How to make the most of AI in the classroom

Charlotte Guest
Reading time: 5 minutes

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept confined to science fiction. It has become an integral part of various sectors, including education. As educators, integrating AI into your classroom practices can enhance teaching and learning experiences, making them more personalized, efficient and engaging. Here’s how you can make the most of AI in your classroom.

Ways to use AI in teaching
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Activities chatbots can build/aid teachers with

Here are some ideas to help get you started with how you can prompt chatbots to help you:

Personalized prompts/stories

Use a chatbot to generate customized writing prompts tailored to the interests and skill levels of individual students. This encourages creative writing and critical thinking skills.

Example: "Write me a story about a professional gamer who finds a portal to another world, for a teenage English learner at A2 level."

Quizzes and assessments

Chatbots can create quizzes that adapt to the student’s level of understanding. These quizzes provide instant feedback, helping students learn from their mistakes and improve their knowledge in real-time. Note: Make sure you fact-check these quizzes before giving them to your class to ensure factual accuracy.

Example: "Create me a 10-question quiz to find the grammatical issue for learners of English who are at B1 level."

Lesson plan ideas

Teachers can ask chatbots to suggest new and innovative lesson plan ideas. The chatbot can incorporate multimedia elements and interactive components to make lessons more engaging.

Example: "Provide me with lesson plan ideas for teenagers learning about English verbs at a B2 level, involving videos."

Debates and discussions

Facilitate virtual debates or discussions where the chatbot presents different points of view on a topic. This helps students develop their argumentation and critical thinking skills.

Example: "Provide me some starting discussion points and opinions about which country has the best food."

Homework help and study assistance

Chatbots can serve as students' round-the-clock homework assistants, answering their questions and providing explanations on various topics. This is especially beneficial for students who might need extra help outside of classroom hours. Also, you might come across a topic or concept that is a challenge to explain to a certain knowledge level, and this can be a great way to get ideas on how to explain it.

Example: "Explain the water cycle to a ten-year-old student."

Reading recommendations

Chatbots can provide tailored reading suggestions based on each student’s reading level and interests, fostering a love for reading and improving literacy skills.

Example: "Recommend five books for a 12-year-old interested in space exploration, who reads at a B1 level."

Classroom management

AI can help manage classroom logistics, such as taking attendance, organizing group activities, and tracking student progress. This allows teachers to focus more on instruction and less on administrative tasks.

Example: "Create a seating chart for a class of 25 students, grouping them by their learning preferences."

Making content accessible for diverse learners

AI can be incredibly effective in helping to reword or reformat content so it is easier to read and understand for students who learn differently. This can be particularly useful for students with learning disabilities, non-fluent speakers, or those who simply have different learning preferences.

  • Speech recognition: Tools like Voiceitt help students with speech impairments communicate more effectively.
  • Simplifying language: AI tools can rephrase complex sentences into simpler language, making the content more accessible. For example, a chatbot can take a scientific text and break it down into more straightforward, jargon-free language that is easier for students to comprehend.
  • Visual representations: AI can generate visual aids such as diagrams, charts and infographics to represent information more clearly. Visual content can often make abstract concepts easier to grasp, especially for visual learners.
  • Multisensory learning: Tools powered by AI can convert text into audio, allowing students to listen to the content instead of reading it. This is particularly beneficial for auditory learners and students with visual impairments. Additionally, these tools can highlight text as it reads aloud, creating a multisensory learning experience.
  • Customized explanations: Chatbots can offer different explanations of the same concept, catering to various learning styles. If a student doesn’t understand the initial explanation, the AI can provide alternative ways to explain the concept, ensuring better comprehension.

By using AI to adapt content to meet individual learning needs, educators can create a more inclusive and effective learning environment for all students.

A platform to support your teaching needs

As well as AI tools, MyEnglishLab (MEL) can also help support your teaching. MEL is an online platform designed to support English language learning and teaching. It delivers personalized learning experiences for students and provides educators with a suite of tools to manage and enhance classroom learning.

Immediate feedback: This immediate evaluation helps students understand their mistakes and learn from them swiftly, reinforcing the correct usage of language concepts.

Progress tracking: Both students and teachers benefit from detailed progress tracking. Educators can monitor individual and class performance, identifying areas where students may need additional support. Students can track their own progress, set personal goals and take ownership of their learning journey.

Teacher resources: These resources include ready-made exercises, lesson ideas and multimedia content that can be easily integrated into the classroom setting.

Flexibility and convenience: The platform offers the flexibility to learn anytime, anywhere. This is particularly beneficial for students who may need to balance their studies with other commitments. Teachers can also manage coursework and communicate with students outside traditional classroom hours.

