The integration of generative A1 as a tool for pedagogical differentiation in the use of languages-cultures textbooks

To be published in Novembre 2025

Abstract

Many languages-cultures didacticians currently seem to assume that teachers' use of generative AI renders textbooks obsolete, and that AI can only express its full innovative potential in sequences designed and implemented outside of textbooks, without the limitations and constraints that textbooks impose. Their proposals therefore greatly limit the motivation of most teachers to cautiously embark on a gradual integration of AI into their practices with their students and at their own pace. In this presentation, I propose to show concretely that generative AI can be exploited in a controlled and progressive manner jointly by teachers and students themselves to enrich and adapt their use of textbooks. The example taken will be the integration, through AI, of pedagogical differentiation in such a way that the advantage of textbooks is preserved, namely the guarantee of collective progress, while correcting its disadvantages, namely the lack of autonomy and involvement of students in their own learning process, as well as the imposition on all of modes of activity that may not be suitable or sufficient for some.  However, this will require helping students to guide and supervise the work of AI by assisting them in drafting their requests, which will often need to be accompanied by content and level specifications (lexical or cultural themes, official curricula, CEFR or PISA proficiency scales), pages from the teaching unit or even the entire teaching unit from the textbook, as well as teaching models (e.g., types of language exercises, authentic document commentary tasks or methodological approaches).