Artificial Intelligence Application and Development of Critical Thinking in the English Language Teaching

This paper deals with peculiarities and impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage in English language teaching and learning, mainly in higher education, and explores its potential for evolving one of soft skills - critical thinking - simultaneously. The brief summary of various approaches adopted to the definitions of AI and soft skills is provided here. As a result, in this study soft skills are regarded as nonspecialized personal qualities that contribute to the success in various professions. Thus, top soft skills required for the professional success of the university graduate are enumerated here, with the emphasis put on critical thinking. Due to the versatile application of these skills the relevance of their development in the contemporary world is unquestioned, and it is pointed out that AI does not only impede, but also can contribute to this process by implementing several helpful strategies enumerated and outlined in this study. This practice can be implemented both in teacher-facing and learner-facing AI instruments through creating specific topical materials, generating precise prompts and inputs and the choice of the most fitting AI-powered model by taking into consideration such criteria as task complexity, accuracy requirements, desired format of the output.