VietTESOL International Convention 2026

The utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in English writing classrooms has been shown to enhance the quality of writing products. However, less is known about whether such improvements translate into independent writing ability. Drawing on cognitive offloading theory and metacognitive calibration research, this study aims to examine the mismatch between students’ perceived writing development and their demonstrated independent writing performance in an AI-assisted EFL context. Ten second-year English major students at a Vietnamese university participated in a qualitative study. Data were collected through four AI-assisted essays, four corresponding audio self-reflections, three essays completed without AI assistance. Thematic analysis of the self-reflections revealed that students perceived AI as a beneficial tool for improving vocabulary, grammar accuracy, and overall writing quality. However, comparative analysis of AI-assisted and non-AI essays indicated that students' unaided essays showed limited improvement across the same analytical dimensions, suggesting that students’ perceived benefits of AI in writing improvement do not reliably transfer to independent writing ability. This finding is interpreted as an “illusion of learning”, a state in which cognitively offloaded writing performance does not align with actual writing competence. The study contributes to the discussion of the perceived-actual learning gap in AI-assisted EFL writing classrooms and proposes implications for how teachers can redesign AI integration tasks to promote genuine skill transfer rather than surface-level performance enhancement.