3 Fresh AI Strategies For Language Teachers

If you're a language teacher or department lead wondering whether to ban AI completely, embrace it, or just ignore it and hope it goes away, you're not alone.

The more useful question isn't "should we use AI?" but "how do we use it well?". If you want to explore what great AI can look like in language teaching, here are three ideas to start with.

I've spent the last few years talking to language learners and teachers about AI, and collecting dozens of ideas that work beautifully in classrooms and online lessons inside AI Language Club.

No, AI Won’t Replace Teachers

This isn't about replacing teachers with chatbots. It's not unsupervised AI use. It's not a shortcut to fluency.

The activities here are teacher-directed, limited, and purposeful. They sit within a broader teaching sequence and adapt to the curriculum, so that AI tools stay within the pedagogical strategy instead of taking over.

1. Use AI for Speaking Rehearsal (Not Assessment)

Speaking practice often comes short in the classroom. While teachers focus on explanations, shy students often dodge group work and feel disadvantaged.

With the option to dictate short responses to specific prompts and have encouraging AI-based feedback, students can overcome first speaking fears and access low-stakes attempts. Teachers set the prompt or parameters, and students supply a 60-180 second audio file (proof they’re not using the tool to speak for them).

These AI-supported speaking exercises can be recorded, transcribed, or submitted to a language teacher with annotations. This is not about assessment or judgement, instead it offers students a safe rehearsal space.

Why this works: It increases volume of practice. Reluctant speakers get a private space to try, fail, and adjust before speaking in front of peers. Errors become visible in written form, which helps students notice their own patterns.

2. Generate and Discuss Images to Support Vocabulary

Visual association is a fun and accessible way to work with vocabulary and encourage live language use with students. Beyond that, it’s a creative way to bring in more learning needs than most traditional structures allow. ADHD learners love an image challenge or quiz.

Example: When teaching French vocabulary, you can ask students to generate "une ville animée en été" and have them use French to create AI images including items they learnt about. With our experiments inside AI Language Club, we’ve even used images as a source of vocabulary and illustrations of idioms or historical periods.

Why this works: It bridges comprehension and production. Students move from recognising vocabulary to actively using it. It also allows you to go deeper into a topic without extra planning, and adjust your language levels so you can work with diverse ranges of learners.

3. Show and Vote for Nuanced Expressions (Gamification in Language Teaching)

Instead of producing robotic sentences that fail to work outside the classroom, teachers can explore registers, formality, tone, and other aspects of a language with AI tools.

After generating multiple ways to say a specific sentence, progress to involving the class with a voting game or competition. AI can generate multiple ways of saying the same thing. The teacher curates them, frames the task, and leads the analysis.

Example: Ask for three ways to refuse an invitation in French, varying from informal to formal. Students compare and discuss, then collectively choose a class favourite.

Why this works: Students gain ownership over their sense of expression, which increases motivation. In addition, this approach supports linguistic awareness and prepares them for real-world communication where tone matters.

What to Watch Out For With AI in Language Teaching

• Machine transcription isn't perfect. Accents, hesitation, background noise all affect output. Test your tool thoroughly (try Turboscribe for accurate transcriptions) and give students step-by-step instructions. If you’re working with me as a consultant, I’ll supply them as needed!

• AI-generated language isn't always accurate or natural. Review outputs before showing students. And if an example feels off, acknowledge it – the discussion of imperfection can be valuable if you're leading it with confidence.

• Students benefit most when they write or speak in the target language. Again, clear instructions are valuable.

AI Can Empower Language Learners

Used thoughtfully, AI can support inclusion by offering rehearsal opportunities for hesitant speakers, reduce workload by generating materials quickly, and make aspects of language learning more visible to diverse students.

What it requires is clear judgement about when, how, and why to use these tools. The technology isn't the innovation. The innovation is in how you choose to apply it.

I work with language teachers, departments, and training organisations on best practice in AI implementation. If you're curious about how these tools might fit within your work, I'd be happy to discuss what that might look like. Get in touch here.