The ethical challenges of AI in education

Billie Jago
A group of students stood around a teacher on a laptop
Reading time: 5 minutes

AI is revolutionising every industry, and language learning is no exception. AI tools can provide students with unprecedented access to things like real-time feedback, instant translation and AI-generated texts, to name but a few.

AI can be highly beneficial to language education by enhancing our students’ process of learning, rather than simply being used by students to ‘demonstrate’ a product of learning. However, this is easier said than done, and given that AI is an innovative tool in the classroom, it is crucial that educators help students to maintain authenticity in their work and prevent AI-assisted ‘cheating’. With this in mind, striking a balance between AI integration and academic integrity is critical.

How AI impacts language learning

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini have made it easier than ever for students to refine and develop their writing. However, these tools also raise concerns about whether submitted texts are student-produced, and if so, to what extent. If students rely on text generation tools instead of their own skills, our understanding of our students’ abilities may not reflect their true proficiency.

Another issue is that if students continue to use AI for a skill they are capable of doing on their own, they’re likely to eventually lose that skill or become significantly worse at it.

These points create a significant ethical dilemma:

  • How does AI support learning, or does it (have the potential to) replace the learning process?
  • How can educators differentiate between genuine student ability and AI-assisted responses?

AI-integration strategies

There are many ways in which educators can integrate AI responsibly, while encouraging our learners to do so too.

1.ÌýRedesign tasks to make them more ‘AI-resistant’

No task can be completely ‘AI-resistant’, but there are ways in which teachers can adapt coursebook tasks or take inspiration from activities in order to make them less susceptible to being completed using AI.

For example:

  • Adapt writing tasks to be hyperlocal or context-specific. Generative AI is less likely to be able to generate texts that are context-bound. Focus on local issues and developments, as well as school or classroom-related topics. A great example is having students write a report on current facilities in their classroom and suggestions for improving the learning environment.
  • Focus on the process of writing rather than the final product. Have students use mind maps to make plans for their writing, have them highlight notes from this that they use in their text and then reflect on the steps they took once they’ve written their piece.
  • Use multimodal learning. Begin a writing task with a class survey, debate or discussion, then have students write up their findings into a report, essay, article or other task type.
  • Design tasks with skill-building at the core. Have students use their critical thinking skills to analyse what AI produces, creatively adapt its output and problem solve by fact-checking AI-generated text.

2.ÌýUse AI so that students understand you know how to use it

Depending on the policies in your institution, if you can use AI in the classroom with your students, they will see that you know about different AI tools and their output. A useful idea is to generate a text as a class, and have students critically analyse the AI-generated text. What do they think was done well? What could be improved? What would they have done differently?

You can also discuss the ethical implications of AI in education (and other industries) with your students, to understand their view on it and better see in what situations they might see AI as a help or a hindrance.

3.ÌýUse the GSE Learning Objectives to build confidence in language abilities

Sometimes, students might turn to AI if they don’t know where to start with a task or lack confidence in their language abilities. With this in mind, it’s important to help your students understand where their language abilities are and what they’re working towards, with tangible evidence of learning. This is where the GSE Learning Objectives can help.

The Global Scale of English (GSE) provides detailed, skill-specific objectives at every proficiency level, from 10 to 90. These can be used to break down complex skills into achievable steps, allowing students to see exactly what they need to do to improve their language abilities at a granular level.

  • Start by sharing the GSE Learning Objectives with students at the start of class to ensure they know what the expectations and language goals are for the lesson. At the end of the lesson, you can then have students reflect on their learning and find evidence of their achievement through their in-class work and what they’ve produced or demonstrated.
  • Set short-term GSE Learning Objectives for the four key skills – speaking, listening, reading and writing. That way, students will know what they’re working towards and have a clear idea of their language progression.

