(The I S Times News Desk):Hundreds of teachers of community languages in New South Wales have heard at their annual conference at Sydney University that Artificial Intelligence is going to be a major determinant in how they teach their language in the future. They have heard that the proponents of AI want to remove the culture from language teaching and simply make it another way of talking, Emeritus Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education.
Murat Dizdar, Secretary of the NSW Dept. of Education was a key note speaker at the annual conference of teachers of community languages organised by the NSW Federation of Community Language Schools.
Whilst he praised the value of Artificial Intelligence in the classroom, he warned that it would have very negative effects.
In his address entitled Rage against the Machine, Professor Lo Bianco said: “It allows more flexibility in a class room to deal specifically with different kids in a different way, according to their progress, their interest and their capability.
“The concerns that people have about the influence of artificial intelligence are on teaching in general and in particular on teaching of language as well as on language itself and how it is used. “This internationalisation of communication is happening for no better reason than wanting to save money.
“There are specific cultures which are particular to languages. So, you can see the beginnings of what is going on here – the separation of culture from language and parceling off of language teaching to English, which will be done through English translated books. “There would be fewer teachers engaged if this vision were to be realised”, he said.
“Some academics think that artificial intelligence will kill off the remaining university language teaching depar
“Thanks to AI people may not feel the need to learn a second language and Australian students seem to be losing interest in learning another language. There is a serious decline in language numbers.”
“This is the biggest single challenge we face. It’s not the technology which is itself rich with support for language learning. The danger is how it will be interpreted by people who think language is only about passing over very basic messages to someone”, he said. The President of the Federation, Lucia Johns, said today: “Professor Lo Bianco has issued a very serious warning which we should all absorb, respond to and act on right now.”
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