I’ve always thought of language teaching as both an art and a craft. My own journey started in Morocco, where I spent nine years teaching English as a Foreign Language in a variety of schools: public, private, rural, and urban. Back then, even using an overhead projector felt like innovation.
We relied on cassette players, printed worksheets, and the occasional classroom poster to bring lessons to life. But one of the things my students loved the most was when I invited native English speakers to join our class. Most of them were Peace Corps volunteers, young, adventurous, and eager to share stories about their home countries.
Those visits turned into some of our most memorable learning moments. Students would prepare questions, act out dialogues, and sometimes even organize small cultural activities to welcome our guests.
The energy in the room was always electric. Looking back, I realize that what we were doing, without knowing it, was experiential learning. We were creating authentic communication experiences, long before terms like “task-based learning” became common in teacher training.
Fast forward to today, and it’s hard not to marvel at how far we’ve come. The Web 2.0 wave opened the door to endless EdTech possibilities, blogs, wikis, online flashcards, language games, and digital classrooms.
Suddenly, students didn’t need to wait for a Peace Corps guest to practice English; they could connect with peers around the world in real time. And now, with AI entering the picture, the horizon has expanded even further. What once took hours of lesson planning can now be scaffolded in seconds with AI-driven tools. Grammar explanations, personalized vocabulary lists, pronunciation feedback, and even simulated conversations are just a few clicks away.
Sometimes I think back to how much time I used to spend preparing those authentic learning moments, the excitement of finding the right guest speaker, designing questions, and building activities around a single visit.
AI can now replicate much of that experience virtually. Of course, it’s not the same as human connection, but it comes impressively close. It gives teachers more freedom to focus on what matters most: guiding, motivating, and humanizing the learning process.
In this post, I’m sharing two visual resources that reflect this evolution. The first one showcases a collection of EdTech platforms and tools I’ve recommended to language teachers over the years, resources that have transformed classrooms and supported language learning in powerful, practical ways. The second focuses on the newer wave of AI-driven tools and strategies that are reshaping how we teach and learn languages today.
If you’re a language teacher, or simply curious about where education is headed, these two collections are for you. They blend the old spirit of creativity and connection with the new promise of intelligent technology. The tools may have changed, but the goal remains the same: helping learners find their voice in another language, and watching that spark of confidence when they realize they can truly communicate.
EdTech Tools and Websites for Language Learning
Using AI in Language Learning
