From prompts to persuasion : integrating AI in EFL copywriting for critical and multimodal literacy

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the ways in which language learners produce, revise, and reflect upon writing. Within English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education, copywriting offers a practical and creative context for developing persuasive reasoning, linguistic precision, and multimodal awareness. This study explores how generative and multimodal AI tools—such as ChatGPT, D-ID, and HeyGen—can function as cognitive partners in EFL copywriting tasks. Drawing on sociocultural and critical-thinking frameworks, the research investigates how learners utilise AI to co-construct meaning, regulate their learning processes, and reflect upon issues of authorship and ethics. Data derived from graduate students’ reflective portfolios and AI-assisted video projects were analysed using a rigorous, multi-phase thematic analysis incorporating peer debriefing and triangulation. The findings demonstrate that AI-mediated multimodal writing promotes rhetorical precision, self-regulation, and ethical awareness. Consequently, the paper proposes a pedagogical model positioning AI as a creative and reflective collaborator that facilitates the development of critical and multimodal literacies in higher education.