On the afternoon of October 29, 2024, the Forum on English Writing Teaching and Teacher Development in the Era of Artificial Intelligence was successfully held at Room 518, Huiwen Building, School of Foreign Studies, Tongji University.

The forum gathered Professor Brad Hughes, Honorary Director of the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, distinguished scholars and core teachers from universities including Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Xi’an Jiao Tong University, as well as a technical team from Shanghai Yizhe Information Technology Co., Ltd.

In the opening speech, Professor Wu Yun, Dean of the School of Foreign Studies, Tongji University, pointed out that AI brings both challenges and opportunities to English writing learning and college teaching. She expected the forum to boost academic exchanges on writing teaching among university educators nationwide.

Professor Brad Hughes delivered a keynote speech on the professional development of writing instructors in the AI era. With 44 years of teaching experience, he stated that AIpresentsboth challengesand opportunitiesfor writing teaching: challenges involve impacts on traditional writing concepts, writing quality, ethics and copyright; opportunities lie in AI as a powerful "co-intelligence" to assist teaching and writing. He shared practical cases of using AI to generate writing samples and explanations, guided students to use AI properly after independent writing practice, and stressed that teachers should employ AI with clear principles. He also proposed pathways for writing teachers’ lifelong learning and professional growth at collective and individual levels.

Subsequently, teachers from Fudan University and Tongji University introduced their English writing centers. A product manager from Yizhe Technology presented the customized intelligent tutoring platform co-built with Tongji’s School of Foreign Studies. Faculty from both universities shared research and practices: applying ChatGPT to literature review writing, setting standards for AI-assisted email writing, optimizing academic English teaching for economics and management, and analyzing the positive emotional effects of AI writing feedback from a sociocultural perspective.

In the interactive session, Professor Hughes praised all speakers and emphasized that human insight and judgment are irreplaceable to endow communication with depth and value, no matter how advanced AI is.

At the end, Associate Professor Wang Beilei, deputy deanof the School of Foreign Studies, Tongji University, delivered the closing speech. Sheextendedthanks toall participants for their forward-looking and practical sharing, and noted that the cross-border and cross-institutional forum explored new ideas of AI-enabled English writing teaching. She called for joint efforts to promote the digital, green and integrated transformation of college English writing centers and teaching.