TITLE:
Pre-Service English Teachers’ AI Literacy: Status, Challenges, and Enhancement Strategies
AUTHORS:
Wen Gong
KEYWORDS:
AI Literacy, Pre-Service English Teachers, Teacher Education, TPACK
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.14 No.3,
March
10,
2026
ABSTRACT: In the era of educational digital transformation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy has emerged as a critical competence for teacher professional development. This study investigates the status, structural characteristics, and influencing factors of AI literacy among 315 pre-service English teachers—an underexplored context. Drawing on empirical data and employing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), the research reveals a distinctive “attitude-leading, skills-lagging” pattern: participants demonstrate strong ethical awareness and human-centered educational values but comparatively weak technical application competence. Results indicate that teaching internship experience acts as a catalyst for higher overall AI literacy. Furthermore, the PLS-SEM analysis confirms a developmental trajectory where AI cognition functions as a foundational driver for technical application, while ethical awareness fosters pedagogical innovation, which in turn significantly promotes continuous professional development. These findings suggest that sustainable AI literacy is achieved through an integrated pathway of cognitive understanding, ethical grounding, and practice-mediated innovation, providing empirical evidence for reforming teacher preparation programs in resource-constrained regions.