As Generative AI (GenAI) expands in language teacher education, a considerable gap persists between pre-service teachers’ declarative AI literacy and real-time execution under cognitive load (TPACK-in-Action). To address initial self-assessment inflation and uncritical algorithmic reliance, this study implemented an AI-self-assessment coordination loop (ASACL) framework. Utilizing an embedded single-case design (N = 7), Korean pre-service teachers were tracked across four lesson plan iterations (L1 to L4) featuring instructor macro-scaffolding and GenAI Socratic micro-scaffolding. Quantitative findings via a 33-point rubric revealed meaningful expert-evaluated quality gains (ML1 = 24.6 -> ML4 = 29.6, Gain = +5.0) alongside metacognitive calibration, narrowing the perceptual discrepancy gap from 1.58 to 0.25. Qualitative analysis of the discourse data showed three developmental themes: (1) Socratic counter-questions triggered metacognitive dissonance; (2) participants exercised epistemic agency through dialectic negotiation and philosophical rejections of context-blind machine outputs; and (3) external scaffolding faded, consolidating pedagogical sovereignty. These findings demonstrate that when GenAI is algorithmically constrained as a Socratic thinking mirror rather than an automated script generator, pre-service teachers evolve from passive algorithmic consumers into reflective, pedagogically capable designers. This study provides empirically verified design principles for operationalizing GenAI in language teacher education.

Fostering Foreign Language Pre-serviceTeachers’ Lesson Design Competence throughAI-Self-Assessment Coordination Loop
I. Introduction
II. Theoretical Background
III. Research Methods
    1. Participants
    2. Class Setting and Research Procedure
    3. Data Collection
    4. Data Analysis
IV. Results and Discussion
    1. Development of Lesson Design Competence through the ASACL
    2. Interactional Mechanics and Perceptual Alignment in AI-HumanDiscourse
V. Conclusion and Pedagogical Implications
References
APPENDIX

• Kyong-Hyon Pyo(Dept of English, Professor, Dankook University)