Humanising Language Teaching in the Age of AI

While language teachers widely acknowledge affordances of digital technologies for enhancing language learning and teaching, an accompanying sense of disquiet has intensified as technological innovation increasingly sets instructional agenda and undermines our autonomy. In particular, the growing influence of algorithms, large-scale data analytics, and, more recently, artificial intelligence has raised concerns that decision-making power is progressively shifting away from human teachers, prompting critical questions about teacher agency, well-being, and meaningful human interaction within technology-mediated language teaching environments. Drawing on contemporary research in Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL), the paper conceptualises “humanising pedagogy in language teaching” through five interrelated dimensions: personalisation, digital literacy, digital well-being, positive computing, and human relationships and interaction. Based on these considerations, the paper then discusses not only how teachers can remain relevant as human teachers, but also how they can support their learners as they continue to interact with AI tools. The paper concludes by offering future directions regarding how language teachers can coexist and collaborate with technology, especially artificial intelligence though teacher-AI collaboration (TAC) framework.