When the TOEFL iBT changed in January 2026, the challenge for teachers was not simply learning a few new question types. The update changed the relationship between test preparation, classroom practice, and digital tools.
The updated TOEFL iBT introduced a multistage adaptive design for Reading and Listening, new task types across all four sections, more contemporary academic and campus-related content, and a new 1 to 6 scoring scale aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
For teachers, this raises an interesting question: how much of the preparation process can generative AI actually support?
After experimenting with ChatGPT while adapting my own TOEFL lessons, I have found that the answer is neither “everything” nor “nothing.” AI can be extremely useful for generating practice materials, creating variations of activities, differentiating tasks, and supporting formative feedback. But it works best when the teacher remains responsible for task selection, accuracy, pedagogy, and final evaluation.
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The 2026 TOEFL Requires a Different Approach to Materials
The updated TOEFL iBT is not simply a shorter version of the previous test.
ETS describes the updated test as a more efficient and personalized assessment. Reading and Listening are multistage adaptive, while the content includes more modern academic and real-life contexts. Reading includes Complete the Words, Read in Daily Life, and Read an Academic Passage. Listening includes Listen and Choose a Response, Listen to a Conversation, Listen to an Announcement, and Listen to an Academic Talk. Writing includes Build a Sentence, Write an Email, and Write for an Academic Discussion. Speaking includes Listen and Repeat and Take an Interview.
This matters when using AI. A teacher can no longer simply ask ChatGPT to “make a TOEFL lesson” and assume that the result reflects the current examination. The prompt needs to specify the current task type, target skill, level, timing, response requirements, and learning objective.
In other words, the teacher’s expertise has become more important, not less.
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Where ChatGPT Is Particularly Useful
One of the most practical applications of ChatGPT is producing controlled variations of material that the teacher has already designed.
Suppose I have created a short academic passage for a B2 student. I can ask ChatGPT to produce a second version using slightly more advanced vocabulary, another version with greater sentence complexity, or a vocabulary exercise based on the same text.
The same principle works across TOEFL preparation. AI can help teachers create additional practice sentences, vocabulary activities, reading texts, comprehension questions, campus announcements, academic listening scripts, interview questions, sentence-building exercises, email-writing scenarios, Academic Discussion prompts, model responses, and error-analysis activities.
The important point is that these should be treated as teacher-generated drafts, not automatically as authentic TOEFL content.
ETS’s official materials remain the appropriate reference point for understanding the actual examination. AI can help teachers create additional practice around those specifications, but an invented AI activity is not an official TOEFL task.
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Reading: Targeted Practice Rather Than Random Text Generation
The updated Reading section contains several distinct types of reading activity. Complete the Words requires learners to work with incomplete words in context, Read in Daily Life reflects practical reading situations, and Read an Academic Passage focuses on academic reading.
This gives teachers several opportunities to use ChatGPT for targeted language work.
Rather than asking AI to produce a random TOEFL passage, I might ask it to create a short academic text containing a controlled set of target vocabulary and then develop exercises requiring students to infer meaning from context, identify relationships between ideas, or distinguish between similar terms.
Another useful technique is same text, different difficulty. The teacher can keep the topic constant while changing vocabulary, sentence structure, information density, or question difficulty.
However, teacher review remains essential. AI-generated texts can contain inaccurate facts, awkward phrasing, or questions that do not test the intended skill.
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Listening: AI Can Now Produce the Audio Too
ChatGPT can generate scripts for campus announcements, conversations, and academic talks, and current AI tools can also turn generated text into spoken audio.
That makes it possible to move from an idea to a usable listening activity much faster. I can create a short academic talk, generate an audio track, and then use the same material for note-taking, comprehension questions, vocabulary work, and follow-up activities.
The audio can still sound somewhat robotic, so I would not present AI-generated recordings as substitutes for official ETS listening materials. As supplementary practice, however, they can be extremely useful.
The real advantage is flexibility. I can create easier and more demanding versions of a listening activity, vary the topic, and produce additional practice without having to record every script myself.
As with written material, AI-generated audio should be treated as supplementary practice rather than an exact reproduction of the TOEFL. Official ETS resources should remain the reference point for familiarizing students with the actual test.
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Speaking: A Major Reason to Update Your AI Prompts
The Speaking section is one area where outdated AI-generated TOEFL materials can cause serious problems.
The 2026 Speaking section contains two task types: Listen and Repeat and Take an Interview. Listen and Repeat asks test takers to listen to short sentences and reproduce them. Take an Interview involves responding to questions in a simulated academic or campus-related interview.
For Listen and Repeat, ChatGPT can help teachers generate sentences at appropriate levels of complexity. These can be used to practise listening accuracy, short-term processing, pronunciation, rhythm, and intelligibility.
For Take an Interview, AI can generate sequences of interview questions around academic or campus situations. Students can practise responding without the teacher having to invent a new interview every time.
