Fifth International Symposium on Academic Writing andCritical Thinking
Symposium Theme:
AI: Deliverance, diversion, or dystopia

Nagoya University, Japan
February 16, 2024

Table of Contents
Symposium Theme .................................................................................................................... 3
Acknowledgments...................................................................................................................... 3
Organizing committee ................................................................................................................ 3
Symposium scheme ................................................................................................................... 4
Symposium Abstracts................................................................................................................. 5
Keynote Talk - Large Language Models for Education ......................................................... 5
Featured Talk - Generative AI: Strengths and Weaknesses.................................................... 5
Parallel Sessions 1...................................................................................................................... 6
Room A31 - AI in Language Studies (Chair: Mark Weeks) ...................................................... 6
Invited Talk - AI Frontiers in English Language Research .................................................... 6
Exploring the Potential of Generative A.I. Guidance in Developing Academic Writing
Skills for Gen Z...................................................................................................................... 6
Exploring Japanese EFL Students’ Editing and Proofreading Preferences: Peer Critique vs.
AI Feedback ........................................................................................................................... 7
Room A32 - 言語学習とライティングテクノロジーの応用 (Chair: Lu Jian) ..................... 8
Invited talk - AI を使った中国語研究の可能性 ................................................................. 8
日本語学習者による日本語文章作成における Chat GPT の活用について ................. 8
ライティング・センターの継続的利用者が書く英文の質的変容プロセス ................ 9
Room A33 - Automated Writing Evaluation & LLMs (Chair: Kyle Nuske) ........................... 10
Using LLMs as an Aid to Understanding the Core Elements of Research Papers .............. 10
An Analysis of Automated Assessment Scoring in the EFL Classroom: A Preliminary
Study from an Ecological Perspective ................................................................................. 11
The Role of University Writing Centers in AI-translated Academic Writing ...................... 12
Parallel Session 2 ..................................................................................................................... 13
Room A31 - Ethics and Future Trends (Chair: Nicolas Baumert) ........................................... 13
The Ethics of LLMs at Universities: A Case for Restriction and Regulation ...................... 13
The Artifice of Academic Teaching in an AI World............................................................. 14
Equipping Students for an Uncertain Future ....................................................................... 15
The Argument Construction Guide for Humans and Machines........................................... 15
Room A32 - Human AI Writing Synthesis (Chair: David Toohey) ......................................... 16
AI and Critical Pedagogy: Towards a Developed Methodology for Zhuangzi Studies in the
AI Era ................................................................................................................................... 16
2

The Synthesis of Human AI Writing: Human Agency and the AI Resource ....................... 17
The Influence of LLM on Creativity and Critical Thinking in Early Writing Stages.......... 18
How do Students Negotiate with A.I to Receive Writing Prompts for Their Writing Course
Over One Semester? ............................................................................................................ 19
Room A33 - Academic Writing Support and Collaboration (Chair: Kyle Nuske) .................. 19
Invited Talk - Collaborative Learning at the Academic Writing Support Desk (AWSD) .... 19
Creating and Modulating Course Content Using AI Tools .................................................. 20
Academic Writing as Communication in a Low-Context Culture: Are Japanese in a HighContext Culture Not Good Academic Writers? ................................................................... 21
Revisiting What Makes for Effective Writing Processes Across the Disciplines in Japaneseand English........................................................................................................................... 22
Closing Session ........................................................................................................................ 23
Room A31 - Featured Talk - AI and the Future of Writing .................................................. 23
Symposium Theme
Disruptive technologies have emerged throughout the history of academic writing instruction, each raising
significant questions about how scholarly knowledge will be produced and distributed in the future.
Currently, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (A.I.) such as large language models, ChatGPT,
or neural machine translation have prompted scholars to reconsider fundamental concepts such as innovation,authorship, and academic integrity. Can established modes of teaching academic writing and critical thinking
coexist with A.I.? How can teachers and students make optimal use of A.I.? Alternatively, should
developments in A.I. be met with skepticism, vigilance, or active resistance?
The Fifth International Symposium on Academic Writing and Critical Thinking seeks to promote stimulating
discussion of questions such as these by bringing together scholars from various fields. Of particular interest
are papers and panels that address the relationship between A.I. and the teaching of academic writing interms of theoretical analysis and concrete pedagogical strategies.

Acknowledgments
The symposium is supported and sponsored by the ILAS research grant and 基盤研究(C)17K02164Development of a construction theory of reasoning that can be practically applicable to research writing andbeyond.

Organizing committee(In Alphabetic order)
Nicolas Baumert, Nathan Hamlitsch, Paul W.L. Lai, Jian Lu, Chad Nilep, Kyle Nuske,David Toohey,
Mark Weeks

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Symposium scheme
5th International Symposium on Academic Writing and Critical Thinking 2024
AI: Deliverance, diversion, or dystopia
Date: 16th, February 2024
Venue: 3/F, Liberal Arts and Sciences Building A, Nagoya University(A4① on the Higashiyama campus map)
09:00: Registration Open
09:20: Symposium Open: (Room A31)
09:30 – 10:15 Keynote talk: Large Language Models for Education. Prof. Koichi Takeda, Nagoya University (Room A31)
10:15 – 10:45 Featured talk: Generative AI: Strengths and Weaknesses. Dr. Thomas Lampert, University of Strasbourg (Room A31)
10:45 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 12:30 Parallel sessions 1
Time

Room A31
AI in Language Studies (Chair: Mark
Weeks)

11:00 –
11:30

AI frontiers in English language
research
Atsushi Mizumoto, Kansai University
Exploring the potential of generative
A.I. guidance in developing academic
writing skills for Gen Z
Hidehiro Endo, Akita International
University
Exploring Japanese EFL Students’Editing and Proofreading
Preferences: Peer Critique vs. AI
Feedback
Todd J. Allen & Atsushi Mizumoto,Kansai University

11:30 –
12:00

12:00 –
12:30

Room A32
言語学習とライティングテクノロジーの応用 (Chair: Lu Jian)
AI を使った中国語研究の可能性
Naoki Yamazaki, Kansai University

Room A33
Automated Writing Evaluation & LLMs
(Chair: Kyle Nuske)
Using LLMs as an aid to understanding
the core elements of research papers
Nathan Hamlitsch, Nagoya University

