Developing AI literacy in L2 pragmatics: an approach to email request revision

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) offers new opportunities for language learners to obtain immediate feedback on their writing, but its ability to assess sociopragmatic appropriateness remains limited. This lesson plan presents a three-lesson instructional sequence designed to develop university EFL learners’ pragmatic competence, metapragmatic awareness, and critical AI literacy through the revision of formal email requests to faculty. The unit guides students through three scaffolded stages: autonomous self-assessment using an explicit checklist, comparison of their judgments with AI-generated feedback, and critical evaluation of AI suggestions followed by independent revision. The assessment framework addresses four dimensions of email quality: interactional appropriateness, typographic-textual structure, communicative effectiveness, and formal accuracy. Rather than positioning AI as either an authoritative source of feedback or a tool to be rejected, the lesson plan encourages learners to recognize both its affordances and limitations and to make informed decisions about when to accept, modify, or reject its suggestions. Designed for B1–B2 university EFL learners, the unit aims to foster learners’ ability to produce context-sensitive email requests that take into account social power, social distance, and degree of imposition. By integrating pragmatic instruction with AI-mediated writing revision, the lesson plan provides a practical framework for developing autonomous, critically informed language users capable of navigating formal communication in increasingly AI-mediated and globalized academic and professional contexts.