A useful classroom sequence is:
AI-generated question → student response → teacher observation → targeted correction → second attempt
ChatGPT can assist with the first and fourth stages. The teacher remains particularly important for evaluating the student’s actual spoken performance.
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Writing: AI as a Revision Partner
The updated Writing section contains Build a Sentence, Write an Email, and Write for an Academic Discussion. Build a Sentence tests the ability to arrange words or phrases into a grammatical sentence or question. Write an Email focuses on communicating clearly for a specific purpose, while Write for an Academic Discussion asks students to contribute to an online academic discussion by expressing and supporting an idea.
These tasks lend themselves well to short, repeated practice.
ChatGPT can generate sentence-building exercises targeting the same grammatical structure, different email scenarios, and Academic Discussion prompts. It can also create deliberately weak responses for students to analyse and revise.
This can be more useful pedagogically than simply giving students a polished AI-generated answer to copy.
But Should We Trust ChatGPT’s Feedback?
This is where some of the enthusiasm surrounding AI needs to be tempered.
Research into ChatGPT and language education is growing, but researchers have also identified limitations, particularly around feedback quality and the need for human oversight. A 2024 systematic review found that ChatGPT is being explored for areas including self-directed learning, content generation, and teacher workflows, while also identifying important gaps in the evidence base.
Research comparing human and ChatGPT feedback on student writing has also found that human feedback can be stronger across several evaluated dimensions, while AI offers clear advantages in speed and scalability.
That suggests a more sensible classroom model:
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AI-assisted feedback, teacher-controlled evaluation.
ChatGPT can identify possible grammar problems, suggest alternative vocabulary, comment on organization, or offer revision ideas. The teacher should decide which suggestions are accurate, relevant, and appropriate for the learner.
A fluent-sounding AI explanation is not automatically a correct one.
The Teacher’s Role Changes, Rather Than Disappears
The strongest argument for AI in TOEFL teaching is not that it replaces teachers. It is that it can reduce some of the repetitive work surrounding teaching.
Teachers can use AI to create variations of exercises, rewrite examples for different proficiency levels, prepare additional practice, and generate revision activities. This can leave more time for diagnosing learner difficulties, teaching strategies, observing performance, giving individualized feedback, and managing meaningful interaction.
UNESCO similarly advocates a human-centred approach to generative AI in education, including attention to pedagogical design, ethical use, privacy, and human oversight.
The most useful question is therefore not:
“Can ChatGPT teach TOEFL?”
A better question is:
“Which parts of TOEFL teaching can ChatGPT help me do more efficiently?”
A Practical AI Workflow for TOEFL Teachers
I have found that a simple workflow is more useful than asking AI to generate an entire lesson in one prompt.
Start with the official task. Identify exactly what students need to practise.
Define the learning objective. Decide whether the focus is comprehension, vocabulary, sentence structure, speaking delivery, written communication, or another specific skill.
Ask AI for controlled material. Specify the level, task type, length, language focus, and difficulty.
Check everything. Read every AI-generated text, question, answer key, explanation, and model response.
Teach and observe. Use the resource as part of a teacher-led lesson and identify what the student actually needs.
Generate targeted follow-up practice. Use AI to create additional activities based on the student’s specific weaknesses.
This workflow is much safer and more useful than treating ChatGPT as an automatic TOEFL course generator.
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What AI Cannot Reliably Do for You
Teachers should not assume that an AI-generated task accurately reproduces the current TOEFL or treat ChatGPT as an infallible examiner.
The technology also does not remove the need to understand assessment. If a teacher does not understand what a task is designed to measure, a sophisticated prompt will not solve the problem.
In fact, AI can make a poorly designed lesson look polished.
That is one of the most important risks of AI-assisted teaching.
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What the 2026 TOEFL Means for AI-Assisted Preparation
The updated TOEFL iBT gives teachers an opportunity to rethink how preparation materials are created.
The examination now has clearly defined contemporary task types across Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing, while Reading and Listening use a multistage adaptive design and the new score scale connects performance to CEFR proficiency levels.
ChatGPT can support teachers by making it faster to create additional practice around these skills. It can generate variations, provide starting points for activities, help differentiate materials, create audio practice, and support revision.
But the most effective model is not AI instead of the teacher.
It is AI plus teacher expertise.
The teacher defines the objective. AI helps produce possibilities. The teacher checks them. Students use the material. The teacher observes what happens and decides what should come next.
For TOEFL teachers working with the 2026 format, the real opportunity is therefore not to automate teaching. It is to make preparation more flexible while keeping professional judgment at the centre of the process.
Check out Eliza English
References
ETS. TOEFL iBT Test Content and Structure.
ETS. TOEFL iBT Speaking Section.
ETS. TOEFL iBT Writing Section.
Teng, M. F. (2024). Research on ChatGPT and feedback in EFL writing.
Li, M., et al. (2024). Research comparing human and ChatGPT feedback.
UNESCO. Guidance for Generative AI in Education and Research.
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