Innovation in Language Learning

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is becoming part of everyday English language teaching, helping teachers organise lessons, provide feedback and develop materials. Its usefulness largely depends on teachers’ ability to write effective prompts, known as prompt literacy [1]. EFL teachers generally view GenAI positively [2] and need training in writing effective prompts [3]. Yet research on prompting has relied largely on teachers’ self-reported perceptions rather than the prompts they actually produce, and teacher cognition research shows that what teachers report does not always match what they do [4]. To address this gap, this mixed-methods study examines whether what teachers say about their prompting matches what they actually write. At the English department serving all foundation-year students at a Saudi university, 200 teachers will be invited to participate. Data will be collected through a three-part online instrument: (1) a questionnaire on GenAI use and self-perceived prompt literacy; (2) two tasks in which teachers write prompts to obtain GenAI feedback on two authentic student paragraphs; and (3) open-ended questions on the challenges teachers encounter when writing prompts. Questionnaire data will be analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics; prompts will be scored with a researcher-developed checklist adapted from Li’s input-task-output framework [5], with inter-rater reliability checked on a subsample; open-ended responses will be analyzed thematically. Teachers’ self-perceptions will be compared with their prompt scores to show how closely perception matches performance. Findings are expected to inform practical, prompt-focused teacher development and offer an early performance-based account of in-service EFL teachers’ prompt literacy and a tool that other researchers can adapt.

 

Keywords: prompt literacy; EFL teachers; professional development

 

REFERENCES

 

[1] Hwang, Y., Lee, J. H., & Shin, D. (2023). What is prompt literacy? An  

exploratory study of language learners’ development of new literacy skill using generative AI. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.05373

[2] Nazim, M., & Alzubi, A. A. F. (2025). Empowering EFL teachers’ perceptions of generative AI-mediated self-professionalism. PLOS ONE, 20(6), e0326735. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0326735

[3] Bhatti, A. (2026). Strategic prompt engineering for enhancing AI-generated content in English language teaching: Empowering EFL contexts. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 16(1), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJCALLT.398504

[4] Borg, S. (2003). Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching, 36(2), 81–109. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444803001903

[5] Li, S. (2025). Generative AI and second language writing. Digital Studies in Language and Literature, 2(1), 122–152. https://doi.org/10.1515/dsll-2025-0007