The tech and AI debate is on and it’s real. Should we be harnessing the power of technology like AI or should our schools be as tech-free as possible? How does tech help or hinder student’s learning? What should we do as language school leaders? Here we’ll dig into this and see what some experts have to say on the subject.
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Some of us are early-adopters, some of us like to be at the cutting edge of whatever is going on, whether that's the latest trends in language business management or educational thinking or technology, and some of us aren't. Wherever we are on the scale of adoption, we can’t have been bypassed by AI, Artificial Intelligence. We’re probably already using some AI tools, possibly without even knowing it, we’re probably wondering about what more it can do for us, we’ve probably seen talks or attended conferences about AI in education and in business, we’re probably excited and probably a bit nervous, maybe unsettled too.
How can we lead out language schools when we, just like most people, don’t know what to do ourselves. Do have a vision for the use of technology, including, of course, AI, in our schools? How can we lean into this space critically and think about both the possibilities and the dangers of AI and the use of technology? This definitely isn’t an anti-tech, “good-old-days” kind of piece, it’s more like “what-are-we-supposed-to-do?”
The Disengaged Teen
One thing we seem to be seeing more and more in our schools are disengaged, or at least less motivated, students, especially teenagers. This is a problem for us and our schools as when students are engaged and motivated, they will come to our language schools happily year after year. If they are less engaged, it all becomes more difficult, they are less likely to keep coming and over time we have fewer and fewer students.
Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop are educators of international standing and have recently written a book called “The Disengaged Teen - Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better” and in conversation with Ezra Klein on his podcast https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-rebecca-winthrop.htm Rebecca Winthrope and he discuss rethinking the purpose of education. In this conversation they go deep into all sorts of areas and one key issue is around tech and, especially, around AI. There are all sorts of ideas we can take from it which will in turn help to shape our language schools.
Engaging with tech, engaging with AI.
They talked about the how we need to do things differently in our schools and how AI can help us deal with diversity, encourage self-directed learning and facilitate project work, they talked about how it can help us with motivation and engagement. Is it an educational utopia where with AI students can have effectively each have a different teacher with perfectly personalised lessons for each learner? AI can also be a force for equity as everyone with access can gain the benefits no matter where they are in the world, no matter who their teacher is, everyone can benefit.
Or maybe, they countered, most students learn best together, and here the idea of one screen for one student isn’t what we want. Schools should bring students together to learn, work and play together. Increasingly schools are going for mobile phone bans and moving away from tablets-for-all and then along comes AI and there’s another radical shift. Everyday we read about tech leaders and other experts would prefer to send their children to tech-free or tech-light schools, that's food for thought.
Ed-tech business
Ezra and Rebecca talked about how ed-tech companies exist to make a profit for their shareholders rather than to serve the learners and aren’t concerned about their well-being. As the biggest tech companies rush to get us and our students on board using their AI, huge questions remain around safeguarding and appropriacy of our students using this technology.
Almost all of our languages schools exist to make a profit, that's one of the things that drives our businesses forward. But profit should never come over our students, of course, our learners’ well-being should always be a top priority.
On the one-hand, ed-tech can help sell our modern language schools and drive student engagement, on the other it isolate and potentially do great harm.
Schools are more than students
While students are the centre of everything we do, we do so much more too. AI, used in the right way, can be our personal assistants, it can do so much for us. It can take care of lengthy and repetitive admin tasks, it can help us budget and understand accounts better, it can timetable
AI in expert hands
So how should we approach using AI in our schools? Let's get AI into the hands of experts, of people who have the best interests of our schools and the students at heart. Let's help teachers use AI to help their students even more. Let's help the admin access tools to make their life easier. Let's help the directors of study deliver school and teacher timetables in seconds rather than the hours and hours it might take.
AI is only as good as the quality of the input it gets. Many of these tasks will take a huge amount of time and trial and error to make work effectively. So many of us lack the skills and the confidence to make it work.
Gaining skills and confidence
Appropriately for Managing in TEFL there is a direct comparison to learning and our learners. What do we want in their progress? We want them to gain skills and confidence in language, and with AI its the same for us. Skills and confidence.
Balance
As we rush/nudge/are dragged into AI and increasing ed-tech, let's be engaged, let's be critical and let's always be guided by what's best for our teams, our businesses and most of all for our students.
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