Artificial Intelligence in Literature-Based Creative Writing: A Study with Story Live and AI Dungeon

Technology integration is becoming increasingly popular in advanced EFL teaching. This study aims to investigate the efficacy of Story Live and AI Dungeon bots in improving Saudi EFL learners’ writing in English literature. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining tests to evaluate the impact of the tools with a survey to gauge student perceptions. The quantitative data were supported by semi-structured interviews conducted with 8 volunteering participants. The AI tools used in this study are Story Live and AI Dungeon integrated into the teacher’s pedagogy, facilitated by the researchers through the planned writing activities. The sample comprised 24 high-achiever EFL learners enrolled in the elective writing course at Imam Mohammad Bin Saud Islamic University, KSA. Descriptive and inferential statistics, along with thematic analysis of the interviews, were used to assess the outcomes. The findings indicate that both AI Dungeon and Story Live add value to the literature-based creative writing class for Saudi EFL learners.  When using AI tools that respond to prompts, learners tend to  perform better in tasks that require guided writing with specific morphological and syntactic features. Moreover, these interventions had a significant impact on learners' performance. Learners’ mean scores showed improvement from 35.79 in the pretest to 41.16 on the post-test, (Sig. = 0.000). Results indicated that students have high positive perceptions on the impact of SL and AID in developing their creative writing skills in the English Literature classroom. The study recommends the integration of AI tools into language learning and teaching practices to enhance students' linguistic and creative competence.