日本語学習者による日本語文章作成におけ An Analysis of Automated Assessment
る Chat GPT の活用について
Scoring in the EFL Classroom: A Preliminary
Akiyo Minami, 国際医療福祉大学
Study from an Ecological Perspective
Junko Otoshi and Naomi Fujishima,
Okayama University
ライティング・センターの継続的利用者が The Role of University Writing Centers in
書く英文の質的変容プロセス
AI-translated Academic Writing
中竹真依子（学習院大学）、
Yuhong Zhu, Hiroshima University
小林至道（青山学院大学）、
嶼田大海（青山学院大学）

12:30 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 16:00 Parallel sessions 2
Time
14:00 –
14:30

14:30 –
15:00
15:00 –
15:30

15:30 –
16:00

Room A31
Ethics and future trends (Chair:
Nicolas Baumert)
The Ethics of LLMs at Universities: A
Case for Restriction and Regulation
Istvan Zoltan Zardai, Keio University

Room A32
Human AI writing synthesis (Chair: David
Toohey)AI and Critical Pedagogy: Towards a
Developed Methodology for Zhuangzi
Studies in the AI Era
Anthea CHEUNG, Yanwen HOU & Yurong
MA Hong Kong Shue Yan University

The artifice of academic teaching in
The Synthesis of Human AI Writing:an AI world
Human Agency and the AI Resource
Rab Paterson (Rikkyo University), Kaori Robert Joel Deacon, Florida Institute ofHakone (Osaka Jogakuin University)
Technology
Equipping students for an uncertain
The Influence of LLM on Creativity andfutureCritical Thinking in Early Writing Stages
Manuel Senna IV, The University of Tokyo
Chad Nilep, Nagoya University
The Argument Construction Guide
for humans and machines
Paul Lai, Nagoya University

How do students negotiate with A.I toreceive writing prompts for their writing
course over one semester?
Richard Hill, Mie University

Room A33
Academic writing support andcollaboration (Chair: Kyle Nuske)
Collaborative Learning at the Academic
Writing Support Desk (AWSD)
Lay Sion NG, Tsukuba University

Creating and Modulating Course Content
Using AI Tools
Paul Wadden (and colleagues) Juntendo
University
Academic writing as communication in a
low-context culture: Are Japanese in ahigh-context culture not good academic
writers?
Hiroshi Yama, Osaka Metropolitan University
Revisiting what makes for effective
writing processes across the disciplines inJapanese and English
Diana Kartika, Kazuyoshi Oishi,
Mieko Thompson, Felix Kuhn,
Yutaka Aida, The University ofTokyo

16:00 – 16:30 Coffee Break
16:30 – 17:00 Featured talk: AI and the Future of Writing. Prof. David Barker, Gifu University (Room A31)
17:00 – 17:40 General Discussion (Commentator: Prof. Shogo Tanimura, Nagoya University, Chair: Weeks) (Room A31)
17:40 – 18:00 Symposium Close: Mark Weeks
18:30

Dinner4

Symposium Abstracts
Keynote Talk - Large Language Models for Education
Koichi Takeda
In this talk, I will introduce large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and GPT-4, which have quickly
become a powerful and vital tool for interpreting very complex instructions (prompts), gathering information,and generating output in natural languages. The LLMs can serve as a general-purpose tool for a wide rangeof natural language processing (NLP) tasks including machine translation, summarization, categorization,and question answering. Some key properties of LLMs, for example, the scaling-law and emerging
capabilities, as well as the notions of training LLMs and in-context learning will be explained.
I will also give a few illustrative use cases of LLMs for educational applications and show that criticalthinking is essential for making better and careful use of LLMs for writing. Finally, the future perspectives
and issues of LLMs will be discussed.
Koichi Takeda worked mainly on natural language processing research until 2017 since joining IBM
Research - Tokyo in 1983, and contributed to productization of machine translation, insight discovery fromelectronic medical records, and text analytics. He was a member of the core team for developing the questionanswering system Watson during 2007-2011.
He has been appointed to Director and Professor of the Future Value Creation Center, Graduate School ofInformatics, Nagoya University since April 2017. His main role is to conduct research activities forinnovative problem solving and value creation for the human society in a broad range of informatics domains
by embracing artificial intelligence and natural language processing techniques.
Featured Talk - Generative AI: Strengths and Weaknesses
Thomas Lampert
This talk explores the dynamic landscape of artificial intelligence, specifically focusing on generative models.
Generative AI, with its remarkable ability to create novel content and mimic human-like patterns, has shown
immense promise across various domains. This talk delves into the strengths of generative AI, highlighting
its creative potential in generating realistic images and text. This talk will first give a high-level overview of
how generative AI works, it will then discuss specific applications on content generation and theirimplications to society at large. This transformative technology is not without its challenges, however. The
talk will address the ethical concerns surrounding generative AI, such as the potential misuse and its
implications on privacy. Additionally, the limitations and vulnerabilities of these models, including biases
and the need for massive training datasets, will be explored. By navigating through the strengths andweaknesses of generative AI, this talk aims to provide a balanced perspective on the current state of thetechnology and its implications for society, encouraging thoughtful consideration and responsible
development in the evolving field of artificial intelligence.

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Dr Thomas Lampert holds the Chair of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University ofStrasbourg. His research interests are in unsupervised/semi-supervised machine learning, domain adaptation,
representation learning, and clustering. He completed his PhD at the University of York, UK, which was
conducted in collaboration with QinetiQ Ltd. and DSTL, an executive agency of the UK Ministry of Defence.
He has held positions in industry and academia, acts as a consultant, and is an alumnus of the prestigious US
Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program. He acts as an expert on AI for the Councilof Europe and has developed a training course on AI for their Human Rights Education for Legal
Professionals (HELP) program.

Parallel Sessions 1
Room A31 - AI in Language Studies (Chair: Mark Weeks)
Invited Talk - AI Frontiers in English Language Research
Atsushi Mizumoto
Atsushi Mizumoto, Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education, is Professor at the Faculty of Foreign Language
Studies and the Graduate School of Foreign Language Education and Research, Kansai University, Japan.
His current research interests include corpus use for pedagogical purposes, learning strategies, and researchmethodology. He has published articles in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Language Learning,
Language Testing, and System. He is the recipient of the Research Encouragement Award from Japanese
Association for English Corpus Studies in the Year of 2016 and the Award for Outstanding Academic
Achievement from Language Education and Technology in the Year of 2017.
Exploring the Potential of Generative A.I. Guidance in Developing Academic Writing Skills for Gen Z
Hidehiro Endo
The advancement of the English language and teaching in Japan has been a frequently discussed topic in the fieldof education. In particular, acquiring academic writing skills can be the most challenging aspect for non-native
speakers of English and students attending a university where all courses are taught in English are no exception.
With the evolution of artificial intelligence (A.I.) in this digital era, generative A.I., such as ChatGPT, pedagogicalapproaches to teach academic writing are facing new challenges. The Academic Achievement Center (AAC) at
Akita International University provides undergraduate students with academic support through peer tutoring, withacademic writing in English being the most demanding subject offered by the AAC. University students today are
considered to be Generation Z (Gen Z) also known as digital natives. If cohabiting with generative A.I. in theiracademic life is indispensable for Gen Z, paying attention to the voices of academic writing tutors who are also
Gen Z at the AAC may shed new light on the potential roles generative A.I. could play, if any, in guiding university
students to develop their academic writing skills. Thus, this ongoing study looks into the ways generative A.I.
could positively contribute to helping tutees with their academic writing needs. The study aims to achieve this byconducting a survey, allowing tutors to freely share their insights acquired through their peer tutoring experience.

