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Ese Emmanuel Uwosomah, Autonomous University of Barcelona, SpainAbstract
This study examines how generative AI can enrich technology-enhanced project-based language learning (TePBLL) in primary classrooms through international telecollaboration. Grounded in the socially responsive pedagogy advocated by Dooly et al. (2021), the Young Activists’ Adventure connected primary learners in Catalonia, Spain, and a smaller cohort in Abuja, Nigeria, to co-create awareness work around UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation). Project activities combined relationship building, local inquiry, and public-facing production, including community-based activities on water preservation, collaborative presentations, and multimodal campaign outputs. A custom ChatGPT 4 interface was added as a child-focused tool to guide language use, writing, and editing during interactions. Using thematic analysis across classroom discourse, AI-mediated interaction traces, learner artefacts, and participant feedback, the study identifies three interrelated functions of the AI tool in the learning ecology: supporting participation in authentic dialogue, enabling rapid revision through immediate individualized feedback, and assisting learners in translating inquiry into persuasive public messaging. Evidence related to the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) suggests that AI support helped learners move from what they could do independently to what they could do with guided support, especially when teacher mediation shaped prompting norms and required evaluation of outputs. Findings suggest that generative AI can operate as a dialogic scaffold in telecollaborative PBLL when it is ethically framed, pedagogically bounded, and embedded within strong teacher orchestration that protects learner agency, reciprocity, and critical judgment.
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Conference: IICAH2026Stream: Humanities - Teaching and Learning
This paper is part of the IICAH2026 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Uwosomah E. (2026) AI as a Dialogic Partner in Project-Based Language Learning: Empowering Young Learners Through Digital Literacy and Global Citizenship ISSN: 2432-4604 – The IAFOR International Conference on Arts & Humanities – Hawaii 2026 Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 341-353) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2026.29
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2026.29
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