AI Literacy in Advanced Korean Language Learning: Negotiating Translation & Creative Collaboration with AI
AI Literacy in Advanced Korean Language Learning
Eun Ah Cho, assistant professor of Korean Language and Culture, wanted to explore how artificial intelligence could enhance advanced language instruction in her KOR 564/764: Modern Korean Texts II course. To test its potential, she designed a seven-week module that turned the discrepancies between AI output and human intent into a core part of the learning process.
KOR 564/764: Modern Korean Texts II, is the highest-level Korean language course in the program, enrolling undergraduate and graduate students from fields including East Asian Languages and Cultures, art history, psychology, and law.
Rather than treating AI as either a shortcut or something to avoid, Cho embedded a seven-week AI literacy module into the course. The module asked students to use AI responsibly for language development, revision, translation, and creative work while continuing to make their own judgments about language and meaning.
Learning From “Friction Moments”
Cho framed conflicts between a student’s intention and an AI-generated response as “friction moments.” Students were asked to identify what they had intended, examine what the AI produced, and decide whether to revise, reject, or adapt its suggestions.
These moments were particularly visible in collaborative poetry writing. AI often struggled to preserve metaphor and sustained ambiguity, requiring students to make deliberate choices about what the poem should communicate and what should remain open to interpretation. Instead of treating the mismatches simply as errors, students used them to reflect on their own writing habits and language choices.
One student reflected that, "It felt as though the intended message was misaligned and the AI was taking the prompt plus writing too seriously or literally. This difference mattered because I wanted the abstract prompt to make the audience think critically, but the AI was seemingly thinking for the audience."
From Evaluation to Creative Collaboration
The module culminated in a photo essay project combining original student photographs with short Korean essays or poems written collaboratively with AI. Students assessed their work using the rubric the class had developed during the module’s first week, making self-assessment part of the learning process rather than relying only on a conventional grading model.
The completed projects were placed in an exhibition at Watson Library in the fifth-floor East Asian Studies section at the end of spring 2026.
A Different Role for AI
Cho’s project positions AI not as an authority on language. It was a partner whose choices students had to examine. When students encountered language that sounded fluent but did not reflect their intentions, they had to articulate why it fell short and decide what to do next.
That process made AI literacy inseparable from language literacy. As students practiced translation and creative writing, they wrestled with ambiguity, authorship, responsibility, and the limits of automated language generation.