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence holds significant potential to revolutionize the classroom, making teaching more efficient and learning more personalized and engaging. By automating administrative tasks, enhancing student engagement and supporting special educational needs, AI provides invaluable assistance to educators.

However, it's crucial to remember that AI should be viewed as a supplementary tool that enhances and inspires, not as a replacement for the essential role of human teachers. The unique value that teachers bring through their experience, emotional intelligence and personal interaction is irreplaceable. By thoughtfully integrating AI into the educational process, educators can harness its strengths while maintaining the heart and soul of teaching.

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    It’s important to note that CLIL is not a means of simplifying content or reteaching something students already know in a new language. CLIL courses should truly integrate the language and content in order to be successful – and success is determined when both the subject matter and language is learned.

    Who is CLIL for?

    CLIL can work for students of any age, all the way from primary level to university and beyond. So long as the course content and language aims are designed with the students’ needs in mind, there is no limit as to who can benefit from this teaching approach. However, it is most commonly found in primary and secondary school contexts.

    What are the main benefits of CLIL?

    Many teachers see CLIL as a more natural way to learn a language; when a subject is taught in that language there is a concrete reason to learn both at the same time. And as students have a real context to learn the language in, they are often more motivated to do so, as they can only get the most of the content if they understand the language around it.

    Moreover, being content focused, CLIL classes add an extra dimension to the class and engage students, which is especially advantageous in situations where students are unenthusiastic about learning a language.

    CLIL also promotes a deeper level of assimilation, as students are repeatedly exposed to similar language and language functions, and they need to produce and recall information in their second language.

    Furthermore, it has the advantage that multiple subjects can be taught in English, so that students’ exposure to the language is increased and their language acquisition is faster.

    CLIL also encourages students to develop 21st century skills, including the ability to think critically, be creative, communicate and collaborate.

    What are the challenges of CLIL?

    As CLIL is subject-focused, language teachers may also have to develop their own knowledge of new subjects in order to teach effectively.

    They must also structure classes carefully so that the students understand the content of the lesson, as well as the language through which the information is being conveyed.

    And when it comes to classroom management, educators need to be very aware of individual student understanding and progress.

    It’s therefore important to consistently concept check and scaffold the materials to be sure both the language and content are being learned.

    How can you apply CLIL to your class?

    It’s important to have a strategy in place when applying CLIL in your courses. One of the key things to remember is that the language and subject content are given equal weight and that it shouldn’t be treated as a language class nor a subject class simply taught in a foreign language.

    According to Coyle’s 4Cs curriculum (1999), a successful CLIL class should include the following four elements:

    • Content – Progression in knowledge, skills and understanding related to specific elements of a defined curriculum
    • Communication – Using language to learn whilst learning to use language
    • Cognition – Developing thinking skills which link concept formation (abstract and concrete), understanding and language
    • Culture – Exposure to alternative perspectives and shared understandings, which deepen awareness of otherness and self

    Using a number of frameworks can help you prepare your lessons and make sure activities are challenging yet achievable for your learners.

    Bloom’s Taxonomy, for example, classifies learning objectives in education and puts skills in a hierarchy, from Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) to Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS).

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    How to use praise to motivate your students

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    Praise in the classroom is a valuable resource that every teacher has in their toolbox.It can encourage struggling students and reward learners who have been studying diligently and working hard on their language skills.

    But not all types of praise have the same effect. Let’s take a look at different types of praise and how you can use it to boost your learners’ motivation andself-esteem.

    Different types of praise in the classroom

    There are three types of praise that teachers commonly engage in - but they’re not all equal and are not all desirable:

    • Personal praise: Here you praise a student for a specific ability or quality. For example, you might say something like,“You have a great memory for vocabulary”.
    • Effort-based praise: Thisis when you comment on a student’s efforts. For example, you could say,“I can see you tried really hard with this vocabulary homework – well done.”
    • Behavior-based praise:This type of praiseis where you comment on how a student is acting, an example would be,“You were really paying attention during the vocabulary lesson – good job.”

    So how – and when – should we use these types of praise in the classroom?

    Try not to praise ability

    The first type of praise – personal praise – should be avoided in the classroom.has shown that this type of praise doesn’t have a beneficial effect on motivation.

    In fact, praise for intelligence actually has a detrimental effect on student achievement. When students were praised for their intelligence, they tended to care more about their performance goals – the score they achieved on a test, for example. Learning goals, like mastering a new skill, became less important to them.

    Moreover, personal praise has been shown to undermine student resilience in the face of failure. Students showed less persistence when it came to challenging tasks and less enjoyment of the challenge. They also performed more poorly than children praised for effort.

