PEDAGOGIES OF MOBILE LANGUAGE LEARNING APPS
AN ANALYSIS FROM A CRITICAL THEORY PERSPECTIVE
Keywords:
Language learning, Artificial intelligence, Pedagogical foundation, Critical theoryAbstract
This study analyzes the use of artificial intelligence–powered applications in language teaching from the perspective of critical theory of society. Using a dialectical, qualitative-documentary approach grounded in Adorno, Horkheimer, and Freire, it examines the pedagogical structures and discourses of major language-learning apps, contrasting them with the foundations of classical pedagogical theories (Freire, Piaget, Vygotsky, and Ausubel). The results reveal a tendency toward the reification of didactics and the instrumentalization of reason, whereby learning becomes increasingly technified and detached from its human, critical, and emancipatory dimensions. Mechanisms of ideological control and the commodification of education are identified, reducing language to a utilitarian function. Critical theory thus makes it possible to expose the loss of the dialogical and transformative meaning of education, advocating for the recovery of complex thinking, reflection, and dialogue as essential practices for freedom and the integral development of the human being.
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