“I, too”, shall have to prompt? A study of EFL students and their unmonitored use of GenAI in the completion of an imitation task in poetry
Guilène Révauger, Flavie Rident · Alsic · 2025
This study questions the extent to which a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) model can be of use within an English as a Foreign Language Literature course at university level. An experimental GenAI-assisted creative writing exercise was conducted, asking students to perform the imitation task of writing a poem in the style of Langston Hughes. The analysis of qualitative data collected through surveys and observational studies provides answers to the main research question – To what extent does the exercise provide for the explicit application of the literary analysis elements taught in the course? – and three related sub-questions – What are the characteristics of the prompts intuitively generated by the students? Do students intuitively manage to generate efficient prompts? What pedagogical implications can be inferred from the results? Although the exercise exposed participants to a large quantity of literary terms fitted to their individual needs, it also shed light on a number of limitations and complications.