How does artificial intelligence empower EFL teaching and learning nowadays? A review on artificial intelligence in the EFL context

“Unlike the traditional statistical MT, NMT aims to build a single neural network to maximize translation performance and overcome many weaknesses of conventional phrase-based translation systems (Bahdanau et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2016b).”

“Unlike the traditional statistical MT, NMT aims to build a single neural network to maximize translation performance and overcome many weaknesses of conventional phrase-based translation systems (Bahdanau et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2016b).”

“, 2018) and recurrent neural network (Mikolov et al., 2011), which can be easily adapted to handle different tasks.”

“With the deep learning (DL)-based AI techniques developing rapidly (Dong et al., 2021), DL has earned research attention in AIEd, especially in the EFL context.”

“With Artificial Intelligence (AI) consistently penetrating all domains of human life, recent years have witnessed the dramatic growth of AI in education (AIEd) (Hwang et al., 2020).”

“An automated method (Guan et al., 2020) was used to initially retrieve related publications from 2000 to 2022 in four databases (i.”

“Moreover, multi-task learning methods have been developed using one DL model to cover different tasks (Dong et al., 2015), e.”

“Affective computing (AC) is currently one of the most promising research topics (Tao and Tan, 2005), referring to “computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotion or other affective phenomena” (Picard, 1997).”

“…vocabulary learning and retention (Lai and Chen, 2021; Tai et al., 2022), enhancing English speaking and willingness to communicate (Ebadi and Ebadijalal, 2020), building ideal 2L self (Adolphs et al., 2018), and improving English learning motivation to reduce anxiety (Chien et al., 2020).”

“As one key issue discussed by UNESCO (2019), AIEd proliferates surging scientific output (Hinojo-Lucena et al., 2019).”

“AI Chatting Robots (AI chatbots) are computer programs with AI to promote intelligent human language interaction in a written or spoken form, which can provide a more fluid user experience by updating their knowledge and perception from previous conversations (Haristiani, 2019).”

“Continual learning (Aljundi et al., 2019) can be adopted to adaptively update the DL model to satisfy personalized requirements and tasks in the EFL context.”

“With AI technologies maturing enough to interact with a virtual environment, Intelligent Virtual Environment (IVE) is proposed as “a combination of intelligent techniques and tools, embodied in autonomous creatures and agents, together with effective means for their graphical representation and interaction of various…”

“For instance, AESs, NMT tools, and ITSs can serve asmonitoring and tutoring tools in the EFL instruction to promote EFL learning mainly from cognitive and linguistic perspectives (Groves and Mundt, 2015; Abu Ghali et al., 2018; Gao, 2021; Koh, 2022).”

“, audio, vision and even electroencephalo-graph, using AC techniques (Schoneveld et al., 2021), which can feed back to teachers or ITSs for further monitoring and improving the EFL learning.”

“Multiple benefits of applying VR tools in the EFL context have also been validated, for instance, improving vocabulary learning and retention (Lai and Chen, 2021; Tai et al., 2022), enhancing English speaking and willingness to communicate (Ebadi and Ebadijalal, 2020), building ideal 2L self (Adolphs et al.”

“Current commercialized applications using AESs in EFLwriting, namely Criterion and Pigai, are proved to bolster writing accuracy and motivate learners to do more writing practice and revision (Bai and Hu, 2017; Gao, 2021).”

“Moreover, some research reveals that NMT tools are especially suitable for advanced L2 learners (Klimova et al., 2022).”

“Additionally, it’s noteworthy that the majority of published studies investigate EFL performance when applying AI in the EFL instructional settings, for instance, scaffolding argumentative writing by using AI chatbots (Guo et al., 2022), and improving speaking ability by deploying ITSs (Mohammadzadeh and Sarkhosh, 201…”

“, 2018) and reading comprehension (Xu et al., 2019).”

“On the one hand, AC should be properly used by the instructor for teaching (Wu et al., 2016a).”

“, 2022), enhancing English speaking and willingness to communicate (Ebadi and Ebadijalal, 2020), building ideal 2L self (Adolphs et al.”

“Concretely, embedded in the flipped classroom, ITSs help students solve problems (Mohamed and Lamia, 2018); assisting Self-Regulatory Learning (SRL), ITSs are proved to improve speaking skills (Mohammadzadeh and Sarkhosh, 2018); in COVID-19 context, ITSs can build students’ performance profiles to assist teachers in a…”

“To this end, large-scale Transformer (Shvetsova et al., 2022) can be pre-trained based on a large amount of multi-modal signals in self-supervised learning of multi-modal embedding space.”

“It is during the last two decades that Virtual Reality (VR) tools have been widely adopted in foreign language education (Rau et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2020), exemplified by Google Earth (Chen et al.”

“It is during the last two decades that Virtual Reality (VR) tools have been widely adopted in foreign language education (Rau et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2020), exemplified by Google Earth (Chen et al., 2020), Google Tour Creator (Nobrega and Rozenfeld, 2019), and Google Expeditions (Xie et al., 2021).”

“Similarly, some empirical evidence suggests that using avatars can decrease foreign language anxiety and encourage learners to communicatemore successfully (MelchorCouto, 2017; York et al., 2021).”

“Notwithstanding the drawbacks of NMT tools revealed in some literature (Bahri and Mahadi, 2016), a considerable amount of literature suggest that NMT tools can benefit EFL students’ learning: from the cognitive and linguistic perspective, they promote selfdirected learning (Godwin-Jones, 2015), improve mastery of lexi…”

“Similarly, some empirical evidence suggests that using avatars can decrease foreign language anxiety and encourage learners to communicate more successfully (Melchor-Couto, 2017; York et al., 2021).”

“It is during the last two decades that Virtual Reality (VR) tools have been widely adopted in foreign language education (Rau et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2020), exemplified by Google Earth (Chen et al.”

