AI, Agency, and Access: Musings

AI, Agency, and Access: Musings

Jen Brondell Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA

I went back and forth on submitting something for TESOL 2027. What exactly did I have to share? Did I really want to submit anything if I probably would not get the funding to go? And, honestly, did I want to go through the whole process? I am not great at writing abstracts and proposals. I have been out of graduate school for a long time, and when was I supposed to find the time to read research that would support what I wanted to say?

I needed someone to talk to about all of this. I am a one-woman show when it comes to TESOL or applied linguistics colleagues. There is not even a linguistics department where I work. I have the most wonderful colleagues in the ITA Interest Section, but I have already done my fair share of asking for guidance on rubrics, pathway programs, TOEFL scoring, and all sorts of other things. It was time for me to pony up. I just needed someone to talk to. And I only had three days.

Enter ChatGPT.edu. My university partnered with OpenAI to “ensure University data is safeguarded and is not used to train AI systems outside the University environment.” That seemed like a good move, though I honestly had not thought much about it. I just knew I had access to the technology.

I started a project in Chat called TESOL 2027 and basically journaled. I typed about the work I do; literally as much as I could think of. I said I needed someone outside my bubble to look in and tell me whether what I was doing was something TESOLers would want to hear about. Chat told me I did not have to build a revolutionary program or have statistically significant research results. Chat saw “several possible proposals.” Insert your laugh here.

The shortened version of the next three days is that I looked at Chat’s ideas, and I decided for myself what I wanted to talk about. I felt like I had been given access to an opportunity through my use of ChatGPT, and I also felt a great sense of agency. I was not relying on it to tell me what to do or how to do my work. I was using it for fresh eyes, for perspective I could not get while being lost in the weeds of my own context.

When it came time to write my abstract and proposal, I asked for help there, too. I wrote mine first, then asked for help paring down the word count. I also asked for help making sure I included everything the proposal website required, and for more professional and academic language. As you can see from this article, on which I have used zero AI, I am an informal writer. And, as stated earlier, I am long out of graduate school, so the academic lexicon in my field does not always come easily, if it comes at all.

I was given text and then decided whether I liked it or not, or whether it sounded too far from my own voice. I was also able to request research articles on my topic. I didn’t have a lot of time to browse those, though, so I settled for looking at abstracts and picking a few that seemed seminal. I was almost ready to submit the proposal, and it was Sunday evening.

Monday morning came, and I filled out the proposal form. I didn’t know there would be a section of the form where I would have to discuss my use of AI, though! I felt guilty and like I had to fess up and admit to something I shouldn’t have done. But, as I began outlining my process, I realized I did not feel embarrassed about using ChatGPT. I felt empowered! I had accomplished something I cared about in a short amount of time. I had all the agency in the world to accept or reject what was generated, and because I had help with organization and professional language, I felt like I had access to my professional organization again.

Was it cheating? I don’t think so. Did it take others longer? Perhaps. Were there some who did not need help at all? Probably. But does that matter if what reviewers are looking at is the content of what is being shared? Am I less of a professional because I used AI? And how does this relate to my students and how they feel as ITAs? Lots of swirling thoughts!

I am a firm believer that instructors should look past grammar to the content and development of ideas in L2 writing. I tell my students it doesn’t matter what you sound like, as long as there is mutual intelligibility. But if I am being honest with myself, I sometimes feel like an imposter when I can’t speak using the lexicon of my field. I have to use many words to describe the one term I have forgotten. I am, it turns out, an L2 speaker of linguistics, and it is not comfortable. Of course, this is what my ITAs experience!

So, where does this leave my students and me in terms of using generative AI? I want agency over what I teach, write and speak, and I want my students to have agency over the language skills they develop. Can we use AI to help us while also remaining “in control”? And my students and I both want access to spaces where we are respected as professionals or up-coming professionals in our fields, and our opinions and experiences matter. Can we use AI to get us in the door? And how does that make us feel about ourselves and our work?

I don’t have any answers, but boy, did this proposal process get my wheels spinning in ways I didn’t expect. It was only after using AI and writing about using AI that I was able to generate my own ideas about agency and access around AI, which I think is wild. And then, rather ironically, I found myself writing about it in all my own words, without the help of AI. And that feels so satisfying that it makes me question the use of AI all over again!

I’ll leave you with that, my dear ITA friends.

Jen Brondell holds an MA in Hispanic Linguistics and an MA in TESOL from Indiana University. She has never really not been a teacher — from dance classes to Spanish and finally English, where she found her people.

Her classroom experience spans nearly every age level and several countries: Mexico, Brazil, China, and the United States. She has spent the last 18 years working in higher education.

Her work sits at the intersection of ethics and practice — the morality of teaching, academic acculturation, and a productive tension she lives daily: a genuine love of pronunciation teaching alongside the conviction that the burden of communication rarely falls equally.