ChatGPT, a general-purpose intelligent chatbot developed by OpenAI, has introduced numerous opportunities and challenges in the field of language education. With its remarkable ability to generate diverse forms of text, answer questions, and provide translations within minutes, ChatGPT has become an influential tool in the era of advanced AI technology. However, to what extent ChatGPT can be used to assist students in completing language learning tasks remains largely unexplored. Against this background, this study aimed to investigate students’ experiences with ChatGPT and their perceptions of its role in language learning through a small-scale qualitative study. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with five students at a top-tier international university in China. Students’ responses revealed that ChatGPT has the potential to serve as a valuable learning partner and aid students in completing language-related tasks. Furthermore, participants exhibited critical judgment in evaluating the quality of ideas and outputs generated by ChatGPT, as well as the ability to modify prompts to maximize learning benefits. Such critical judgment offsets the potential threats to academic integrity posed by ChatGPT. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the potential of ChatGPT in language education by adding empirical evidence from students’ perspectives. This study supports the idea that ChatGPT can work as an effective tool for providing students with immediate feedback and personalized learning experiences. Such findings generate implications for future pedagogical practices in the new era by providing students with personalized guidance, designing technology-embedded language support, and developing students’ lifelong learning skills (e.g., autonomy and evaluative judgment) with the support of ChatGPT.

Despite the rapid integration of AI into students’ self-regulated learning, rigorously validated instruments to assess their strategic AI use are critically lacking. Addressing this gap, the present study proposes a conceptual framework of self-regulated use of AI for learning, based on which a strategy inventory was developed and validated in two questionnaire surveys among Chinese university students (with valid n = 488 and 707 respectively). Factor and Rasch analyses of the data identified eight factors underlying the instrument, with four pertaining to the regulation of AI-assisted task processing, and another four associated with the regulation of AI application. The corresponding subscales also demonstrated robust psychometric properties. Quantitative analyses further revealed imbalanced strategy usage. Specifically, output-focused metacognitive regulation was reported to be most frequent, whereas AI-supported self-assessment strategies were underutilized. Results also showed that there were gender and academic disciplinary differences in ethical and tool-focused metacognitive regulation; while degree of AI exposure was positively correlated with most strategy types, it had no significant correlation with ethical regulation. These findings highlight the need for differentiated interventions to address populational gaps in the AI-mediated learning process. This study contributes to a structured approach to understanding AI’s role in self-regulated learning and calls for concerted measures to cultivate students’ metacognitive and ethical awareness in AI application. Pedagogically, the validated instrument can be used by teachers to diagnose students’ strategy use and inform targeted instruction. Students can also use it for self-assessment, enhancing their self-awareness and fostering a more balanced use of different AI strategies.

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the roles that assessment plays in promoting learning. Formative assessment is considered a powerful strategy for improving student learning; however, its learning potential has been less extensively explored in contexts where summative assessment dominates, because summative assessment is believed to undermine the effective implementation of formative assessment. The present article explores the potential of using tests formatively in a test-dominated context (i.e., formative use of summative tests). The study adopted a qualitative approach. Data were collected from three classes in a Chinese high school through classroom observations and interviews. The findings revealed that tests were used to a certain degree to improve student learning through test follow-up strategies. Situated in a context dominated by high-stakes tests, the present study provides a contextualised perspective of formative assessment and contributes to the understanding of how summative assessment may be used formatively.

Whilst there are studies exploring students’ perspectives of assessment, relatively little is known about how Chinese high school students’ respond to assessment. Students’ perspectives are particularly important because the power of assessment directly impacts on their motivation and attitudes towards schooling. This article explores students’ views of English language assessment in a Chinese high school in Hubei province through ‘draw-a-picture technique’ and subsequent interviews. The main findings show that assessment could invoke both positive and negative feelings; and that tests carried both summative and formative messages. The paper contributes to the understanding of how assessment impacts on students’ lives and discusses the use of draw-a-picture technique as a means of documenting students’ perceptions.