Following the November workshop in Graz, which brought together around 40 participants from diverse national and educational contexts, the project team continued its work on both the guidelines and the Moodle course.

Development of the Moodle course

The Moodle course underwent a phase of critical and constructive peer feedback. Based on suggestions from course users, several structural revisions were implemented. Among the most significant changes were a more explicit definition of the target group (language teachers); the addition of short texts clarifying the purpose and structure of each section; the inclusion of new sections, notably on CLIL, mediation, and teacher professional development.

The next work package will focus on expanding both new and existing chapters by integrating additional examples of good practice drawn from different educational contexts. This work will be central to the upcoming network meeting at the European Centre for Modern Languages, scheduled for 9-10 April 2026.

Further development of the guidelines

During the Graz workshop, the team organised a reflective World Café session, inviting participants to contribute their contextual knowledge and classroom experience in order to identify and discuss the most relevant principles for AI use in language teaching and learning.

The inputs from this intensive group work were subsequently analysed by the project team, with particular attention paid to identifying overlaps between principles, and refining their definitions and scope. As a result of this analytical process, all principles were brought under the overarching concept of ethical AI use.

Ethical issues related to AI use can be understood at two interrelated levels: outside the classroom, i.e. at the societal level, and within the classroom, at the level of learning activities. For example, challenges related to data privacy, legality, and control cannot be addressed by teachers alone. These safe issues require institutional and infrastructural support, as well as coordination across supranational, national, regional, and institutional levels.

Similarly, the principle of responsible use addresses primarily societal concerns. One dimension relates to societal issues such as social inequalities, power asymmetries, the digital divide, and the underrepresentation of low-resource languages. A second dimension concerns the environmental sustainability of AI, including its growing impact on ecosystems through energy consumption, water use, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Safe and responsible AI use is therefore understood as an interplay between collective and individual responsibility. While many decisions lie beyond the control of individual teachers, the classroom remains the primary locus of agency, where teachers actively shape how AI is used with learners.

The two remaining principles – purposeful and reflective use of AI – focus on the pedagogically sound integration of AI into second language learning activities and on the need to reflect on teaching and learning processes. These principles are closely linked to the educational domain and emphasise the importance of agentic and intentional AI use.

The guidelines are structured around four core principles for AI use for language education: safe, responsible (addressing societal concerns and environmental sustainability), purposeful, and reflective use of AI.
 

Achilleas Kostoulas, AI Lang project coordinator

• ECML project website “AI for language education” (2024-27), www.ecml.at/AI-lang (available in English and French)