AI literacy: A core practice in world language education

Abstract The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) innovations like ChatGPT presents new opportunities and challenges for world languages (WL) education. WL teacher education programs must prepare preservice teachers with AI literacy to help them effectively integrate these technologies into teaching. This multiple case study—part of our on‐going self‐study of teacher educator practice—investigated how AI literacy can be leveraged as a core practice in a WL teacher licensure program. Drawing on pre‐surveys, course artifacts, structured reflections, and interviews, the study explored how three teacher candidates (TCs) engaged with Generative AI (chatbots) in the instructional activity of lesson planning and developed emergent forms of AI literacy. Participants demonstrated varying levels of development of AI literacy across four domains: technological proficiency, pedagogical compatibility, professional work, and ethical use. They developed critical stances toward AI, which were shaped by their evolving professional identities. This study contributes to growing conversations about AI in teacher education by showing the potential of the AI literacy core practice as a scaffolded, reflective approach to building AI competencies. It also underscores the importance of centering TC's professional identity development in AI integration while providing support for prompt design, noninstructional use of AI, and facilitating conversations about responsible AI use with students.