Linguistic Competence Among Egyptian vs. Saudi EFL Majors in Light of Utilizing Artificial Intelligence Technology

This study aimed at probing Egyptian and Saudi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) majors' perceptions of the impact of AI technology on enhancing linguistic competence and predicting the level of linguistic competence development due to the utilisation of AI. The descriptive survey method was used to accomplish the purpose of the study. A 27-item questionnaire was developed to collect the study data from the participants, totalling 523 EFL majors: 256 Egyptian EFL majors at the Faculty of Education at Al-Azhar University, Egypt and 267 EFL majors at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. The results of the statistical analysis demonstrated that AI technology is perceived positively by the EFL majors in both contexts. However, the Egyptian students showed higher positive perceptions than their Saudi counterparts. More importantly, the simple regression analysis has shown a statistically significant positive correlation between the EFL majors' perceptions and their linguistic competence. The study recommends enhancing the EFL majors' proficiency in using AI tools for developing language skills.