Developing Academic Students’ Writing Competence in the Generative AI Environment

The current explosion of AI tools and the resulting popularity of AI aids in various aspects of life, opened up a myriad of chances for students to apply varied AI strategies to enhance the learning process. The paper focuses on tracing academic students’ writing development in the generative AI environment. The purpose of the research was to verify the application of AI strategies in developing writing skills of a group of applied linguistics students to define what kind of writing assistance they seek and to what extent the application of AI-assisted writing strategies changes their way of learning and developing writing skills. The data for the scientific experiment was gathered through a one-group quasi-experimental treatment of undergraduate applied linguistics students with an English-Portuguese language combination. The results prove the applied linguistics students employ varied strategies in AI environments in order to develop their writing skills.