Artificial Intelligence or Tools Supported by Artificial Intelligence in and for Foreign Language Lessons – Empirical Research on the Attitudes of Foreign Language Teachers in Slovenia

Abstract

The paper deals with a current and interdisciplinary topic: AI in and for foreign language learning and teaching from the perspective of foreign language teachers. An attempt to define AI, a brief overview of the literature and an effort to place AI in the framework of learning and teaching foreign languages (German and English) are followed by a discussion of the possibilities and challenges of using tools supported by AI in foreign language learning and teaching. The empirical part presents the analysis of a survey questionnaire conducted among foreign language teachers about their attitudes towards the use of AI and tools supported by AI in teaching foreign languages. The results, analyses, and answers to the research questions show that the opinions of the teachers surveyed are homogeneous. The respondents consider AI to have more advantages than disadvantages. In an objective and realistic way, the teachers assessed the threats the students will encounter and which skills the use of AI in school will bypass and will therefore need to be developed with particular emphasis, and which skills development the use of AI will accelerate. The correlations between the analysed variables also did not invalidate the uniform and stable opinions of the respondents, as there were no statistically significant differences between the opinions of German and English teachers.