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23 April 2026

AI translation tools are reshaping ESOL, but not for the better

Translation tools promise fluency, but they’re stripping away the messy process where real language learning happens
Dr Nafisa Baba-Ahmed Guest Contributor

King’s College London practitioner and scholar in education and social justice

4 min read
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I’m marking a set of entry-level ESOL writing tasks.

The prompt is simple: Write about your daily routine.

It’s a task I return to often because it reveals the development process of learning writing. At entry level, writing begins with limited vocabulary and partial understanding. Learners test what they know, approximate what they don’t, and build meaning step by step. A first draft is rarely accurate, as it’s not meant to be. Instead, it shows how a learner is thinking through language.

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