equity
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- PaperOpenAlex — TESOL research22 Jul 2026
AI in language education
Jake Cummings
AI tools in second language acquisition promise efficiency and personalization but are often disconnected from authentic learning and equity. Teacher preparation programs lag behind, leaving educators underprepared. This chapter analyzes AI through Communities of Inquiry and Second Language Acquisition frameworks, finding that educational value depends on teacher digital competence and critical use.
Original abstract
AI tools are increasingly embedded in second language acquisition (SLA), yet their integration raises unresolved tensions between technological potential and pedagogical practice. While AI applications promise efficiency, personalization, and extended opportunities for interaction, these affordances are often overstated or disconnected from authentic learning, cultural exchange, and equity. At the same time, teacher preparation programs have been slow to adapt, leaving teachers underprepared to critically evaluate AI-mediated language learning environments. This chapter examines AI in SLA through the interpretive frameworks of the CoI and SL2, positioning teacher digital competence as a mediating construct between technological capability and educational value. Traditional SLA approaches provide historical context, while adaptive systems, chatbots, and GenAI are analyzed in terms of presence, interaction, authenticity, and cultural depth. Three themes emerge: Expanded opportunities for cognitive and social presence, persistent risks related to inequity, and the central role of teacher judgment. The chapter concludes that the educational value of AI depends less on technical innovation than on the preparedness of teachers to use it critically, ethically, and inclusively to design and mediate AI-supported language learning experiences.
- NewsEdSurge21 Jul 2026
The Language Barrier Is the Real Barrier in Edtech
This article argues that most educational technology platforms are built in English first, creating an invisible barrier for non-English-speaking families who cannot help their children with schoolwork. It highlights how this language gap widens opportunity disparities, particularly as states like California mandate personal finance courses, and calls for bilingual solutions to ensure equitable access.
Original abstract
<p>When I started looking closely at the learning platforms schools ask families to use, I noticed something easy to miss if it doesn’t affect you: almost all of them are built in English first.</p><p>For families who speak Spanish at home, that one fact quietly changes everything. A child might be able to follow along in class, but the parent often can’t — and a parent who can’t understand the material can’t sit beside their kid and help them with it. The language barrier becomes an opportunity barrier. And it’s invisible to the people who never have to think about it.</p><p>For me, the English-first technology trend was never abstract. My own children use the technology I’ve built, and I built it for families like the ones all around me — so that the opportunity to understand money, technology, and how to build something of your own doesn’t depend on which language gets spoken at the dinner table. I’m tired of watching the same families get left a step behind — not because their kids are any less capable but because no one built the on-ramp in a language they could use.</p><p>That language gap is what I set out to close.</p><p>It matters now more than ever because a growing number of states are starting to require students to take a personal finance course to graduate. For example,<a href="https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/personalfinance.asp"> <u>California’s Assembly Bill 2927</u></a> requires students to complete a stand-alone personal finance course to graduate high school starting with the class of 2030-31, with schools required to offer it by 2027-28. But if the lessons exist only in English, many households that need that knowledge are also the ones least able to access and reinforce it at home. A mandate built that way doesn’t close the gap. It can widen it.</p><p>I’ve spent the past three years building a bilingual K-12 learning platform, and the single most important thing I’ve learned is this: there is a world of difference between a product that has been