Theoretical Frameworks for Examining Language Teacher Agency in the Context of Generative Artificial Intelligence

This chapter explores teacher agency as a crucial construct in language teacher education. Teacher agency can promote educational change and social justice and can contribute to teachers’ professional development. However, the rapid advancements in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) have challenged language teacher agency as these newly emerged tools can conduct tasks that were the preserve of humans and teachers. Addressing this challenge requires a critical understanding of the socio-ecological aspects of teacher agency to empower teachers for a hybrid human-AI language education context. While studies have explored teacher agency in traditional and technology-enhanced language teaching contexts, a gap remains in understanding how language teacher agency is shaped by GenAI tools. This chapter reviews and discusses four theoretical frameworks that can contribute to examining teacher agency in the context of GenAI tools, and one was chosen as the framework underpinning a doctoral study. The chapter offers insights into how theoretical frameworks on agency can help unpack the mediated, cognitive, sociocultural, contextual, temporal, and ecological understanding of teacher agency in GenAI-integrated learning environments. The chapter explicates how an ecological understanding of GenAI tools could provide nuanced insights into the impact of such tools on teacher agency.