Innovation in Language Learning
The Speed of Jarvis, the Soul of Rocky: Reimagining Teacher Identity in the Age of Generative AI
JaeYoon Park, DLIFLC (Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center) (United States)
Abstract
Generative AI (GenAI) is rapidly transforming language education, yet discussions often focus on technological capabilities rather than the evolving role of teachers. This presentation proposes a conceptual framework based on two fictional characters—Jarvis from Iron Man and Rocky from Project Hail Mary—to examine how educators can integrate AI while preserving the human dimensions of language learning. Drawing on conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), corrective feedback research (Lyster & Ranta, 1997), and language teacher identity scholarship (Varghese et al., 2005), the framework introduces a Two-Mode Integration Model. In Jarvis Mode, GenAI provides rapid, consistent, and scalable support for form-focused learning, including feedback on grammatical, lexical, and pronunciation errors. In Rocky Mode, teachers facilitate meaning negotiation, sociopragmatic interpretation, intercultural understanding, and the relational aspects of learning that remain difficult to automate. The framework is informed by classroom applications of AI-supported language learning activities and addresses a growing concern in AI discourse: not whether teachers will be replaced, but how their expertise can be redefined. Rather than positioning educators as competitors to AI, the model reconceptualizes teachers as pedagogical orchestrators who strategically determine when algorithmic efficiency supports learning and when human judgment, empathy, and interaction are essential. The Jarvis–Rocky distinction offers a practical and theoretically grounded lens for understanding teacher identity in AI-integrated language classrooms.
Keywords: Generative AI, teacher identity, corrective feedback, language pedagogy, conceptual metaphor
REFERENCES
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