AI assisted writing: Beyond fear and hype. With Sophia Mavridi.

I’m joined by Dr Sophia Mavridi to talk about her doctoral research: Second language students’ experiences of AI-assisted writing in higher education: A phenomenographic perspective. Sophia identifies six broad categories that emerge when observing students’ use of AI assisted writing, and in this podcast we dive into these categories: achieving better grades, expressing ideas more clearly, managing time/workload, habituating academic writing norms (e.g., criticality/reflective writing), increasing interaction, and increasing sophistication. 

We go over inferences and implications of GenAI in student writing, how talk to students about developing a voice, and how we do this ourselves in our own writing, the tension between making your writing distinctive while adhering to academic norms, where we should set expectations for undergrads versus PhD students. Plus: AI slop on Linkedin.

We also cover Sophia’s paper published last year in Technology in Language Teaching & Learning that critiques institutional responses to GenAI in education including prohibition, avoidance, teacher support, technological enthusiasm, and critical engagement. We discuss directions for language teacher education, including rethinking writing pedagogy, discernment, transparency, teacher educator development, and ethical dilemmas.

Speaker Bio

Dr Sophia Mavridi is a Senior Lecturer in Educational Technology and TESOL at De Montfort University (UK). She specialises in digital pedagogy, online learning, and AI in education. She has extensive experience in language teacher education, working with organisations such as the British Council, NILE, and Bell Foundation, and is committed to bridging research and practice.

https://sophiamavridi.com/ 

Further reading

Watch Sophia’s keynote form the TELSIG symposium earlier this year: Behind the scenes: How students use AI (and what we can learn from it).

The survey Sophia alludes to at approximately 55 minutes in is the HEPI Student Generative AI Survey.

Mavridi, S. (2025). Hype, Fear, and Everything in Between: A Critical Typology of Responses to AI and their Implications for Language Teacher Education. Technology in Language Teaching & Learning, 7(2), 103219 Available at: https://doi.org/10.29140/tltl.v7n2.103219 

Timecodes

00:00 Podcast intro 

01:41 Reflections on the PhD Viva

04:55 Teacher identity

08:19 Overview of the PhD research

09:26 Six AI writing categories

11:03 Integrity and voice

14:33 Participants and context

16:55 Self regulating AI use in writing

19:33 Students surprising sophistication

24:45 Struggle  in L2 writing

32:12 Why writing still matters

38:19 Academic norms versus authorial voice

44:11 AI and the loss of voice

49:09 Institutional AI typology

51:51 Teacher education directions

57:05 AI detectors and in-class writing

01:07:30 Tech hype vs pedagogy

01:11:53 Reading AI research critically