Perceptions and Practices of Artificial Intelligence in CSL Education: A Qualitative Study of University Teachers

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly prevalent in Chinese as a Second Language/Chinese as a Foreign Language (CSL/CFL) education, empirical evidence on teachers’ actual uses and perceptions of generative AI (GenAI) remains limited. This study aims to examine how CSL teachers perceive and engage with AI tools, how these tools have reshaped teachers’ practices and teaching efficiency, and the challenges that AI poses for CSL education. The study employed a qualitative design and conducted semi-structured interviews with three CSL teachers at Chinese universities, including both novice and experienced teachers. Based on grounded theory, the data were analyzed through three stages of coding. The findings show that the teachers with different levels of teaching experience generally held positive and open attitudes toward AI and were willing to explore its pedagogical use. AI was mainly valued for improving lesson preparation efficiency, enriching teaching resources, and supporting the design of classroom activities. It also showed potential to diversify forms of teacher-student interaction. However, teachers’ adoption of AI tools remained selective and strongly mediated by professional judgment, particularly in discipline-specific instruction. Challenges concerning the quality of AI-generated content, the lack of CSL-specialized AI tools, and students’ overreliance on AI were also identified. Based on the results, implications for CSL teachers, educational institutions, and AI developers seeking to support AI integration in CSL education were proposed.