4.ÌýDesign tasks that are not AI-dependent

While AI can generate full essays or summaries in seconds, it’s far less effective as a shortcut for productive skills like speaking, especially when tasks are spontaneous, interactive and happen in real time. This makes speaking one of the best areas to focus on for genuine language production in the classroom (without the use of AI).

To reflect real-world communication, we should focus on designing tasks that encourage active listening, responding to others, justifying their opinions and adapting their ideas as the conversation evolved – none of which AI can do for them.

That being said, AI can be helpful for speaking preparation tasks. If students know they have a speaking class or discussion task coming up in their lesson, you could guide them towards using AI to give them some ideas for how to link their points, generate useful and functional phrases around a certain topic, or generate arguments to personalise and adapt. In this way, AI becomes a ‘rehearsal partner’ rather than something students rely on.

By designing tasks that are unscripted, authentic and collaborative, we shift language production into real-time, boosting confidence, building fluency and helping students to develop their speaking skills authentically.

The path forward

AI is here to stay, and its capabilities will only improve from where they are now. This will inevitably give rise to more and more ethical considerations as time goes on. With that in mind, educators and institutions should begin to shape its role in language learning and understand that the key question should not be ‘Should AI be allowed?’ but rather, ‘How can AI be used responsibly to enhance learning, while ensuring a true reflection of student ability'?

Read our blog posts 'How to assess your learners using the GSE Assessment Frameworks' and 'Writing your own English language materials with the GSE'

Learn more about the GSE

About the author

is an ELT writer and teacher trainer specialising in digital learning and assessment. She has written for various ɫèAV titles including Gold Experience, Roadmap, Rise and Shine and PTE Expert, and is a regular item writer for the PTE-Academic exam. Alongside materials writing, she delivers international teacher training sessions and workshops and is the founder of the professional development platform and providing AI expertise to educators.

More blogs from ɫèAV

  • Students in uniform sat at tables in a classroom with a teacher at the front talking to them all.

    Bridging the gap: How to equip English learners with workplace-ready language skills

    By Samantha Ball
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    Educators worldwide are faced with a vital challenge: closing the language education gap between traditional schooling and the practical language requirements of the modern workplace. With English established as the language of international business and in light of our ground-breaking new research, the need for education to address this disparity has never been more critical.

    In this blog post, we'll explore why teaching English through a lens of real-world application is necessary, what our research shows about the current gap in language education, and some ideas for how English teachers can integrate employability-focused lessons into their own English teaching curriculum.

  • A group of business people talking together

    Future of global workforce decoded: A ɫèAV and People Matters study

    By Samantha Ball
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    Companies today face a renewed skills challenge. One that goes beyond the traditional skilling agenda that helps employees keep up with the ever-evolving nature of technology. But rather one that prioritizes soft skills and seeks to leverage the right tools and modalities to address change.

    The ɫèAV and People Matt­ers study, Future of Global Workforce Decoded, echoes the growing importance of having the right skilling pedagogies in place to build communication and collaboration within globally distributed teams. Download the full report here or keep reading this summary.

    The study surveyed around 70 business and talent leaders across India to assess how they see the future of global workforces evolve and unpacked trends on how companies are driving productivity.

    The new skilling agenda: communication and collaboration

    The ɫèAV Power Skills report contextualized this need for skilling by identifying communication and collaboration as pivotal soft skills required to build a capable workforce across India and APAC. For companies hoping to accelerate growth through a productive global workforce, the need for developing these soft skills rises exponentially.

    For around 56% of leaders interviewed, the right learning certification and skill building programs enabled them to improve business performance. This was closely followed by creating the right employee experience and increasing inclusivity.

    The rise of skilling and certification needs echoes a business concern common to companies with global workforces: to accelerate growth and leverage post-pandemic consumer behavior shifts to build more profitable business processes. Focusing on building communication and collaboration is central to this.

    Previous studies noted that communication and collaboration remained vital soft skills for companies across APAC to develop. And with good reason. With its impact felt across different aspects of an employee's journey, the focus on building communication and collaboration is imperative.

