Emergent Critical AI Literacy in EFL Undergraduates' AI-Assisted Multimodal and Monomodal Composing

Abstract

The rapid integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) into second language (L2) writing has raised growing interest in learners' critical AI literacy. This qualitative study examined how Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) undergraduates evaluated and strategically used AI tools across multimodal and monomodal composing tasks. Eight undergraduates were assigned to a multimodal or monomodal group, and data were triangulated from screen recordings, final compositions, and post-task interviews. The findings revealed that, without explicit instruction in critical AI literacy, participants demonstrated evaluative, strategic, and reflective engagement with AI. Learners actively evaluated AI-generated content, coordinated multiple AI tools, and reflected on AI's affordances and limitations. Compared with monomodal composing, multimodal composing expanded the scope of evaluation to AI-generated images and increased the complexity of AI-tool coordination. These findings offer process-oriented evidence of learners' emergent critical engagement with AI and implications for cultivating critical AI literacy in L2 writing instruction.