Constructing TESOL's Future: The Implications of Automation and Political Correctness
Lionel Wee
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Abstract
This paper highlights two interesting challenges that TESOL faces, the increasing use of automation in communication and the effect of political correctness. With many organizations already embracing the use of AI, TESOL professionals need to prepare their learners for a world where there are also AI detection tools that aim to discern human-created texts from machine-generated ones. In the case of political correctness, greater awareness of discrimination and injustice have repercussions on norms of usage, and this is something that learners cannot afford to be ignorant of. The paper explains how the pedagogical challenges for TESOL that are posed by automation are quite different than those posed by political correctness.
Keywords
Artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, native speaker, political correctness, R-word
