Keywords
Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) and digital language tools are changing how English language learners produce, revise and evaluate translations. This article examines the pedagogical contribution of ChatGPT, DeepL, Google Translate and Grammarly to the development of students’ translation competence, with particular attention to digital literacy, post-editing, critical evaluation and learner autonomy. A structured narrative review was conducted using ten foundational and representative sources published between 2003 and 2024, including translation-competence frameworks, digital-literacy frameworks and empirical studies of machine translation, generative AI and automated writing feedback. The thematic synthesis indicates that these tools can strengthen bilingual and linguistic awareness, expand lexical and phraseological options, accelerate feedback, support contrastive analysis and create authentic opportunities for post-editing. However, learning gains depend on instructional design. Uncritical use may produce automation bias, weakened source-text analysis, loss of authorship, inaccurate terminology, culturally inappropriate choices and privacy or academic-integrity problems. The article therefore proposes a human–AI translation cycle in which students first analyse and draft independently, then compare outputs from multiple tools, verify evidence, post-edit, justify decisions and document tool use. It concludes that AI should be treated neither as a prohibited shortcut nor as an autonomous translator, but as a fallible cognitive and linguistic resource embedded in explicit competence-based pedagogy.
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