English with AI: A new era of TOEIC learning for students majoring in airline services

English with AI: A new era of TOEIC learning for students majoring in airline services

The current study examines whether AI-assisted TOEIC learning program positively affects TOEIC scores of students majoring in airline services. The study focuses on how the effectiveness of AI technology differs by gender and proficiency. The experiment was conducted during the 2020 academic year. The participants were 119 EFL students from three intact classes at a university in Korea. For the study, the participants studied English through AI-assisted TOEIC learning technology called Soljam for the experimental period of 10 weeks. Before the treatment, all participants took a pre-test based on TOEIC and assigned to three different proficiency groups: Basic, Elementary, and Elementary Plus. After the treatment, all the participants took a post-TOEIC test. Major findings are as follows: First, AI technology positively affected the students’ TOEIC scores at a significance level of .05. Second, students’ improvement in TOEIC scores significantly differed by gender. However, statistically significant difference was not found regarding proficiency levels. There was no significant interaction effect of gender and proficiency. The findings of this study will shed light on the educational value of AI technology to promote language skills of Korean airline service students.