6

Hidehiro Endo is an Associate Professor of the Faculty of International Liberal Arts at Akita International
University, Akita, Japan. His research interests include English language teaching and learning, social justiceissues in education, and teaching and teacher education. He is also the coordinator of Academic Achievement
Center (AAC) at Akita International University, and his current research involves meeting the academic
needs of university students by developing a better support system through peer tutoring.
Exploring Japanese EFL Students’ Editing and Proofreading Preferences: Peer Critique vs. AI
Feedback
Todd J. Allen & Atsushi Mizumoto
Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has significantly impacted the education sector. Previous
studies have explored technology's role in language learning, including comparisons with traditional writing
activities (e.g., writing groups) (e.g., Chen, 2016). However, researchers have yet to explore students'
preferences for AI chatbot technology and how teachers have implemented activities in the classroom. Thus,
we explore Japanese EFL learners' preferences for traditional and AI-focused activities used to edit andproofread their academic writing in this study. Specifically, 33 participants completed two proofreading andediting activities: (1) using a writing group and (2) experimenting with ChatGPT-3.5 (henceforth ChatGPT).
Following each activity, participants responded to a questionnaire that asked them to consider theirexperiences. In the final questionnaire, participants compared their experiences of each activity and reported
on which one they preferred. The quantitative analysis indicated that students typically favoured using
ChatGPT for editing and proofreading, although they also recognised the value of traditional writing groups.
Moreover, students could use the technology effectively and implement specific feedback into their writing.
The results also showed that students preferred specific prompts to enhance their writing. This researchdemonstrates the potential for teachers to incorporate AI technologies into language classrooms to improvewriting practices while emphasising the need for ethical implementation in educational contexts.
Todd J. Allen, PhD, earned his doctoral degree in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies from the
University of Queensland. Upon graduating, he served as a writing advisor fellow at Hiroshima University's
Writing Centre from 2017 to 2018. In this role, he conducted academic writing seminars and facilitatedwriting groups for postgraduate students and faculty members, contributing to the university's
internationalisation efforts. Currently, he is an associate professor at Kansai University, where he coordinates
the first-year academic writing program. His research interests include sociopragmatics, intercultural
education, and L2 academic writing, focusing on AI interventions in the classroom.
Atsushi Mizumoto, Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education, is Professor at the Faculty of Foreign Language
Studies and the Graduate School of Foreign Language Education and Research, Kansai University, Japan.
His current research interests include corpus use for pedagogical purposes, learning strategies, and researchmethodology. He has published articles in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Language Learning,
Language Testing, and System. He is the recipient of the Research Encouragement Award from Japanese
Association for English Corpus Studies in the Year of 2016 and the Award for Outstanding Academic
Achievement from Language Education and Technology in the Year of 2017.

7

Room A32 - 言語学習とライティングテクノロジーの応用 (Chair: Lu Jian)
Invited talk - AI を使った中国語研究の可能性
Naoki Yamazaki「対話生成系 AI とは、いかにもありそうなことを無責任にべらべらしゃべるヤツ」という評がある（この種の AI の特徴をよく表している）。さて、AI を研究にどう利用するにせよ、最終的な結果には研究者が責任を持たなければならない。つまり、自力で検証可能な範囲で利用しなければならない。であるなら、研究の最後の部分を任せるのではなく、研究の端緒を見いだす「探索的な使いかた」のほうが、より自由な活用ができるのではないか。大規模言語モデルに基づいた AI は、言語研究の種々の理論も学習しており、また、こちらが与えた「教材」により新たな分析の手法を学習することもでき、そして、それらに基づいた「それらしい」分析をしてくれる。ここでは、AI に「ありそうなこと」を生成させ、さまざまな枠組みで分析をさせる試みを紹介したい。

山崎直樹。広島大学、大阪外国語大学を経て、関⻄大学外国語学部・外国語教育学研究科教授。
専門は中国語教育のためのインストラクショナル・デザインで、さまざまなアプローチを用いた授業設計・コース設計を開発している。近年の興味の中心は第 3 言語学習で、特に学習者が自身の言語レパートリーをどう認知しているかに関心がある。また、中国語の談話の構造の研究にも取り組み、中国語教育に生かしている。

日本語学習者による日本語文章作成における Chat GPT の活用について
Akiyo Minami
現在、教育現場において Chat GPT など生成 AI の使用は賛否あるものの、翻訳などの使用に向いており（東京都デジタルサービス局, 2023）、留学生が適切な日本語表現を使用・学ぶ際に効果的であると思われる。しかし、表現の取捨選択の正しさ、翻訳の不確かさなど様々な問題がある。本発表ではChat GPT が日本語の文章をブラッシュアップする際の効果的な使用法、および学習者の使用の困難点について、日本語⺟語話者と日本語学習者の使用法を比較することで、その使用傾向の違いを調査した。その結果、Chat GPT の使い方以外に、学習者は表現の選択方法に問題があることを指摘する。

8南明世（MINAMI, Akiyo）現在国際医療福祉大学総合教育センターの助教として、留学生の日本語教育を担当している。研究分野は日本語学、日中対照研究、コーパス研究であり、主に実際の使用を踏まえた日本語の意味記述や、日本語教育のためのわかりやすい記述を目指している。その他、教授法、ライティング指導法など幅広く研究を行っている。

