Presentation The Hidden Social Work of Chatbots more

As AI chatbots become more common in language classrooms, their impact is often discussed in terms of accuracy or efficiency. Less attention has been paid to the social work these systems perform during interaction. This presentation explores how classroom chatbots, when designed as peer-like conversational partners, appear to shape student risk-taking, voice, and participation in ways that differ from typical peer discussion. Drawing on a year-long classroom implementation with Japanese university learners, I present observations from persona-based AI chatbots used to support English communication. Examples from chat logs, student reflections, and classroom practice suggest that students often experience these interactions as less face-threatening and more generative than peer interaction, particularly during early idea exploration. These patterns align with long-standing SLA concerns regarding affective barriers, classroom silence, and reluctance to take communicative risks. (Harumi, 2011; Curry & Peeters, 2025) To interpret these patterns, I introduce AI Pragmatic Mediation (APM), a framework for examining how AI systems influence user stance and communicative choices, and Dyadence, a two-phase human-AI co-thinking process involving exploratory dialogue followed by synthesis. Rather than treating chatbots as neutral tools, these frameworks offer lenses for understanding how interactional design may shape learner engagement.