Exploring the Role of Ai Integration into Language Education in Language Teacher Identity Construction: An Ecological Perspective

This study tries to explore how the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools into language education can influence language teacher identity from an ecological perspective. To do so, 16 teachers were selected based on purposeful sampling who completed a narrative frame. To corroborate data, seven of them (based on the richness of their narrative frames) attended a semi-structured interview in Persian (their L1) in which they discussed the integration of AI in their classes and how it impacted their identity. The semi-structured interviews were translated and transcribed and along with the narrative frames were analyzed by employing thematic analysis. The findings of this study revealed that AI integration in language education had a significant impact on participating teachers’ identity and shaped their identity at different ecological layers of micro-pedagogical, meso-institutional, and macro-societal. These findings can assist teachers and teacher educators in raising awareness about AI integration into language education and how it can construct language teacher identity.