This study investigates how university-level English language learners across three learning contexts (China, the United Arab Emirates, and a United States program enrolling international graduate students) perceive, identify, and critique cultural bias in AI-generated content. Guided by critical AI literacy and intercultural communicative competence frameworks, the study employed a qualitative comparative case study design in which 50 participants across the three sites analysed an identical 400-word AI-generated essay on climate change and completed a structured reflection protocol. Reflexive thematic analysis identified six cross-cutting themes: initial appreciation of textual clarity alongside recognition of limited analytical depth; detection of Western-centric and globalised framing; critique of an emphasis on individual responsibility that minimised systemic accountability; recognition of underrepresented perspectives from developing regions and vulnerable populations; context-specific mismatches between proposed solutions and local realities; and emerging awareness of AI outputs as reproductions of dominant discourses shaped by the data and assumptions embedded in model development. Across all contexts, participants demonstrated evaluative engagement of varying depth, supported by a scaffolded protocol. Notably, some participants identified problematic assumptions without explicitly labelling them as 'bias', suggesting that critical AI literacy may be enacted in practice before it is articulated through formal analytical terminology. The explicitness of such articulation appeared to vary according to educational level, disciplinary background, and cultural context. Contextual differences aligned with participants' sociopolitical orientations: Chinese students foregrounded collective and state-led action, students at the UAE site emphasised feasibility in relation to climate and cultural constraints, and U.S.-based international students drew on transnational perspectives to critique structural inequality. The findings inform TESOL pedagogy by supporting the integration of critical AI literacy instruction that scaffolds learners' abilities to interrogate AI-generated text as culturally situated rather than neutral.
This article examines why the Language Awareness (LA) movement, despite gaining significant momentum in UK schools during the 1980s, struggled to sustain itself through the following decade. Drawing on interviews with eight educators - including teachers, teacher trainers, and researchers - most of whom were directly involved in the movement, the study investigates both the educational significance they attributed to the Language Awareness Approach (LAA) and the factors they perceived as driving its decline. Findings show that participants experienced the LAA as professionally reorienting and enriching: it repositioned learners as active linguistic explorers, opened space for creative and cross-curricular pedagogy, and fostered collaborative communities that extended beyond individual classrooms. Yet these gains proved fragile. The introduction of the National Curriculum (NC) narrowed professional autonomy; local advisory networks and material-sharing infrastructures gradually eroded; linguistic preparation in teacher education remained insufficient; and assessment frameworks within the NC left little room for LA outcomes. Together, these pressures rendered individual teacher commitment unsustainable. The study suggests that LA's marginalisation reflected not a failure of the approach itself, but of the institutional conditions required to sustain it. These findings have the potential to inform the introduction of LA in other worldwide contexts.
This study examines the role of language awareness, affect, and linguistic justice in the practices of educators engaged in the revitalisation of Basque across formal and non-formal educational contexts. Adopting a qualitative and interpretative approach, the study draws on twenty-four semi-structured interviews with teachers, social educators, and leisure-time educators. The analysis explores how professional language awareness, understood as educators' situated sensitivity to language use and its social implications, is constructed across contexts and relates to motivation, linguistic attachment, and everyday decisions regarding the use of Basque in multilingual environments shaped by sociolinguistic inequality and the hegemonic presence of Spanish. The findings identify context-specific configurations of language awareness. Formal education is characterised by more declarative orientations, socio-educational and residential contexts by relational but constrained practices, and organised educational leisure by a more integrated approach. From a decolonial and intersectional perspective, the study concludes that language revitalisation requires socially just and affectively grounded educational conditions that strengthen legitimacy, emotional security, and everyday opportunities for language use, while highlighting the need for context-sensitive professional development in language awareness and multilingual pedagogies.
International mobility can provide students with opportunities for inter-cultural learning and developing language skills. Language proficiency is also a factor in the choice of a host university and satisfaction with study abroad programmes. The present study examines student reflec-tions on the role language played in their academic, social, and personal experiences during international mobility, drawing on interviews with 21 international students at European universities. The findings under-score the importance of international academic languages, particularly English, but also point to the students' interest in local languages for social interaction with the community. This interest is often driven by a desire for deeper integration and to counteract national stereotypes. This research highlights the complex relationship between language and mobility, where language constitutes both a tool and a barrier. This dynamic is particularly evident in students' interactions, where com-municating with other international students was often perceived as less stressful than with native speakers. Students' agency is key in nav-igating these dynamics, which are mediated by prevailing language ideologies and institutional constraints. Ultimately, language in inter-national mobility settings shapes academic success, social integration, and the negotiation of personal identity.
