Navigating tensions: an empirical study of ELF teachers’ AI literacy and emotionally mediated responses to artificial intelligence in a Chinese university

The emergence of generative AI (GenAI) like ChatGPT constitutes a paradigm shift for language education, particularly for English as a Lingua Franca teachers in China, who face top-down mandates to adopt it. This mixed-methods study of 52 Chinese university teachers examined the interplay between their AI literacy, emotional responses, and professional identity. Findings reveal high awareness but a critical deficit in pedagogical and critical AI literacy. Teachers experienced profound ambivalence, simultaneous enthusiasm and existential anxiety as they grappled with a displaced identity as knowledge authorities. Emotions actively mediated their engagement, leading to defensive, performative, or transformative stances, often exacerbated by institutional ‘AI evangelism.’ The study concludes that support must extend beyond tool training to foster collaborative spaces for ethical sense-making and identity renegotiation, advocating a ‘pedagogy of integrity’ centred on process-oriented assessment and critical human-AI collaboration.