This year’s edition of the Catapult course contained a new section on the topic of “ai”. This is a subject that we’re not going to finish thinking about in a hurry, but I decided to have a first go at describing a sensible position for teachers of language for specific purposes.

The document is available for download at https://feeldothink.org/Kuti-LLMs-in-LSP.pdf

The main conclusion is that “ai” ought to be more important for teaching specialized variants of a language than it is for the kind of teaching that happens with children in school or among adult hobby learners. In general language learning, it will be wise to keep tools and automation out of meaning-focused activities. On the other hand, there’s a clear and exciting possibility for all kinds of language teachers to re-design language-focused work to make use of the affordances of large language models.

BTW - none of the writing in this website has been anywhere near a “chatbot”, it all comes from my personal experience and self-expression. But I frequently use generative ai to make illustrations (as you can probably tell). I actually enjoy the process of drawing and painting, but I keep the results to myself.