Reframing humanity in L2 writing education:
Teachers and learners in the age of AI
Miyuki Sasaki
Waseda University, Japan
The theme of SSLW 2026 invites us to reconsider what it means to teach writing as artificial intelligence (AI) transforms writing practices. In this talk, I explore the humanity of L2 writing education from two perspectives: learners and teachers. Sustaining this humanity requires recognizing learners as whole persons whose development is shaped by multilingual resources and social contexts, while supporting teachers’ agency and well-being as they navigate AI-related challenges.
The first part presents three insights from research on L2 writing development that foreground learner humanity, framed within a non-deficit, socially situated, whole-person view of multilingual learners. Research on machine translation as feedback shows that multilingual resources, including learners’ first languages, function as productive tools rather than deficits. Studies of AI-mediated writing show that learners can appropriate AI as a mediational tool while developing writer agency. Longitudinal research shows that L1 and L2 writing development unfold through interactions between personal goals and social contexts. Together, these studies reconceptualize learners as agentive, socially embedded individuals whose development extends beyond language alone.
The second part turns to writing teachers and examines how this reconceptualization of humanity may be taken up in practice. Although applied linguistics research often proposes pedagogical implications, little is known about whether such ideas influence teachers’ thinking or professional flourishing. With this in mind, I report on a pilot intervention study with Japanese university teachers of English L2 writing. Over four months, participants read and reflected on practitioner-oriented articles based on a non-deficit view of learners, attention to social context, and a whole-person perspective, as well as their implications for L2 writing pedagogy, including AI-supported practices.
By bringing together learner humanity, teacher humanity, and AI-mediated writing, this talk argues that the future of L2 writing education lies not in resisting technological change but in reframing how teachers and learners enact human agency, expanding multilingual resources, and fostering purposeful communication.
Miyuki Sasaki is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences at Waseda University, Japan. Her research focuses on second language writing, with particular emphasis on writer agency in AI-mediated contexts and on the roles of textual features and reader characteristics in L2 text comprehensibility. Her work has appeared in leading journals such as Language Learning, Modern Language Journal, Language Testing, and Journal of Second Language Writing. She has also contributed chapters to volumes published by Multilingual Matters, Kluwer Academic, and Blackwell. She has served on the editorial boards of TESOL Quarterly, Language Testing, and currently Journal of Second Language Writing, and was the first Japanese member of the TOEFL Committee of Examiners (2007–2011).
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