    Furthermore, when you praise students for their ability, they also tend to see intelligence or aptitude as a fixed trait. However, students who are praised for effort are more likely to see ability as something they can improve on. This feeds into the development of a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset.It’s important toinstilla growth mindset in learners to enable them to reach their full potential.

    How to praise effort and behavior

    When it comes to praising effort and behavior, what’s the most effective way to do it? Here are some techniques to employ:

    1. Be specific

    General praise such as “Good job” isn’t nearly as effective as a comment that shows you’ve been paying attention to what the student is doing. A precise compliment will make a much bigger impact on a student, for example:“I was really impressed at how hard you concentrated during the listening exercise. Well done.”

    2. Give praise in the moment

    Immediate praise doesn’t need to be disruptive, but it shows students that you are paying attention and noticing good behavior and effort.

    3. Avoid comparisons with other students

    Instead of saying, “You got the best mark in the class – well done!” say something like,“You got a really high score in the reading test. Your hard work has really paid off this term.”

    4. Keep track of praise

    Before your class, choose three or four students you’re going to praise that day. That way, you can be sure that each and every student will benefit from the motivational power of effective classroom praise!

    5. Personalize your praise, depending on the student

    Young students enjoy being praised publicly, but shy students, older children and teenagers prefer positive feedback to be given quietly.

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    5 spooky ideas for your primary classes this Halloween

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    It’s almost Halloween, and the ghosts and vampires will soon be coming out to play. Did you know that although we often associate Halloween with pumpkin carving and eating candy, the festival has much older origins?

    is an ancient Gaelic festival that celebrates the end of the harvest and the start of winter. This is why people often associate the colors of orange and black with Halloween: orange is the color many leaves turn in autumn and black is the color of the darker winter months.

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    1. ‘Pumpkin’ oranges

    Pumpkin carving is fun - but it’s also messy and pumpkins can be really heavy. Instead, bring in an orange for each student and give them a black marker pen. Get them to draw a scary face on their orange and then write a short text describing it.

    My pumpkin orange, Ghoulie, has two big eyes. He’s got a small nose and a big mouth, with lots of teeth. This Halloween, he’s going to sit outside my house. He’s going to scare people but he doesn’t scare me. I think he’s very funny.

    2. Bat fishing

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    Attach a paper clip to each bat and put them on the floor, with the questions face down. Then attach a magnet to a piece of string.

    Divide the class into teams and have students take turns to fish a bat from the floor. When they catch a bat using the magnet, a student from another team asks them the question written on the bat. If the team can answer correctly, they keep the bat. If they don’t answer correctly, the bat goes back on the floor.

    When all the bats have been fished, the team with the most wins.

    3. Haunted house dictation

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    Next, give students an outline of a house with the rooms labeled, but without any furniture. Then dictate a sentence to the students and have them draw what you say on their individual houses. For example, ‘In the kitchen, there’s a big cupboard. In the cupboard, there’s a witch.’ Or, ‘In the living room, there’s an old sofa. A zombie is sitting on the sofa.’

    You can then divide the class into pairs or small groups and have them take turns dictating sentences to each other. When they finish, they can compare their pictures and then write a short story about their haunted houses.

    4. Trick-or-treat board game

    Draw a 7x5 grid on card and add Start and Finish squares. Number the other squares so the students know what direction to move in. Then, on some of the squares write Trick and on some of the other squares write Treat. Finally, prepare a set of ‘trick’ and ‘treat’ cards for each group. (There are some ideas for tricks and treats below).

    Before students play, teach them some phrases to use while playing the game. For example:

    • Whose turn is it?
    • It’s my turn.
    • Roll the dice.
    • Who’s winning?

    Then divide the class into groups of four and give each group a board, a set of ‘trick-or-treat’ cards, a dice and a counter. Have them take turns to roll the dice and move. If they land on a Trickor Treat square, they have to take a card and do what it says. Then they put the card at the bottom of the pile.The winner is the first person to reach the Finish square.

    Ideas for ‘trick’ cards

    • Go back 3 squares
    • Miss a turn
    • Go back to the start
    • Count down from 10 to 1 in English
    • Say the alphabet backwards (Z, Y, X…)
    • Laugh like a witch
    • Pretend to be a ghost

    Ideas for ‘treat’ cards

    • Go forward two spaces
    • Roll again
    • Go forward five spaces
    • Choose someone to miss a turn

    5. Spooky stories

    Are your students bored of celebrating Halloween every year? Mix things up with stories or readers. Allowing their imagination to run wild. There are lots of you can use or get inspiration from, creating your own. If you want your pupils more involved you could also have them make or take part in your very own 'create your own adventure' spooky story.

    After reading the story, have your students create comic strips of different parts of the book and display them around the classroom. If your students prefer theatrics, get them to act out or sing parts of the story.