AI Empowered Textbook Use Under the Production Oriented Approach: A Case Study of Literature Major Freshmen in College EFL Classrooms

Abstract

Against the backdrop of college EFL reform, the Production‑Oriented Approach (POA) highlights that textbook resources ought to serve concrete productive learning assignments. In real‑world teaching, nevertheless, instructors adopting POA‑aligned teaching materials frequently run into practical hurdles when translating theories into daily lessons. Although generative artificial intelligence (GAI) opens new possibilities for optimising how teachers utilise textbooks, most existing publications remain at theoretical discussion level, lacking fine‑grained evidence obtained from real‑classroom interventions. This intrinsic qualitative case study draws on one teaching unit A new journey in life from iEnglish Comprehensive Course 1 (Basic Volume 1). Thirty‑five freshmen majoring in Chinese Language and Literature from a local undergraduate institute participated in this instructional practice. Centred on practical production goals and real‑life student learning demands, the present paper explores how GAI can assist teachers to redeploy textbook resources within the POA instructional cycle. Based on six‑hour classroom practice, three concrete operational routines are summarised to resolve typical textbook‑application difficulties: locating instructional priorities through backward‑oriented analysis, promoting deep engagement with textbook texts via multimodal resources, and building just‑in‑time scaffolding for unexpected learning deficits revealed by student outputs. This study delivers hands‑on suggestions for human‑AI co‑adaptation of teaching materials in university English teaching contexts.