The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Primary School Chinese Language Teaching: An Analysis from Teachers' Perspectives

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has entered Chinese primary education faster than curricula, assessment systems and teacher preparation have adapted to it. While a growing body of Chinese scholarship explores how GenAI can “empower” yuwen (Chinese language) teaching, considerably less attention has been paid to the disruptive effects that frontline teachers must absorb in daily practice. This article offers a qualitative, interpretive analysis of how AI affects primary school Chinese language teaching when viewed from the teacher’s position. Rather than collecting new empirical data, it analyses three bodies of material: national and international policy documents on GenAI in schools, Chinese and international research on AI in language and primary education, and published expert commentary on Chinese language education in the AI era. Read through the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, the analysis identifies four interrelated areas of impact: the erosion of foundational literacy practices such as character writing and sustained reading; a crisis of authorship in writing instruction, in which teachers are pushed from cultivating expression towards verifying authenticity; the reconfiguration of teachers’ professional roles and identities; and institutional ambiguity arising from gaps between national policy, school practice, assessment and home use. The article argues that the central difficulty is not technological access but a misalignment between AI-saturated learning environments and product-oriented teaching and assessment traditions. Implications are drawn for process-oriented writing pedagogy, assessment reform, teacher professional development and home–school collaboration.

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