VietTESOL International Convention 2026

Although generative artificial intelligence accelerates lesson planning in English Language Teaching, its automated tools lack the contextual understanding that human educators possess, particularly insight into their learners' proficiency and learning needs. Consequently, algorithms generate dense instructional sequences that cause student cognitive overload. Teachers recognise the need to modify these outputs, yet limited preparation time, restricted institutional access, and complex academic jargon make principled revision difficult, leaving teachers reliant on intuition rather than informed judgment. To address this, the workshop introduces a teacher-centred triadic negotiation framework, positioning the educator as the central mediator among three elements: automated lesson plan drafts, classroom realities, and research findings synthesis. The framework uses TESOLgraphics as a visual research broker, converting secondary research into accessible visual summaries and researchers' suggestions. The workshop then guides participants through a four-stage process. First, participants generate an automated draft for an upcoming lesson. Second, they apply their pedagogical knowledge to analyze, identify, and note areas requiring modification. Third, they compare these evaluations against TESOLgraphics visual summaries, determining where evidence and suggestions align with, conflict with, or add to their judgments. Fourth, they synthesize these perspectives into a final contextualized lesson plan. Participants then complete a structured reflection journal, documenting how they negotiated between automated content and research knowledge, explaining why specific automated suggestions were rejected and how evidence validated their final decisions. Ultimately, this workflow equips teachers with a transferable evaluation protocol and reflective mechanism to maintain professional agency over automated tools while protecting instructional integrity.