The Paradox of AI in ESL Instruction: Between Innovation and Oppression

IF 0.9 Q3 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

EDUCATIONAL THEORY Pub Date : 2025-06-30 DOI:10.1111/edth.70034

Liat Ariel, Merav Hayak

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Abstract

This article critically examines Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) within English as a Second Language (ESL) contexts, arguing that current practices often deepen systemic inequality. Drawing on Iris Marion Young's Five Faces of Oppression, we analyze the implementation of AIED in oppressed schools, illustrating how students are tracked into the consumer track—passive users of AI technologies—while privileged students are directed into the creator track, where they learn to design and develop AI. This divide reinforces systemic inequality, depriving disadvantaged students of communicative agency and social mobility. Focusing on the Israeli context, we demonstrate how teachers and students in these schools lack the training and infrastructure to engage meaningfully with AI, resulting in its instrumental rather than transformative use. This “veil of innovation” obscures educational injustice, masking deep inequalities in access, agency, and technological fluency. We advocate for an inclusive pedagogy that integrates AI within English education as a tool for empowerment—not as a replacement for linguistic and cognitive development.

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人工智能在ESL教学中的悖论：在创新与压迫之间

本文批判性地考察了英语作为第二语言（ESL）背景下的教育人工智能（AIED），认为目前的做法往往加深了系统性的不平等。借鉴Iris Marion Young的《压迫的五面》（Five Faces of Oppression），我们分析了AIED在受压迫学校的实施情况，说明了学生是如何被追踪到消费者的轨道上的——人工智能技术的被动用户——而特权学生则被引导到创造者的轨道上，在那里他们学习设计和开发人工智能。这种分化加剧了系统性的不平等，剥夺了弱势学生的沟通能力和社会流动性。以以色列为例，我们展示了这些学校的教师和学生如何缺乏有效使用人工智能的培训和基础设施，导致其工具性使用而不是变革性使用。这种“创新的面纱”掩盖了教育的不公平，掩盖了在获取、代理和技术流畅性方面的深刻不平等。我们提倡一种包容性的教学法，将人工智能作为一种赋权的工具融入英语教育中，而不是作为语言和认知发展的替代品。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

EDUCATIONAL THEORY EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH-

CiteScore

2.20

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The general purposes of Educational Theory are to foster the continuing development of educational theory and to encourage wide and effective discussion of theoretical problems within the educational profession. In order to achieve these purposes, the journal is devoted to publishing scholarly articles and studies in the foundations of education, and in related disciplines outside the field of education, which contribute to the advancement of educational theory. It is the policy of the sponsoring organizations to maintain the journal as an open channel of communication and as an open forum for discussion.