simple doodle on a whiteboard is not only more environmentally friendly but also more pedagogically effective.
Some are also concerned about a possible AI bubble in the economy, similar to the dot-com bubble which peaked in 2000 and then took down many companies when it burst and said companies lost much of their value. This left some of the companies we still know such as Amazon, Google and Apple still standing.
However, due to a current loop of funding between famous AI companies and NVIDIA, the largest chip manufacturer in the world (by market value), many fear that a similar downturn will occur very soon, affecting unrelated areas of the economy.
The implications of this are profound and due to the fact that AI results cost more money to generate than the revenue they bring in, free AI tools may have a limited life span. It is wise to take advantage of them while the scales are tipped towards the consumer.
To sum up, AI must be viewed as a double-edged sword. It offers us the promise of more free time and streamlined organization, but it also threatens to compromise the integrity of our work if we aren’t careful.
Imagine a future where a teacher’s time is liberated because they can transform a few rough sketches into a full lesson plan in minutes. In this “best-case scenario,” that teacher is now free to focus on giving students individualised, personal well-being, and professional development.
However, in a more cynical reality, this could lead to stagnant wages, a loss of job satisfaction, and a “race to the bottom” where schools feel they can replace human expertise with a subscription to an LLM.(Large Language Model).
If we want to ensure the positive path, we must remain vigilant and intentional in our use of these tools. We must retain our mastery over the “craft” of teaching—the ability to fine-tune, to empathize, and to inspire. AI can be a tremendously helpful tool, but we must never let it take over the controls entirely.
At the end of the day, AI might provide the tools, but the creativity, the integrity, and the heart of the classroom still belong to us.
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