FROM ASSISTANTS TO ALLIES: A QUALITATIVE EXPLORATION OF GRADUATE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF CHATGPT-4 AND AI CHATBOTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

Education

The research examines ChatGPT-4's epistemic effects alongside its pedagogical and socio-political consequences in MAELT (Master of Arts in English Language Teaching) educational environments during the fast-paced adoption of the AI tool. The research investigates how students and teachers handle AI's influence on language education, academic work, and authorship in a world where algorithmic control and intellectual labor commodification grow. The research uses postdigital pedagogy and discourse theory to analyze MAELT participant interviews and focus groups, generating five interconnected themes about AI functions as an epistemic partner and affective scaffold and pedagogical disruptor and ethical provocation and instrument of digital governance. The research demonstrates that ChatGPT-4 functions as more than a writing tool because it transforms how students think and teaches and modifies their academic writing practices. The research reveals conflicting forces between empowerment and dependency as well as personalization and de-skilling and support and surveillance, demonstrating critical issues about data privacy and equity and humanistic pedagogies. The research findings create implications extending to language education while also affecting discussions about authoritarianism, surveillance capitalism, and knowledge production politics. The research adds to AI-mediated education theory through its advocacy for critical-humanist approaches that emphasize reflexivity, epistemic justice, and digital sovereignty. The research advocates for policymakers and institutions to avoid techno-solutionism by developing AI pedagogies that maintain ethical foundations while achieving technological sophistication.

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