“, 2020), exemplified by Google Earth (Chen et al., 2020), Google Tour Creator (Nobrega and Rozenfeld, 2019), and Google Expeditions (Xie et al.”

“It is noteworthy that from the affective perspective, they may lower language anxiety (Bahri and Mahadi, 2016).”

“To illustrate, the Affective Tutoring System (ATS) combining emotional expressions and AC, can detect learners’ emotional expressions, determine learners’ learning state, and give interactive feedback (Lin et al., 2012; Hasan et al., 2020).”

“Notwithstanding the drawbacks of NMT tools revealed in some literature (Bahri and Mahadi, 2016), a considerable amount of literature suggest that NMT tools can benefit EFL students’ learning: from the cognitive and linguistic perspective, they promote selfdirected learning (Godwin-Jones, 2015), improve mastery of lexi…”

“, 2021) due to relatively low accuracy (Liu and Kunnan, 2016), insufficient high-quality comment on collocation errors and syntactic use (Gao, 2021), the frustrating levels of recognition, and the lack of convenience (McCrocklin, 2019).”

“Concretely, AI Chatbots can not only strengthen EFL learners’ mastery of language knowledge, including grammar and new vocabularies (Wang and Petrina, 2013), but also can improve English application skills, namely oral communication skills, listening and reading skills, and highquality argumentative writing skills (Ho…”

“Since teachers’ adoption of AI is determined by its effectiveness and efficiency (Du and Gao, 2022), from technical perspectives, more technical efforts need to be exerted to improve the assessment accuracy of AESs; from instructional perspectives, teachers are required to fully deploy the potential of AESs to improve…”

“EFL teachers can also harness IVE to construct an interactive and collaborative virtual reality learning environment to scaffold EFL learning (Melchor-Couto, 2017; Lan et al., 2018).”

“…suggest that NMT tools can benefit EFL students’ learning: from the cognitive and linguistic perspective, they promote self-directed learning (Godwin-Jones, 2015), improve mastery of lexico-grammatical knowledge (Doherty and Kenny, 2014; Bahri and Mahadi, 2016), and develop productive (L2…”

“A large and growing body of literature has suggested that AI can benefit language teaching and learning (Gao, 2021; Pikhart, 2021; Klimova et al., 2022), and ameliorate the quality of online EFL learning especially during the COVID-19 pandemic (Zitouni, 2022).”

“…vocabulary learning and retention (Lai and Chen, 2021; Tai et al., 2022), enhancing English speaking and willingness to communicate (Ebadi and Ebadijalal, 2020), building ideal 2L self (Adolphs et al., 2018), and improving English learning motivation to reduce anxiety (Chien et al., 2020).”

“A large and growing body of literature has suggested that AI can benefit language teaching and learning (Gao, 2021; Pikhart, 2021; Klimova et al., 2022), and ameliorate the quality of online EFL learning especially during the COVID-19 pandemic (Zitouni, 2022).”

“…raters in EFL writing instruction (Bai and Hu, 2017; Qian et al., 2021) due to relatively low accuracy (Liu and Kunnan, 2016), insufficient high-quality comment on collocation errors and syntactic use (Gao, 2021), the frustrating levels of recognition, and the lack of convenience (McCrocklin, 2019).”

“Additionally, the affordability and limited access to networks still stump the implementation of IVE in the EFL context (Cowie and Alizadeh, 2022).”

“…in the EFL context tend to vary from being positive, which is in accord with Sumakul et al. (2022)’s findings, toward being conservative, as noted by Holstein et al. (2017) and Lin et al. (2017) that less-experienced instructors usually struggle to execute effective responses to analytics,…”

“However, some scholars still express some reservations about the effectiveness of using avatars in the EFL context, considering technical factors such as interacting with avatars outside the scripted application areas (Lotze, 2018), the acceptability of virtual avatars (Repetto, 2014).”

“Particularly, the close connection between emotions and language learning motivation is also empirically verified (Yu et al., 2022).”

“…ITSs help students solve problems (Mohamed and Lamia, 2018); assisting Self-Regulatory Learning (SRL), ITSs are proved to improve speaking skills (Mohammadzadeh and Sarkhosh, 2018); in COVID-19 context, ITSs can build students’ performance profiles to assist teachers in adapting online teaching…”

“Some underscore that AESs can’t replace human raters in EFL writing instruction (Bai and Hu, 2017; Qian et al., 2021) due to relatively low accuracy (Liu and Kunnan, 2016), insufficient high-quality comment on collocation errors and syntactic use (Gao, 2021), the frustrating levels of recognition, and the lack of conv…”

“…and Lamia, 2018); assisting Self-Regulatory Learning (SRL), ITSs are proved to improve speaking skills (Mohammadzadeh and Sarkhosh, 2018); in COVID-19 context, ITSs can build students’ performance profiles to assist teachers in adapting online teaching modes and content wisely (Nagro, 2021).”

“On the other hand, the learner’s autonomy should be respected (Engel et al., 2017).”

“A large volume of published studies has verified that ATS can improve learning motivation and outcomes (Lin et al., 2012; Sionti et al., 2018; Wang and Lin, 2018; Hasan et al., 2020).”

“IVR can also serve as an effective means to engage EFL students virtually in Zoom virtual classroom teaching in covid-19 pandemic (Obari, 2020).”

“This includes the use of advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-based computer and mobile programs, which offer interactive and personalized tools for honing writing abilities as well as enhanced motivation (Jiang, 2022; Meunier et al., 2022; Yan, 2023).”

“There are various types of ITSs (e.g., Bibauw et al., 2019; Heift, 2010) and some use AI and machine learning algorithms to adapt to the needs of users (Jiang, 2022).”