Description

CASLT’s Virtual PL Days provide a platform for teachers to connect with colleagues, engage in interactive professional learning opportunities, and share best practices. Our experienced team of professional learning facilitators will explore research-informed teaching approaches and strategies to inspire, motivate, and challenge teachers to improve their practice.

This year’s Virtual PL Day will focus on a single, timely theme: artificial intelligence (AI) in language education. Feedback from our members highlights a clear need for practical support, space to explore emerging tools, and opportunities to discuss the pedagogical, ethical, and equity implications of AI in additional language teaching contexts.

Schedule

The day will feature sessions in English and French that combine short, focused presentations with structured collaborative time so participants can engage in collaborative planning, guided experimentation, and problem-solving with colleagues from across Canada. Each session will produce at least one concrete takeaway that participants can bring back to their own classrooms and programs.

* Eastern Standard Time

Registration Options

The event includes two streams (one in English and one in French) of four 60-minute workshops. Full day registration includes access to all four workshop blocks, and half day registration (either AM or PM) includes access to two workshop blocks.

Multiple registration options are available to accommodate scheduling and budgetary constraints:

*Includes a one-year CASLT membership.

Session Descriptions

English Sessions

Using AI in Language Education: A Principled and Responsible Approach

Wei Cai

AI presents both opportunities and challenges for language education. As language teachers, we need to address two crucial questions:

1. How can we ensure that AI genuinely supports language learning?
2. How can we use AI responsibly?

In this session, participants will explore a practical, principle-based approach to using AI in K–12 language education. Through concrete and realistic examples, we will examine ways of using AI and identify the pedagogical rationales and principles underlying these practices.

During the collaborative segment, participants will work in small groups on realistic classroom scenarios involving AI in language teaching and learning. Using the framework introduced in the presentation, participants will consider whether and how AI should be used to support the intended learning outcomes. For each scenario, we will identify the potential pedagogical benefits, risks, and appropriate alternatives. These ideas will be incorporated into a shared AI decision-making checklist. Participants will leave with a practical resource that they can adapt for classroom planning.

Teacher-Centred Pedagogical Practices: Rethinking AI in the Process

Philippa Parks and Anne-Marie Sénécal

This session explores how teachers can integrate AI into their practice as a support for pedagogical thinking, while retaining responsibility for their own pedagogical decisions. Drawing on a classroom-tested model developed in a teacher education course on pedagogical differentiation, we will examine their sequential approach. Student-teachers first brainstormed and consulted peers before using AI to support differentiation, and then critically evaluated AI-generated suggestions against their own pedagogical knowledge and judgment. This process highlights the importance of sequencing, critical evaluation, and human responsibility when working with AI in educational contexts.

Participants will then work in small groups to develop a short pedagogical task following the proposed sequential approach and using AI as one resource. We will reconvene to consider what participants kept, adapted, or rejected (and, crucially, why!). Attention will be given to the realities of multilingual learners, reflecting current scholarship on AI and language diversity in the classroom. Participants can expect to leave with a concrete process they can use with their own students or colleagues.

Empowering Classrooms with AI & UDL: Flexible Strategies for Additional Language Learning

Marc-Albert Paquette

How can generative AI (GenAI) help language educators respond to learner diversity without replacing professional judgment? In this hands-on session, participants will explore practical ways to use GenAI to support planning, resource development, and differentiation within a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. Grounded in second/additional language acquisition, the session will examine how carefully designed prompts can help generate flexible learning materials, scaffolds, and classroom activities while keeping teacher expertise, ethical considerations, and critical review at the centre of the process. During the interactive segment of the session, participants will engage in guided experimentation with selected AI tools and prompts, considering how the results might be adapted responsibly for their own learners and teaching contexts.

Developing Digital Citizens: Teaching the Responsible Use of AI in the Language Classroom

Nairy Kazandjian and Sophie Giroux

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the future of education. Whether we like it or not, our students are already encountering it in ways we can’t control. But are we preparing them for the futures they’re actually walking into? Rather than avoid AI altogether, this session will show you how we can tackle it head on. Let’s teach students to use it responsibly and deliberately, as a skill we model in the language classroom. We’ll look first at how AI is reshaping the careers ahead of our students, and then we’ll get hands-on. We will explore student-safe tools and activities, working together to develop personal AI guidelines to bring back to your own classrooms.

French Sessions

A Little, a Lot, Madly, Not at All! Reflections on the Safe and Ethical Use of AI in Language Education

Jérémie Séror

In a world where people increasingly live, work, and learn alongside powerful, but also, potentially dangerous forms of AI, language educators must balance technological innovation with ever more complex ethical, legal, and pedagogical safeguards. This session explores the practical and ethical considerations as well as the emerging frameworks associated with the work of learning to navigate and deploy AI safely while minimizing its inherent risks (such as privacy concerns, bias, data management challenges, and the erosion of agency) both for teachers and students. Participants will examine the decisions, practices, and safeguards that can be put into place — both in their own personal lives and in their classrooms — to ensure AI-mediated language education is implemented in a manner that supports thoughtful, transparent, responsible AI use.

Beyond the Prompt: Critical Thinking in the Age of AI

Rubina Sharma

How can educators use AI to support student learning while preserving the productive struggle that develops critical thinking? This interactive session supports educators in building confidence and practical understanding around the responsible and purposeful use of AI in education. Participants will explore when AI can meaningfully support learning versus when it may replace the productive struggle students need to develop critical thinking and skills.

Educators will also gain hands-on experience with practical AI tools, including Gemini, NotebookLM, and Brisk Teaching. We will explore applications such as lesson and assessment design, differentiation, feedback, and instructional support. The session emphasizes AI literacy, ethical use, student privacy, and academic integrity. Participants will gain strategies to help guide students in making thoughtful decisions about when, why, and how to use AI to enhance — not replace — learning.

AI for Teachers: Transforming Education to Better Support Students

Sophie Piquette

How can we save time and better meet the diverse needs of students? This workshop explores how AI can simplify teachers’ day-to-day lives of while enriching the learning experience. Participants will learn concrete examples of AI integration in the classroom, such as creating authentic learning materials, tailoring content to learning profiles, differentiating teaching, and reducing workload. The second part of this workshop will allow participants, in small groups, to experiment with AI from a concrete educational situation, create or adapt an activity, and share their strategies and discoveries. AI thus becomes a true ally for personalizing teaching and refocusing efforts on what matters most — guiding students to success.

AI in Action: Smart Assessment and Feedback in the Language Classroom

Stephanie Jackson

How can AI transform language assessment without losing the human touch? Designed for additional language educators of all backgrounds, this interactive session explores how to use AI to design meaningful assessments, streamline feedback, and support diverse language learners.

We will begin with a focused look at key AI applications for language evaluation: creating authentic rubrics, generating context-rich task prompts, differentiating assessment tools, and providing timely, targeted feedback to students. Then, we will put these ideas into practice. Collaborating with fellow educators, you will experiment with AI tools to draft, refine, or adapt assessment materials tailored to your specific teaching context. You will leave this hands-on workshop with a practical, ready-to-use assessment resource to enhance your classroom practice immediately.

Have any questions regarding this event?

Contact our Deputy Director:

projects@caslt.org