ライティング・センターの継続的利用者が書く英文の質的変容プロセス
中竹真依子, 小林至道, 嶼田大海
本研究の目的は、ライティング・センターを継続的に利用した学生が書く英文の質的な変容プロセスについて明らかにすることである。具体的には、Ａ大学ライティング・センターを英文の相談で継続的に利用した学生の事例を分析対象として取りあげる。対象学生がセンターを利用した序盤と終盤における英文の記述内容の比較及びインタビューでの語りを通して、継続的にセンターを利用することによって、構成、パラグラフライティング、論証、文法、語彙・表現、表記・レイアウト、文献の利用において、どのような変化が見られたかを検討する。

中竹真依子は学習院大学外国語教育研究センター准教授である。東京大学大学院総合文化研究
科言語情報科学専攻にて博士号（学術）を取得。専門は第二言語習得、英語教育、第二言語（L2）ライティングなど。近年では特に、ライティング・センターを研究フィールドとした様々な研究を行っている。
小林至道は、⻘山学院大学アカデミックライティングセンター助教で、専門は教育学（教育方法）。研究テーマは、アカデミック・ライティング、ライティング・センター運営方法、ライティング・センター支援者育成法。大学生はレポート・論文などのアカデミック・ライティン
グのプロセスのどこで、どのような困難・悩み・不安を抱えるのか、それに対してどのような教育・支援のアプローチが効果的なのかの２点を研究上の問いとしている。
嶼田大海は⻘山学院大学アカデミックライティングセンターの助教である。主な研究テーマはアカデミック・ライティング教育、ライティング・センター運営及び支援である。学生のレポートの執筆過程における外部情報の活用と意見構築の関係について質的、量的な側面から研究を行っている。著書にレポート・論文執筆における引用に焦点を当てたガイドブックがある。

9Room A33 - Automated Writing Evaluation & LLMs (Chair: Kyle Nuske)
Using LLMs as an Aid to Understanding the Core Elements of Research Papers
Nathan Hamlitsch
Understanding the core elements of a research paper, as defined as the research problem, research question,
the conclusion, and in some cases a hypothesis, can be challenging to students or junior researchers. Thiscan be even more challenging if, for example, a paper does not overtly mention its research question. For
instructors assisting these students, reviewing such papers can be time-consuming and challenging,particularly if the paper is unrelated to one’s field. This research explored whether using LLMs can function
as an aid to such problems.
Sixty-six peer-reviewed academic papers were selected by undergraduate students at Nagoya University inthe spring of 2021 for a class assignment. Of these, forty-two percent, or 28, of these articles were chosen
by the author for analysis in the present study. After the author manually identified the core elements of each
paper, appropriate sections were inputted into ChatGPT with carefully crafted prompts designed to extract
the necessary information. The results show that ChatGPT can be remarkably consistent in identifying thesecore elements correctly, thus giving us a model to work with when analyzing novel papers. Utilizing LLMs
such as ChatGPT in this way offers a promising, and timesaving, alternative to manually identifying coreresearch elements. Furthermore, it holds potential for furthering its application to identifying othercomponents of research papers in the future.
Nathan Hamlitsch received his PhD in 2020 in linguistics at Nagoya University, where he currently serves
as a designated lecturer in the Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences Education Planning & Development
Center Division of Academic Writing Education. His research interests include cognitive linguistics, corpus
linguistics, frame semantics, construction morphology, loanwords, scientific skepticism, and research
writing education.

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An Analysis of Automated Assessment Scoring in the EFL Classroom: A Preliminary Study from an
Ecological Perspective
Junko Otoshi & Naomi Fujishima
This presentation reports on a preliminary study that investigates the effectiveness of Automated Assessment
Scoring (AAS) tools in evaluating twelve expository essays written by Japanese university students. Fromthe perspective of ecological theory, writing teachers should coexist with AI-powered writing assistancetools within the evolving societal landscape where AI integration is becoming standard. Our study pursues
two primary objectives: firstly, to assess the reliability of scores from three AAS tools, namely Criterion,
Write & Improve, and ChatGPT-3.5, and secondly, to analyze feedback comments from ChatGPT-3.5 incomparison to those provided by teachers.
An analysis of the results using the FACET and Kendall rank correlation coefficient indicates that Criterion
and Write & Improve demonstrate compatible capacities with teachers in terms of rater consistency andexhibit a moderate correlation with teachers' assessments. A comprehensive examination of feedback
comments provided by teachers and ChatGPT-3.5 reveals distinct patterns. Teachers’ feedback often
considers subsequent student revisions, providing a more iterative approach, while ChatGPT-3.5's comments
predominantly convey a judgmental tone with challenging vocabulary, emphasizing the current state of thewriting sample. Additionally, interview data reveal that, while teachers perceive the feedback comments by
ChatGPT-3.5 as patterned and artificial, they believe that non-native English teachers or those new toteaching L2 writing can leverage it as a tool for developing feedback literacy.
Based on these preliminary findings, our presentation will encompass strategies for incorporating AAS tools
and outline directions for future studies.
Junko Otoshi is a Professor in the Institute for Promotion of Education and Campus Life at Okayama
University. Her research interests include academic writing education, especially source-based writing, andfeedback on students’ writing. Her work encompasses intercultural communication and writer identity
formation. She is currently working on a project in which international students are leveraged as teachingassistants to help science major students develop their academic writing skills.
Naomi Fujishima is a Professor in the Institute for Promotion of Education and Campus Life at Okayama
University. Her research interests include learner autonomy, social learning spaces, and lifelong learning.
She is also interested in EFL writing issues and the impact of AI tools in the language learning classroom.

11The Role of University Writing Centers in AI-translated Academic Writing
Yuhong Zhu
The recent advent of generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) has led to the development of novel
AI-assisted pedagogical approaches in academic writing, and raised serious concerns regarding academic
integrity. In this context, the majority of relevant educational research addresses AI-generated academic
writing and its relationship to language pedagogy (e.g., Cotton et al. 2023 and studies cited therein), while
studies focusing on the usage of AI-translated texts remain scarce (see, however, Birdsell 2022).
The current study aims to fill this gap by (1) investigating the usage patterns of AI translation tools forEnglish academic writing and (2) providing context and advice regarding the relationship between University
Writing Centers and translated writings. We will conduct anonymous surveys and focus group interviews
with both students and teachers at Hiroshima University, a Japanese national university. A special focus isplaced on international students/faculty who are non-native speakers of English, as they may often face theunique challenge of writing their drafts in one foreign language (Japanese), then translating them into another(English).
The surveys target university students and faculty at large, and aim to gain general insights into their attitudes
and concerns towards using AI translation. Participants for the focus group interviews are recruited fromstudent and faculty clients at the Hiroshima University Writing Center. In addition to being an open-ended
discussion, the interviews aim to elicit feedback regarding what the Writing Center can do to facilitate andpromote proper usage of AI translation in writing.
Yuhong Zhu is a Writing Advisor Fellow at the Hiroshima University Writing Center. His research interests
include phonetics and phonology, writing and pronunciation education. Coming from a traditionallyquantitative background, his recent research focuses on using mixed methods to assess the students’ learning
experience when it comes to English academic writing in a Japanese university. He is also interested in
exploring effective pedagogical methods for student professionalization.

