Abstract
The increasing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into teaching and learning has emerged as a transformative force in education, calling for an understanding of how teachers adapt these technologies. This study investigates how Libyan EFL instructors in higher education perceive and adopt AI-assisted lesson planning, extending the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with Creative Enhancement as an additional construct. A questionnaire was administered to 60 Libyan EFL instructors. The questionnaire comprised 23 Likert-scale items operationalising five TAM constructs: Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), Creative Enhancement (CE), Concerns/Ambivalence, and Behavioral Intention (BI), alongside a Verification Behaviour item and four open-ended qualitative questions. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, one-sample t-tests, Pearson correlations, independent-samples t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and deductive content analysis. All five constructs were rated significantly above the neutral midpoint, with BI recording the highest composite mean (M = 4.06) and verification behaviour the highest single item mean in the study (M = 4.40). Time-saving was the dominant perceived benefit (68.3% of open-ended responses), while over-reliance was the leading concern (48.3%). A positive correlation between Concerns and BI (r = .420, p < .001) indicated that ethical awareness and adoption intent coexist rather than conflict. No significant differences were found by gender or teaching experience. Libyan EFL instructors demonstrate a pattern of adoption with ambivalence, receptive to AI tools yet critically vigilant about their outputs. The study extends TAM by supporting the Creative Enhancement construct and challenges the assumption that concerns suppress adoption, proposing instead that ambivalence is constitutive of responsible professional AI use. Implications for AI-focused professional development and institutional policy in Libyan higher education are discussed.