Join the Spring 2026 CLLC Pedagogy Advancement Series for a workshop with Daniel Patricio-Agosto, Graduate Teaching Associate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
Beyond the Chatbot: Designing Culturally Authentic AI Agents for the Classroom
This workshop introduces language instructors to practical ways of using generative AI “agents” to support communicative, culture-rich language teaching. Participants will learn how to design and refine prompts that generate target-language interlocutors who can simulate “real” speakers who use the appropriate dialects, registers, and lexicon that reflect authentic usage. These “agents” can then be adapted and used to create effective in-class activities that are aligned with second-language acquisition research and departmental guidelines.
The session begins with a brief overview of how large language models and generative AI work, emphasizing the limitations and bias of such technologies so that participants can make informed pedagogical decisions. From there, the workshop moves into a guided demonstration of several agents and their classroom-ready applications. In the hands-on portion, participants will work in small groups (ideally by language or region) to: articulate a communicative goal and cultural focus for a short activity; co-develop prompts that define the agent’s persona, dialect, and interactional style; and iterate on those prompts to manage level-appropriateness and feedback from students. Participants will leave the session with a starter library of adaptable prompts, activity templates, and reflection questions, fully prepared to use AI not just as a technical novelty, but as a meaningful bridge to authentic cultural engagement.