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Parallel Session 2
Room A31 - Ethics and Future Trends (Chair: Nicolas Baumert)
The Ethics of LLMs at Universities: A Case for Restriction and Regulation
Istvan Zoltan Zardai‘Disruptive technologies’ is a euphemism for new technologies released lacking adequate regulation, causing
significant unemployment and costly, inefficient additional labor. So it stands with LLMs. LLMs aremachines detecting statistical correlations - programmed by humans, in line with company objectives - tocreate step-by-step methods of text generation. They output lookalikes of authored writing. Most output
remixes existing materials, effectively stealing, since lacking understanding and intention original meaning
isn't added.
LLMs enable low-cost, high-reward dishonesty. Students attempt to submit these products as their own texts.
Some in education propose to use LLMs to allow students to generate text and then revise it. This is feasible
in groups small enough to ensure that students can be monitored continuously and substantially rewrite thetexts while reflecting on the editing process. However, such highlighting of what is important about rewriting
tasks reveals that LLMs don't add value to such activities.
The recommended policy is to restrict and regulate LLMs. This protects jobs; it ensures that students haveto develop skills that enhance their agency and their character development; and alleviates the problem of
massive scale intellectual property misuse.
Resistance to AI is urgent: no company promoting it will back down from doing so, no matter the risks of
their products. This is a case of a game where one agent will never cooperate, and both agents endorse
incompatible value sets. Consequently, no group potentially adversely affected should have qualms about
intense opposition and has a duty to lobby for regulation and conditional supervised rollout of LLMs.
Istvan Z Zardai lectures at Juntendo University's FILA, and is also a visiting lecturer at Keio University,
teaching English, Philosophy, and Politics. His research addresses questions in philosophy, ethics, andeducation. He has published on the nature, explanation and moral psychology of action; issues regarding
liability and responsibility for the behavior of AI; and the relation of philosophy and politics. He is especiallyinterested in applied ethics and political philosophy, and is working these days on student engagement, theregulation of emerging technologies, and the ethics of armed conflicts and violent resistance to unjust
systems.

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The Artifice of Academic Teaching in an AI World
Rab Paterson & Kaori Hakone
The emergence of AI into the educational sphere shows signs of a very powerful, foundation-shaking impact
on education and teaching practices. Much like the educational arrival of the internet in the 1990’s, and thedevelopment of online apps in the early 2000’s, this will initially pose problems for educators until they
adapt to AI. As such this session will attempt to help teachers see, discuss and incorporate AI-friendly
teaching practices and guide them in appropriate usages of AI to model to students. First of all, Hakone will
highlight a set of AI research/reading apps that can be used ethically by students in furtherance of theirreading homework tasks. She will give a brief overview of the pros and cons of these apps and give a review
of her personal experiences with using them in the classroom and in her own work. Next Paterson will
highlight ways in which teachers can create a classroom workflow of experiential homework written tasks
that is highly AI-proof (i.e. students can’t ask AIs to complete the task as AI apps will have no knowledgeof what was done in the classroom nor the students’ classroom experiences). These tasks then provide
teachers with a set of individual writing samples that can be checked against students’ future work that could
possibly be completed by AI apps (instead of the students doing the tasks) to see if AI-driven plagiarism hastaken place. There will be an open discussion / Q and A time at the end.
Rab Paterson (BA, MA, CoETail, MS, MEd, FRAS, FRSA) is a Lecturer at Rikkyo University’s Center
for Foreign Language Education and Research. He's a Best of JALT, Apple Distinguished Educator, Google
Innovator award winner, and a Google Certified Trainer. Rab’s publications range from peer-reviewed
academic journal papers, conference proceedings, academic book chapters, and newsletter articles, and hehas presented at many international academic conferences worldwide including Keynote, Plenary, Featured
Speaker, and Invited Speaker sessions, two TEDx presentations, an Apple Showcase presentation. His
current research focuses on AI and Plagiarism, Presentation Theory and Practice, and Digital Research
writing.
Kaori Hakone (BA, MA, CoETaIL, MS) is an Associate Professor at Osaka Jogakuin University where sheis the Director of the Japanese Education Center. She has taught Japanese in Japan and internationally andis an Apple Distinguished Educator award winner, a former ADE Asia Pacific Advisory Board member, aGoogle Innovator award winner, and a Google Certified Trainer. Her publications include a textbook,academic research papers, and newsletter articles. Regarding technology and education, she teaches firstyear Digital Network Foundation and ICT in Teacher Education courses. Her current research focuses on
EdTech, Community Issues, JSL, and Leadership.

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Equipping Students for an Uncertain Future
Chad Nilep
One way in which disruptive technologies have historically resulted in social and economic change is bycreating new jobs while displacing or reducing the value of existing jobs. While it is easy to predict thatcurrent developments under the label of “artificial intelligence” will transform work, it is exceedingly
difficult to predict just what skills will best serve in the future. Perhaps the best tools that educators canprovide today come from classical liberal arts, especially logic, rhetoric, and critical thinking. Questions of
how to improve job skills, in addition to being difficult to answer, may be counter-productive to ask. As
Nardi and Ekbia (2017) note, 21st century innovations from social media to self-service grocery checkout so
far have served not to reduce human labor but to transfer its value to the corporations that control thetechnology. Thus, important questions arise, such as how best to govern such corporations, to provide forpeople’s material needs, and to organize society in ways that allow for continued gains without sacrificing
equity. Obviously, writing education will not answer these questions on its own, but our students will needto grapple with them. Late 20th century innovation in personal computers and “new media” wrought changes
that took more than a decade to resolve and are in many ways still being worked out. Therefore, the mostbeneficial contributions of writing education at present are to develop skills in critical inquiry, rhetoricalreading and writing, and logical argumentation with which today’s learners can face tomorrow’s crises.
Chad Nilep is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Nagoya University. His
research interests include academic writing education, sociocultural linguistics, bilingualism and code
switching, linguistic ethnography, and analysis of political discourse. His work encompasses second- or
foreign language learning, identity formation, and language and political economy, broadly construed. He is
especially interested in work that combines discourse analysis with ethnographic methods.
The Argument Construction Guide for Humans and Machines
Paul Lai
As AI tools in assisting academic writing become increasingly prevalent, the evolution of academic writing
education demands a paradigm shift from a traditional language-centric focus to a more profound emphasison thinking skills. While language proficiency remains important, the future of academic writing hinges on
nurturing clarity and convincingness in thinking skills. This necessitates a recalibration of educational
priorities to instill a thinking-focused approach in both human writers and AI systems. Through theintroduction of an argument construction guide, my presentation will demonstrate how both humans andmachines can think clearly and convincingly. In particular, the central focus of such thinking education liesin the development of the thesis statement in an argumentative research paper. Recognized as the core ofresearch originality, a thesis statement is explored as a declarative sentence comprising four essential
elements: subject (S), object (O), relationship (R), and circumstances (Z). The ongoing refinement of the
SROZ elements enhances the writer's clarity of the unique aspects of their research. Furthermore, I will
highlight two types of premises designed to fortify the thesis statement—Premise of Proof (POP) and15

