Idlib – Samah Alloush

Arabic language teacher Rahaf expressed her dissatisfaction after noticing that the expression topics of her seventh-grade students were “mostly similar and lack creativity.”

The teacher, residing in Idlib, found that most of her students relied on artificial intelligence tools like the ChatGPT application in their writing.

She believes that most students have become addicted to using artificial intelligence applications, especially those from low-income families, as their parents cannot afford to provide private lessons to help them solve homework, understand it, and strengthen their weaknesses in subjects.

“This is where the disaster lies,” she expressed, as students depend on websites that allow them to solve all subjects according to the Syrian curriculum or on artificial intelligence applications, which leads to a loss of understanding of grammatical and spelling rules, and a decline in their creative skills in formulating sentences and expressive texts. This reduces their opportunities to develop their writing style, in addition to the automated responder sometimes using colloquial expressions or dialects that are not in formal Arabic, causing confusion between them and leading students to make mistakes in their usage.

Pros and cons

According to Enab Baladi’s monitoring of the opinions of some teachers in Idlib, responses varied between those who support the idea due to its benefits and those who oppose it because of its negative effects on students’ academic performance.

From the perspective of Zeina, an English language teacher in Idlib, she believes that such applications and tools have a positive role in enhancing students’ understanding of language rules and vocabulary in the English language subject, as they provide translations that strengthen their linguistic proficiency and memorization skills for creating grammatically correct sentences.

Regarding students’ reliance on these applications for homework, she confirmed that she collaborates with her students during class to solve them after explaining the rules to ensure their understanding and application, limiting assignments to writing sentences or topics for specific ideas.

In both cases, their impact serves the interests of students, whether they rely on the application that provides them with new vocabulary, benefiting from reading and translating it correctly, or they rely on themselves for their writing.

On her part, Arabic language teacher Rafah Ahmed noted that students who had moved from Turkey are the most frequent users of ChatGPT, due to their difficulty in learning Arabic and its rules. They find it easier to find solutions for homework and rules without effort.

The teacher told Enab Baladi that in this situation, students fall into the trap of incorrect information and misunderstanding, as they write without comprehension. Over time, the academic year ends without them making any progress or reaching the level of their peers who studied in Syria and attended lessons, as the rules of the Arabic language are interconnected. They need to understand these rules to be able to write and read correctly.

Solutions to mitigate its negative impact

Teacher Rafah considered that breaking away from the traditional teaching methods in schools is the optimal solution to improve the educational process while considering students’ levels and individual differences. This would allow the students to participate in class and show their creativity, whether in solving assignments with teacher guidance or in writing.

This interaction boosts students’ self-confidence, with the teacher using encouraging phrases, even if the student’s output is minimal compared to the required level, motivating them to enhance their skills in the future through error correction. The reception and understanding of information are better in a group setting, thus reducing homework assignments to prevent reliance on others for solutions, according to teacher Rafah.

For her part, teacher Rahaf considered that the expression class is a space to showcase students’ creativity. However, due to the limited time allocated for it, she cannot correct the topics or address mistakes if they are written at school. Nevertheless, she occasionally tries to adopt an encouraging approach to motivate her students to rely on themselves by assisting them in writing and organizing concise ideas for them to expand upon. At times, she uses intimidation by threatening to discover any instances of literal copying without rephrasing using artificial intelligence applications or websites due to their similarities.

Additionally, artificial intelligence applications can be positively exploited by the teacher to explore advanced educational goals and methods, utilizing them and applying them to students. She encourages students to engage in projects related to their subjects to research additional information that enriches their lessons and motivates them by awarding grades in subjects, discussing ideas with other students to ensure benefits for all.

Researchers from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University warned about the effects of excessive use of generative artificial intelligence on critical thinking skills.

The researchers indicated that reliance on artificial intelligence leads to a reduction in the use of higher-order critical thinking skills such as creativity, analysis, and evaluation, as the focus shifts solely to verifying the accuracy of artificial intelligence responses.