Biography
Lasmeur Nihad is a secondary school english teacher at Amior Mohamed highschool- Algeria and a phD student in applied linguistics and didactics at Ecole Normal Superieur Asia Djebar- Constantine Algeria. Her research interests include artificial Intelligence, differentiated Instruction, and reading comprehension. Her currect research focuses on the impact of AI-POWERED adaptive learning systems on differentiated instruction.
Conference contributions 1
HUMAN–AI MEDIATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION:
EFL students' use of AI tools for understanding academic discourse
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education has transformed the way learners engage with academic discourse and interpret academic content. In EFL (English as a Foreign Language) contexts, students rely on AI-powered systems to facilitate academic discourse comprehension, including lectures and academic texts. This leads to AI functioning as a mediator that support learners' comprehension. This study explores the role of human-AI mediation in higher education by investigating EFL university students' use of AI tools for understanding academic discourse. Specifically, it examines students' attitudes, perceptions and experiences regarding AI effectiveness in facilitating academic discourse comprehension by simplifying academic language, explaining complicated concepts, and fostering independent learning. This research also seeks to identify the challenges students face regarding accuracy when using AI as a mediator in academic settings. This study adopted a descriptive qualitative approach, employing a structured questionnaire administered to EFL university students at ENS "Assia Djebar" of Constantine, Algeria. It explored the students' attitudes toward AI tools for understanding academic lectures, their experiences with these technologies, and the challenges encountered regarding precision. The findings suggested frequent use by students of AI as a mediator in facilitating discipline- specific terminology encountered in their academic texts, summarizing lectures, and clarifying complicated concepts in academic content. Moreover, the results displayed an overall positive attitude towards the use of AI tools for understanding academic discourse. However, the findings displayed a degree of critical awareness as students expressed concerns regarding the accuracy and precision of AI-generated responses. This work prompts ongoing discussion surrounding human–AI communication and mediation in educational environments with a focus on a dual perspective of both finding value in human-AI mediation and using it cautiously in academic contexts.