Premise of Defense (POD). POP substantiates the truth of the thesis statement by presenting evidence of therelationship between S and O in Z, while POD safeguards against contradictions by demonstrating theimpossibility of S’s being unrelated to O in Z. Through the development of these premises, writers acquire
the skills to make their thoughts convincing.
Dr. Paul Lai serves as the director of the Department of Academic Writing Education (known as MeiWriting) and holds the position of associate professor at Nagoya University. With a DPhil in Philosophy of
Cognitive Sciences, Dr. Lai has dedicated his research efforts to enhancing the practicality andindispensability of logical thinking education within academic writing, which is now regarded as the“Writing is Thinking” project. In 2008, Dr. Lai initiated the "Writing is Thinking" project at Hokkaido
University, contributing to the establishment of the university's first writing center. Upon relocating to
Nagoya University in 2010, he continued to advance the project. The Department of Academic Writing
Education was founded in 2011, emphasizing a logical thinking approach in academic writing education.
While at Hokkaido University, Dr. Lai received a Certificate of Appreciation for distinguished services at
the writing center. Since his move to Nagoya University in 2010, Dr. Lai has secured the Education Grant
for the “Writing is Thinking” project five consecutive times. In April 2018, he attained a five-year Kakenhi
grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to further the development of logical thinking
education in research writing.

Room A32 - Human AI Writing Synthesis (Chair: David Toohey)
AI and Critical Pedagogy: Towards a Developed Methodology for Zhuangzi Studies in the AI Era
Anthea CHEUNG, Yanwen HOU & Yurong MA
Recent developments in the field of AI have ushered in new research possibilities across nearly all disciplines,
with varying degrees of effectiveness. This paper offers a test case in the use of AI in the humanities, a fieldtraditionally rooted in qualitative analysis. The influential Daoist classic Zhuangzi has been chosen due toits unique and subtle notion of wuwei (non-action). Leading AI-aided databases such as Semantic Scholar,
Elict, and Scite, have been applied by the authors to the vast amount of literature in Zhuangzi Studies. The
literature can be sifted through rapidly, and key points of relevant research papers highlighted, analyzed, andeven summarized, offering an increasingly streamlined and efficient approach to literature review and datacollection. This is useful to graduate students. However, the algorithm-driven nature of these platforms
sometimes overlooked and even misinterpreted the nuances of philosophical discourse regarding wuwei asfound in the Zhuangzi. This is reflected in the contextual intricacies surrounding the text’s politicalphilosophy. According to the primitivist view of the Zhuangzi, the most salient feature of the polity
of wuwei is not to be found in the paragraphs that address the term itself directly, but in the narrative of
the illuminating or illustrious king (mingwang) in pursuit of a finely-tuned state of harmonious governance.
Such subtleties were not brought out by the AI tools applied in this study. In view of this, a methodology
capable of incorporating conventional Zhuangzi scholarship with textual analysis, historical understanding,16and philosophical excursion continues to be necessary. That is to say, the primacy of human intelligencecannot be dispensed with in the field of fine research in the AI era, especially for conventional philosophical
topics of this kind.
Anthea CHEUNG, PhD holder in Far East Studies (EPEH-Sorbonne, Paris), is currently Assistant Professor
at the Department of Chinese Language & Literature of Hong Kong Shue Yan University. Her researchinterests include Ancient Chinese Classics, Classical Chinese Intellectual History including Wei-Jin society
and metaphysics, Pre-Qin schools, unearthed materials between the Pre-Qin and early Han periods, andTranslation Studies (e.g. Pure-Land Buddhism translation).
Yanwen Hou is a PhD student in the Department of Counselling and Psychology at Hong Kong Shue Yan
University. Their research interests include lucid dreaming, computational neuropsychology, cognitive
neuroscience, and the support of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals, as well as sentiment
analysis and natural language processing. They are also interested in research that combines machinelearning with qualitative methods.
Yurong Ma is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Hong Kong Shue
Yan University. Her research interests encompass the history of classical Chinese thought and art history,
with a specific focus on classical Chinese intellectual history, including societal and metaphysical aspects of
the Wei-Jin period. Additionally, she is deeply engaged in the study of the book Zhuangzi.
The Synthesis of Human AI Writing: Human Agency and the AI Resource
Robert Joel Deacon
Hegelian synthesis writing (dialectic writing) effectively produces novel conclusions composed ofconflicting perspectives. Dialectic synthesis increases perspective, leads to discovery, and positions writingrightfully as a social act. While student writers often have difficulty understanding/articulating their own
positions, the ability to understand/steelman alternative positions is even more challenging. ChatGPT,
however, mimics dialectic writing with increasingly impressive results. This developmental achievement
may seem intimidating for writing instructors who lament AI’s encroachment on their territory, but thispresentation shows how it can benefit students and composition instructors alike. ChatGPT enables students
to simulate group dialectic writing on a broad range of topics, but it does not replace the human writer.
Imposed constraints (commercial, political, …) prevent ChatGPT from favoring conclusions on a certain
category of topics. Only human writers appear capable of concluding a winner. This presentation shows theresults of an activity where students use prompt templates to generate argumentative and synthesis essays.
It shows that ChatGPT can prepare students for group dialectic writing by increasing practice frequency andflexibility, modeling nonjudgmental, nuanced language, and allowing students more opportunity forreflection. Instructors can discourage academic dishonesty by having students confront AI constraints andby being aware of output patterns. Examples illustrating AI dialectic patterns and its inability to follow
decision making prompts are provided. Ultimately, AI and student writing abilities can be synthesized withstudents emerging as better thinkers, writers, and social actors.

