Events

December 17, 2025

• Time to TALK

12.17 Report from the 2025 Symposium on Second Language Writing

Speaker Bio

Manuel Senna IV

Manuel Senna IV holds a PhD in Education with a specialization in Writing, Rhetoric and Composition Studies. They have been teaching and researching academic writing since 2003, focusing on whatever questions tickles them at the moment, but generally focusing on multimodal writing, writing with technology, and teacher feedback/student revision.

Manuel joined The University of Tokyo in 2021 where they primarily teach academic writing to first-year students at the Center for Global Education.

Abstract

In this talk, I will present my experiences at the 2025 Symposium on Second-Language Writing (SSLW), which is the primary international gathering of second-language writing researchers and practitioners. The theme this year was “Second Language Writing Teacher Education in the AI Era”, but presentations ran the gamut of AI and non-AI-related topics. I will talk about what I learned and questions I still have about the use of AI in and out of the classroom. Of great interest to me was the discussion centered around university and classroom AI policies. Since AI advances so quickly and its capabilities change on a regular basis, university policies made at the beginning of the AI explosion (mostly in early 2023) have not kept pace with advancements and the realities of student use. I will also present on how I plan to implement what I learned from the conference into my own coursework here at UTokyo, especially regarding the creation of AI contracts with students, and adjustments to lessons that could potentially curb student temptation to cheat using AI. Finally, I will briefly describe my own experience presenting at SSLW about my own UTokyo students using AI for revision of their final drafts.

Contact

gfd-tokyo@adm.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp