Speaker
Description
The rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is reshaping academic writing practices in higher education and creating new opportunities as well as challenges for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education. While AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grammarly can support idea generation, language development, and writing revision, they also raise important concerns regarding academic integrity, learner agency, critical thinking, and responsible AI use. As a result, AI literacy has become an essential educational competency that extends beyond technological skills to include critical evaluation, ethical awareness, and informed decision-making. Despite growing research on AI-assisted language learning, most studies have focused on students' perceptions and patterns of AI use rather than on pedagogical approaches that explicitly integrate AI literacy into academic writing instruction. Addressing this gap, this work-in-progress paper presents the conceptual rationale and proposed research design of an ongoing doctoral study that explores how AI literacy can be meaningfully embedded into undergraduate EFL academic writing courses in Vietnam. The proposed study adopts a multi-phase mixed-methods design. The initial phase will investigate students' current AI literacy and AI-assisted writing practices through surveys and semi-structured interviews. Findings from this phase will be used to identify pedagogical directions for integrating AI literacy into academic writing instruction. Subsequent phases of the research will examine how these pedagogical directions may support responsible AI use in classroom practice. The study is expected to contribute to current discussions on AI literacy in language education by offering pedagogically grounded insights into curriculum development and classroom implementation. It also seeks to provide practical guidance for educators who aim to integrate AI literacy into academic writing while promoting responsible AI use in Vietnamese higher education.
Keywords: AI literacy; generative artificial intelligence; academic writing; responsible AI use; EFL; higher education.