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Robert Deacon is an Instructor in the School of Arts and Communication at the Florida Institute ofTechnology, also known as Florida Tech. His research interests include AI and writing education, narrative
structure and scientific impact, theoretical generative linguistics, orthographic transfer effects in second
language learning/acquisition, and the status/role of adpositions in human language. He is interested in workthat frames and explores writing as a form of biomimetic technology and how to best teach students to use
this technology for more productive thinking and discourse.
The Influence of LLM on Creativity and Critical Thinking in Early Writing Stages
Manuel Senna IV
This session presents the lesson plan and results of an LLM-assisted intervention (ChatGPT) during thebrainstorming and topic selection phase of a large paper assignment. The context was a compulsory science
writing course in a Japanese university, but the session should be of interest to many other contexts andassignments in which brainstorming and topic selection occur.
Through tagging students' research proposals, ChatGPT conversations, and written reflections, I evaluatedthe extent to which students adopted, adapted, or rejected ChatGPT's suggestions. This provided insights
into the students' critical thinking processes as they weighed the merits of the AI-generated content andworked to strike a balance between their own creativity and the suggestions of the AI.
The primary focus of this session is on task design and the students' interaction with ChatCPT, and not on
the accuracy of the LLM's output.
Manuel Senna IV is a Project Assistant Professor at the Center for Global Communication Strategies at the
University of Tokyo. They hold a PhD in Education with dual specializations in "Language, Literacy andCulture" and "Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition Studies". Their research interests include L2 writing
pedagogy (specifically focused on feedback and student revision), writing program design andimplementation, and a more recent/resurging interest in science and technology studies (STS) focusing on
the confluence of past and present technologies, writing, rhetoric, culture, and society.

18How do Students Negotiate with A.I to Receive Writing Prompts for Their Writing Course Over One
Semester?
Richard Hill
Writing courses at universities across the world are created by teachers wary of A.I and online tools that
could lead to plagiarism, accidental or otherwise. This research proposes that not only should we use A.I
online tools but teach students how they can be utilised to provide writing prompts for essays. Furthermore,
the research indicates this process not only educates students to the value of A.I, but there are also secondary
results that show students used AI online tools to improve other parts of essay writing such as research,content and structure. Additional observations presented when students use A.I for writing prompts is thattime is saved, and new ideas and content (structural and/or informative) is offered.
Richard Hill is a lecturer in the humanities department at Mie University. His research interests include
academic writing education, communication theory and learner autonomy. His research encompasses studies
in Materials Development, Self-Access trials and more recently using A.I for writing prompts. Currently
teaching in classrooms with a mixture of Japanese and International students Richard is trying to learn how
best to utilize students different backgrounds into an effective collaborative learning program.

Room A33 - Academic Writing Support and Collaboration (Chair: Kyle Nuske)
Invited Talk - Collaborative Learning at the Academic Writing Support Desk (AWSD)
Lay Sion NG
Collaboration, defined as “an interaction among individuals in a dyad or group that aims to accomplish or
achieve a common goal” (Nokes-Malach et al., 2019, p. 502), has garnered significant attention from various
educational institutions. In the writing center context, the principles of “dialogue” and “collaboration” arepivotal in effective tutoring practices (Okuda, 2019, p. 7). Leveraging these principles, the University ofTsukuba took a significant step in 2021 by establishing the Academic Writing Support Desk (AWSD). Thisinitiative is dedicated to delivering tutoring sessions and writing workshops to undergraduate and graduate
students, aiming to bolster their English academic writing skills while nurturing critical thinking andbolstering writing confidence.
This presentation outlines the AWSD’s evolution through collaborative learning. Initially, it details thecreation of a three-month tutor training program in partnership with Waseda University’s Writing Center.
From 2022 to 2023, seven graduate students visited the WWC, engaging in writing-based discussions andobserving real-time EJ and EE sessions. Following these visits, each trainee submitted a reflection paper,
allowing for a critical analysis of the tutoring process and their learning outcomes. Additionally, thepresentation highlights a collaborative writing workshop conducted on January 17, 2023, between the
AWSD and Tel Aviv University’s Center of Language Excellence (CLE) in Israel. Feedback from thisworkshop indicated that both Japanese and Israeli students found this collaborative writing session fun,inspiring, and expressed eagerness for the next workshop in 2024.

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The presentation’s conclusion underscores the significance of collaborative learning among writing centers,
tutors, and tutees in shaping the tutor training program and facilitating tutoring sessions and online
workshops at the AWSD. This emphasis paves the way for anticipated future collaborations with writing
centers worldwide.
Ng Lay Sion is an assistant professor at the Center for Education of Global Communication at the Universityof Tsukuba. Her academic interests include Hemingway studies, teaching English through literature, peer
tutoring and review, and more. Her latest publications include “Teaching ‘Indian Camp’ in the JapaneseClassroom” (2023) in Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice, and “Towards a
Politics of Cure: Jake Barnes’s Mastery of Submission in The Sun Also Rises” (2022) in The Hemingway
Review. She has a forthcoming book, Hemingway, Ecology and Culture: Re-reading Hemingway in the
Anthropocene, under contract with Bloomsbury Academic.
Creating and Modulating Course Content Using AI Tools
Paul Wadden, Sophie Otsuru & Istvan Zoltan Zardai
This presentation provides one answer to the question posed by the organizers of the Fifth International
Symposium on Academic Writing and Critical Thinking: How can teachers and students make optimal useof A.I.? The presenters will demonstrate how two powerful software programs—ChatGPT and Quillbot—
can be used to artfully create and modulate academic content for students. Across Japan, more than “40percent of Japanese universities now offer specialist content courses [EMI] taught in English” (Brown 2023,
p. 3), and 56 out of 805 universities in Japan are promoting liberal arts (Daigaku Times, 2020). In addition,
MEXT is extensively fostering EMI initiatives through the Global 30 Project, the Go Global Japan Project,
and the Top Global University Project (Brown & Bradford 2019). Yet it is hugely challenging foruniversities—given the range of English ability among university students—to develop level-appropriate
CLIL curricula. This presentation illustrates how faculty in a first-year English program of 240 students at amajor university use ChatGPT and Quillbot to adapt materials for different levels of students as well as tohighlight and identify key academic vocabulary. The presenters are currently in the third year of a Kakenhisupported extensive curriculum reform in which they have created six 70-page content textbooks insociology, economics, earth science, natural history, health and medicine, and zoology. Quillbot and
ChatGPT have proven to be useful tools to adapt the reading and listening content of the texts to better fit
students’ zone of proximal development and to provide tailored vocabulary support.
Paul Wadden, Ph.D., is a special project professor in the Faculty of International Liberal Arts at Juntendo
University, Tokyo, where he co-coordinates a first-year English program for 240 students. He is the editorof A Handbook for Teaching English at Japanese Colleges and Universities (Oxford, 1993) and Teaching
English at Japanese Universities: A New Handbook (Routledge, 2019). His articles have appeared in TESOL
Quarterly, ELT Journal, RELC Journal, Composition Studies, and many other publications. His current