    Around 60% of companies reported that communication and collaboration helped them:

    • Improve employee performance
    • Increase engagement levels
    • Increase cross-functional work
    • Improve retention

    Building the right skilling pedagogies

    When it comes to top talent challenges among global workforces, the lack of communication and collaboration as an essential part of teams remains an important challenge. Over 45% of companies today state this as a pivotal barrier. Another 47% of companies stated the difficulty in reskilling remains concerning.

    The solution: new, more relevant learning pedagogies that address the skilling needs.

    The right pedagogies also help raise performance and drive workforce productivity.

    Besides focusing on developing managers to lead global teams, for over 58% of companies, providing bespoke learning opportunities is key to their ability to solve future uncertainty and raise employee productivity.

    This need to adopt bett­er skilling methods is driven by many who find themselves in uncertain waters. The study found that over 77% of companies identified skill gaps bett­er and provided more relevant learning opportunities as a top learning priority.

    Having the right learning pedagogies that enable tracking and impactful, new-age interventions targeted to improve communication skills is the need of the hour. The study found that the ability to work cohesively in a global work sett­ing depended crucially on how easily different teams can communicate with each other.

    Assessments and hiring for success

    To ensure the success of learning tools and goals related to communication and collaboration, companies also need to consider another key component of their talent management process: whom they hire.

    As recruitment becomes a key HR function, companies with globally distributed and diverse workforces today need to hire individuals who fit their culture and can upskill quickly. Therefore, it's no surprise that the top hiring priorities for companies in the coming year are:

    1. Assessing candidates’ ability to learn new skills
    2. Assessments to gauge job and culture fit
    3. Better engagement and experience

    While building the right communication skills focuses on enabling learners to gauge the nuances of a global work sett­ing and enhance their proficiency in the language, how companies hire proves to be equally important.

    Platforms such as Versant by ɫèAV prove vital tools for assessing job fit and communication skills, enabling companies with global workforces to hire those who meet their requirements. While new-age learning techniques help address gaps and spur productivity by enhancing communication and collaboration skills, ensuring the right candidates are hired greatly improves the ROI and impact of such skilling programs.

    Driving skills forward to help recruit, develop and retain talent

    The future of global workforces is increasingly dependent on how successfully they can communicate and collaborate with each other. While once considered skills that were good to have, they have risen to the forefront of business demand.

    There is a clear demand for bett­er assessment and learning tools that enable companies to hire and train bett­er. Companies with a global workforce today require personalized learning programs that leverage the latest tech solutions like generative AI, immersive learning, and greater ROI and impact tracking. The diversity of a global workforce throws up newer challenges, and as companies expand, having the right tools – that address both hiring and learning needs – can greatly improve how HR leaders create impact.

    With varying expectations and aspirations, aligning company needs with those of the employee is critical for success.

    Those who focus on building the right communication and collaboration capabilities within their global workforces today stand bett­er prepared to tackle business challenges and drive productivity.

    Investing in the right learning pedagogies and addressing communication concerns thus have a direct impact on how productive global workforces are. The new skilling agenda of focusing on communication and collaboration is today driven by a need to channel diverse workforces to tackle business uncertainty.

    A defining factor of how companies ensure a productive future is by building the right hiring and learning capabilities that address the new skilling agenda.

    To find out more about this study, download the full report here.

    ɫèAV works with over 2,000 leading enterprises around the world, helping them to diagnose skills gaps, identify learning pathways and interventions, and mobilize their workforces through verifiable skill credentials.

  • A business woman stood at a desk with a computer with two colleagues sat at the desk

    8 ways language training can transform your business

    By Samantha Ball
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    Around 20%Ìýof the , making it an integral component in global business operations. But the question remains for business leaders and HR professionals: how can language learning, specifically, business English courses, drive your organization forward?ÌýHere are 8 ways language training can impact your business.