BTU SFL attended an event entitled "AI in the Language Classroom"

On February 23rd and 24th, our Academic Coordinator had an opportunity to attend an event entitled "AI in the Language Classroom", organized by Macmillan Education in cooperation with Eaquals and UES (Unlimited Educational Services) as part of a larger conference series under the title (Re)Defining Institutional Effectiveness: Agility & Adaptability.

The principal aims of the event were to coach ELT practitioners from state and private higher education institutions in Türkiye in utilizing AI tools to create engaging lesson plans, foster teachers' professional development, design realistic language experiences for learners and boost student autonomy.

On the first day of the event, Christopher Sanders, Associate Director at MEF University School of Foreign Languages, familiarized the participants with various AI-based tools available to ELT teachers including Chat GPT, Google Gemini, Bing Copilot, ElevenLabs, Phi etc. During hands-on sessions, the teachers were able to test the tools and deepen their knowledge of prompt engineering.

Dr. Hakan Tarhan from TOBB University of Economics and Technology took over on the second and final day of the conference to shed light on ethical issues surrounding the use of AI in the context of higher education such as discrimination, bias, plagiarism and others. His workshop was culminated by an engaging discussion of the future of language teaching and education in the era of ubiquitous artificial intelligence.

Apart from the two main speakers, the event was enriched by personal and professional reflections of Lou McLaughlin, the Executive Director of EAQUALS and Nergis Uyan, the Director of ScOla at Özyeğin University. They both shared their own experiences of being first introduced to AI-based tools, their thoughts about the impact of artificial intelligence on their professional practice, and the emotions that the presence of AI triggers in them.

All in all, the event was a great opportunity to not only develop the knowledge and awareness of AI in education, but also to network and share best practice examples with like-minded professionals from over 60 higher education institutions scattered across Türkiye. Inspired by the event, the Academic Coordinator, in cooperation with her colleagues, intends to share the knowledge she gained from the event in a form of a comprehensive guide on the use of AI in ELT which will be disseminated among all teaching staff at our university. The guide will include practical ideas for the incorporation of AI tools into teaching practice, self-study, lesson planning and assessment, as well as a detailed and collaboratively developed schoolwide policy on the use of AI by our instructors and students.