Generative AI for Learning and Teaching Arabic: Opportunities, Challenges, and Ethical Considerations

Abstract

This study seeks to explore the impact of generative artificial intelligence on the learning and teaching of the Arabic language, elucidating the opportunities it affords as well as the technological and pedagogical challenges it poses, and the ethical issues it raises in connection with its deployment in educational environments. The study proceeds from the premise that the Arabic language - despite being spoken by more than 400 million people and serving as the liturgical language of more than two billion Muslims worldwide - continues to be classified among the digitally low-resource languages, a fact that is reflected in the performance of large language models and their educational applications. The study adopts the descriptive-analytical method, reviewing recent studies and analyzing the principal trends associated with applications of generative artificial intelligence in language education, with particular emphasis on the situation of the Arabic language. The study concludes that generative artificial intelligence offers significant potential for supporting personalized learning, generating educational content, and developing language skills; however, harnessing this potential for Arabic language instruction continues to face challenges related to the limited availability of digital resources, diglossia, the accuracy of linguistic and cultural outputs, as well as ethical considerations pertaining to privacy, academic integrity, and cultural bias.