20interests include developing CLIL curricula in the liberal arts and intensive vocabulary study providing afoundation for academic language learning.
Sophie Otsuru earned an MSc in Psychology of Language from Edinburgh University. Her researchinterests include Cognitive Linguistics, the use of prepositions by native and non-native speakers of alanguage as well as Second Language Acquisition in general. She currently teaches in the Faculty ofInternational Liberal Arts at Juntendo University. Prior to coming to Japan, she taught English for Academic
Purposes at King's College London and other British universities.
Istvan Zoltan Zardai, Ph.D. in Philosophy, is a lecturer in the Faculty of International Liberal Arts at
Juntendo University, and a visiting lecturer at Keio University, teaching English, Philosophy, and Politics.
He has published on the nature, explanation, and moral psychology of action; on issues regarding liability
and responsibility for the behavior of AI; and on the relation of philosophy and politics. He is especiallyinterested in applied ethics and political philosophy, and is currently exploring and examining student
engagement, the regulation of emerging technologies, and the ethics of armed conflicts and violent resistanceto unjust systems.
Academic Writing as Communication in a Low-Context Culture: Are Japanese in a High-Context
Culture Not Good Academic Writers?
Hiroshi Yama
Context is used in communication as an implicitly shared common sense, indicating the relevant information
to the target audience. Then, academic writers should be communicators who use context less in the sensethat their own context is not always shared by those especially from different cultures. However, according
to Hall (1976), Easterners have a high-context culture compared to Westerners who have nurtured a lowcontext culture. In other words, Easterners are higher-context communicators than Westerners. Does thismean that Japanese are not good academic writers? The answer is no, because it has been shown that
Easterners engage in more cross-cultural code-switching than Westerners. Cross-cultural code-switching is
the act of deliberately modifying one's behavior during an interaction in a foreign setting to conform todifferent cultural norms of appropriate behavior. Wu et al (2023) found that Japanese and Chinese consider
each other to be low-context communicators. This is because they switch from high-context communicators
to low-context communicators when communicating with people from other countries. In general, a lowcontext situation typically arises when people engage in intercultural communication and interaction(Gudykunst et al., 1996). The Japanese have historically had less experience of cross-cultural interaction
than Western peoples and have therefore cultivated a high-context culture. However, they do engage in crosscultural code-switching when necessary. This suggests that it is very possible to make Japanese low-context
communicators when they engage in academic writing.
Hiroshi Yama is a professor of psychology at Osaka Metropolitan University. The key term in his researchis "dual-process theory and rationality". He is interested in how humans, as social mammals, can be rational.

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His recent research is on the control of the intuitive system by the reflective system, cultural differences inreligious beliefs and dialectics, low/high context culture, and hindsight bias in legal judgment.
Revisiting What Makes for Effective Writing Processes Across the Disciplines in Japanese and English
Diana Kartika, Kazuyoshi Oishi, Mieko Thompson, Felix Kuhn & Yutaka Aida
The Center for Academic Writing at Komaba is a new student support service that has been expanding
quickly in its first year. The new Center succeeds after its predecessor, Komaba Writers’ Studio, which has
traditionally supported learning in the university’s liberal arts and sciences education. The element ofdeveloping students’ critical thinking in academic writing has therefore been a cornerstone of the support
provided. As the Center now rapidly extends its outreach to support for (i) academic writing in both Japaneseand English (ii) across academic disciplines and (iii) across a range of university study levels, there is a needto develop a cohesive understanding of what are the elements of effective academic writing across the above
three aspects.
Faculty members currently running the Center have held regular discussion sessions in the attempt toreconcile these, based on our individual expertise of writing in either English or Japanese, our respective
disciplines, and on our experiences of teaching research and academic writing. Our discussions have revealed
some differences in the elements of academic writing (e.g. thesis statement, topic sentences, and formality)
as well as the structure of academic writing (e.g. development of argument), across all three aspects. In
addition, we observe some evolution of this in Japanese academic writing.
How then do these translate to teaching or tutoring practices of academic writing and how can criticalthinking be developed through them? This presentation is a platform for discussion on this and the extent towhich these learning processes could be effectively facilitated by recent advanced technologies.

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Closing Session
Room A31 - Featured Talk - AI and the Future of Writing
David Barker
Recent developments in AI mean that we have reached the point where computers can generate high level
academic writing on any topic in any field. When the technology is perfected, this writing will contain no
mistakes, it will require no editing, and it will be produced almost instantaneously. While much of the world
welcomes this development, educators are more likely to have mixed feelings. How can we tell whether ourstudents have actually written the papers they submit? How much is it okay to use AI before it becomescheating? And if anyone can produce perfect scholarly papers using only verbal prompts, will we even needto teach writing anymore?
Answering these questions requires a deeper analysis of the role that writing plays in the pursuit anddevelopment of human intellectual achievement. Do we write simply to create a vast archive of academic
papers and reports for future generations, or is the real purpose of the activity to develop skills like criticalthinking, logical argument, and creative expression? In other words, which is more important—the product,or the process? Now is the time for teachers, students, and institutions to think more deeply about thisquestion and address the most fundamental issue: why do we write in the first place? In this presentation, I
will consider this question and identify the reasons why I believe that no matter how good AI gets, it will
never eliminate the need for us to learn how to write.
David Barker is a professor in the Faculty of Education at Gifu University and director of the Gifu
University English Center. Originally from North Wales, he has taught English in the UK, Singapore, New
Zealand, and Japan. He has the RSA Diploma in TEFLA, an MA in applied linguistics, and a PhD in
language education. He has worked full-time at four Japanese universities, and part-time at four more. He
has also taught in several junior high and high schools. He is the author of many books, textbooks, andarticles for teachers and learners of English, and he has a particular interest in the teaching of writing.

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