2025 Women in AI Expert Series: How AI can help Humans learn Language
- WAI CONTENT TEAM
- 20 hours ago
- 4 min read
Principal author: Karen Jensen
Welcome to the 2025 Expert Series from the Global Ethics and Culture office of Women in AI.
In 2025, we continue our global initiatives in Education, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Research to make AI accessible and inclusive for everyone, with a special focus on women and girls.
Like the 2024 Speaker Series, this year's Expert Series aims to boost opportunities for women and girls in AI. We'll feature global women experts sharing practical AI skills that could help you launch a new AI career or reskill for AI roles.
In our first session, titled "Prompt Like a Pro: AI Skills for Students and Young Professionals," our expert, Charlotte Tao, offered practical guidance on the essential skill of prompt engineering.
In our second session, titled “Agentic AI: Navigating Autonomy, Accountability, and Ethics,” our expert, Dhivya Nagasubramanian, offered clear metrics and understanding of Agentic AI and how it differs from Generative AI and its uses.
In our third session, titled, “Responsible AI in Action: A Look Back at a Winning Hackathon Project”, our expert, Dr. Ja’Nya Jenoch, brought together members of some of the teams from our Global Hackathon from 2023 and discussed where they are now, some things they’ve learned, and their inspiring message for women and girls as they move into careers in emerging technologies.
In our fourth session, titled, “Generative AI, Explicit Content, and Organizational Solutions for Not Safe for Work (NSFW) images”, our expert, Bobbi Stattelman, shared concerns about the prolific generation of AI-generated explicit content and non-consensual deep fake images, and how emerging technologies are exploring organizational solutions for these challenges.
Throughout the world, women have been storytellers and the keepers of oral histories. We honor those traditions and welcome a new generation of storytellers, dedicated to the deployment of Ethical and Responsible AI.
Our expert for today is Professor Elizabeth Wonnacott. Professor Wonnacott’s background is in linguistics and AI, and she holds a PhD in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. She is based at the University of Oxford, is a fellow at St. John’s College, and is the co-founder of the AI in Education hub at the University of Oxford (AIEOU).
Understanding the science of learning
As Professor Wonnacott said, she has been thinking about linguistics, the scientific study of language and its structure, for quite some time, starting in her undergraduate studies. As her education progressed, she noticed that small children more easily learn language(s) through immersion, being surrounded by the new language, whereas adult learners traditionally face more challenges to learn these same languages.
The UK Language Learning Crisis
Across the UK, Professor Wonnacott identified a spiral of decline in language learning that includes a smaller number of language teachers, a decline in the number of schools that offer languages, and an overall decline in language degrees. Alarmingly, the number of students learning languages includes a disparity between the least and most affluent schools.
Some of the reasons for this decrease in overall language learning, Professor Wonnacott attributes to a societal perception that these skills simply aren’t necessary, and that learning languages is often perceived as being more difficult than learning other subjects.
How AI and the Omniloquent model can address this crisis
Despite some of the challenges we’ve talked about here @WomeninAI for the use of artificial intelligence, we recognize and support that there are many things that these applications are very good at. As Professor Wonnacott explains regarding Generative AI:
It’s good at accurately producing and understanding language
It’s good at identifying errors in language
It’s good at providing explicit explanations of different grammar and language points
She demonstrated the Omniloquent Learning Languages for Life platform in today’s session. The platform offers one-on-one conversation practice that includes role playing, guessing games, with scaffolding, and features that boost learning. Using AI, the platform produces dynamically written materials on demand and provides conversation-aware support that is far beyond current chatbot functionality. Included in this platform are tools for conversation practice, extended speaking/writing tasks, and vocabulary task practice, just to name a few.
How Omniloquent supports English as an additional language and why that matters
The number of English as an Additional Language (EAL) students in the UK has tripled since 1997. According to the World Economic Forum, “Speaking more than one language can boost economic growth” (Weforum.org, 2018). Additionally, “Beyond these immediate economic rewards, languages can help a country’s workforce in more subtle, long-term ways. Multilingualism has for example been shown to be good for brain health, delaying the onset of dementia. It has also been associated with a better ability to concentrate and process information. The effects are strongest in people who were multilingual from a young age, but acquiring languages later still made a difference” (Weforum.org, 2018).
The message is clear that multilingualism, using or being able to use several languages, especially with equal fluency, offers both singular and global opportunities!
The continued challenge of Responsible funding for AI projects
We discussed funding challenges, especially for women and AI tools, in our Session 3 conversation, but Professor Wonnacott addressed an additional challenge: educational platforms where rigorous clinical trials and scientific integrity could be compromised by current venture capital objectives.
Summary
Professor Wonnacott’s final thought and message is that we are at a crossroads in deploying ethical and responsible AI-based tools. These tools have the power to help us solve complex challenges in learning, but used unwisely, can increase educational disparities.
Share your comments here on this post and with us on Social Media @WomeninAI to ensure we #MakeitFAIR!
Event recording: You can view the recording of the event using this link.
This Expert Series is presented by the Women in AI Ethics & Culture Office volunteer team, dedicated to A Global Vision for achieving gender parity in emerging technologies through increasing Opportunity, championing inclusive Policies, and fostering practical Action that delivers meaningful and measurable impact.
Ethics & Culture Team
Please see the links below to our Team’s profiles on LinkedIn.
(2018, February 16). Speaking more languages boosts economic growth. Weforum.org. Retrieved October 28, 2025, from https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/02/speaking-more-languages-boost-economic-growth/