Developing students’ Global Englishes-oriented critical GenAI literacy: an intervention study

The Global Englishes (GE) perspective challenges native-speaker norms, yet many classrooms still privilege dominant forms, reinforcing hierarchies and limiting learners’ ownership. The rise of generative AI (GenAI) heightens these concerns, as tools often reproduce standard language ideologies and marginalise non-dominant varieties. This study reports a twelve-week intervention in a GE course for English majors in Hong Kong. Students critiqued GenAI outputs, evaluated AI voice simulators, and designed GE-oriented chatbots. A mixed-methods design used pre/post questionnaires and interviews. Descriptive questionnaire results suggested shifts toward greater recognition of English pluralism, awareness of how norms relate to power, and understanding of GenAI’s role in linguistic hierarchies. Qualitative results suggest students held critical views of GenAI’s effects on norms, minoritised voices, and their own voice, identity and authenticity after the intervention. The study argues that GE-informed pedagogy can support students’ critical GenAI literacy and prepares future professionals for AI-mediated communication.