Envisioning Artificial Intelligence Pedagogy into Multilingual Education in a Digital Society

• In Event: Language and AI Pedagogies, Technologies, and Practices

Proposal

This paper will present a project link to foreign language teachers and learners, educators, design thinkers, computer scientists at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Oslo, Norway. We also identified multilingual primary schools in both countries with bilingual and/or multilingual learners. The aim in this comparative study explores effective integration of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) for ex. Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) innovative models to improve academic learning and teaching of languages as well as prompt engineering and our understanding of inclusion through bilingualism, multilingualism in multicultural settings. Importantly, the development of competencies in using appropriate A.I. based technologies such as NLP and NLU- Prompt Engineering and Engineered Prompts will be central to how the collaboration is mediated and assessed while simultaneously being on-going goals.

The methodology used to support our research is based on series of intellectual exchanges and classroom observations to develop and integrate technology and design thinking to support students’ learning experiences. A viable educational technology and building on cultural assets are aimed at addressing effectively the challenges of teaching and learning dominant and non-dominant languages in a complex, multicultural world with the support of NLP/NLU and prompt engineering.

Through the combined scholarly contributions and pedagogical expertise of team members from Norway and the United States, the aim of this project is for applied linguists and computer scientists from the universities cited above to develop significant conceptual frameworks and novel pedagogical competencies needed to effectively integrate innovative NLP and NLP technologies in diverse languages into comprehensive designs of learning experiences for K-12 and soon to be K-13, university students and language learners worldwide. These engaging learning and innovative experiences will better prepare learners with the academic knowledge, technical competencies, and research skills needed for them to critically address the challenges of a rapidly changing and increasingly complex, interconnected world.

This project would enhance our understanding of a significant pedagogical model: how to best prepare educators to be effective in preparing their students to meet the challenges of an increasingly changing world for example using language tools such as Duolingo, Google Translate and ChatGpT through Prompt Engineering and Engineered Prompts. We believe it offers an original alternative to most approaches to prepare educators to become professional practitioners.

Beyond teaching students disciplinary content knowledge, the new exigency is to systematically develop student abilities to think creatively, critically, and comprehensively while researching and utilizing traditional disciplinary knowledge as well as continually emerging knowledge sources to understand and work with solutions geared toward complex local and global issues. There are pressing challenges, for example, of cross-cultural communication in different languages and cross-cultural thinking, diversity and inclusion addressing societal inequities and sustainability.

This project is innovative in how it intricately links technology, diverse languages as well as cross-cultural communication using NLP and NLU to access tools to learn and teach bilingualism and multilingualism. To improve learning and make it more relevant to real-world issues and challenges, we will explore and document viable roles for NLP/NLU-digital technology, both in the actual processes of teaching and learning for teachers and students and in the possibilities, it can create for cross-cultural and cross-continental communication between the collaborating partners to research and develop pedagogical approaches to achieving these integrative objectives.

To conclude, we believe that the substance of these virtual intellectual exchanges will focus on increased understanding of diverse linguistic perspectives conjoined to inspire and engage educators and learners in rigorous learning and research processes.

Author

• Zehlia Babaci-Wilhite, UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO