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
Reproducir
Privacy and cookies

By watching, you agree app can share your viewership data for marketing and analytics for one year, revocable by deleting your cookies.

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."

Get in touch to learn how we can support your teaching

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.

Explore MyEnglishLab

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.

Read more of our language learning blog posts

More blogs from app

  • Business people stood together around a laptop in a office

    Learning English and employability

    Por Tas Viglatzis
    Reading time: 4 minutes

    English not only opens up career opportunities beyond national borders; it is a key requirement for many jobs. It’s also no longer a case of just learning English for employability, but mastering English for business – and that means an on-going commitment to learn.

    My experience is consistent with this trend. If I had to estimate the value that being fluent in English has had on my career, I'd say it was my entire life’s earnings. Learning English has offered me educational options beyond the borders of my own country and enabled me to develop the skills to work for global companies that operate across national boundaries. I have been privileged to work in different countries in roles that have spanned functions, geographies and markets – and my ability to learn and evolve my English skills has been an underlying factor throughout.

  • A teacher showing her students a globe, with her students looking at the globe, one with a magnifying glass in hand.

    What’s it like to teach English in Turkey?

    Por Steffanie Zazulak
    Reading time: 3 minutes

    Alice Pilkington qualified as a CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certified teacher in October 2009. She started working in Rome before moving to Istanbul, where she’s spent the past three and a half years teaching English to “everyone from 8-year-olds to company executives; students to bored housewives”. Having taught in two very different countries to a diverse range of English learners, Alice shares with us the five lessons she’s learned:

    1. Don't take things personally when you're teaching English

    "I am probably not emotionally suited for this job. I take everything very personally and if a lesson goes wrong or an activity I have taken time and energy to plan doesn’t work, I feel like a complete failure. It’s a trial and error experience but when things go wrong, they can go very wrong, and it really makes you doubt your abilities as a teacher.

    Having said that, the lessons that do go well can make up for these negative feelings. I shouldn’t take things personally; the majority of my colleagues don’t and it saves them a lot of sleepless nights"

    2. Teaching English is incredibly rewarding

    "There are very few feelings that I’ve experienced that compare to seeing a student use a word that you have taught them – it makes you feel like a proud parent. Equally, seeing a student improve over a series of months is so joyful.I have been teaching English university preparation students for the past year.

    In September, they could barely say what their name was and what they did over the weekend. Nine months on and they’re capable of reading academic texts and speaking at length about marketing strategies and environmental problems. It’s a wonderful thing to observe"

    3. Teach more than just English

    "Turkish students love hearing about how you appreciate their food and cultural traditions. Equally, they are genuinely interested in understanding how things operate in the UK and enjoy hearing personal anecdotes.I tend to be very open with my students – even about my personal life.I think it is partly because I have striven from the very beginning of my career to be seen as their equal.

    Turkish students are used to having a huge respect for teachers, and there is a hierarchical system in schools here, which I can never go along with. In my first lesson with most students, I tell them that they must call me by my first name (usually you refer to teachers here as ‘hocam’ which means ‘my teacher’ and shows respect) and this can take a long while for them to get used to."

    4. Failure to prepare is to prepare for failure... or is it?

    "Lessons that you spend hours preparing for generally don’t go as well as you had hoped. There were several times when I’d spend hours cutting and sticking things on pieces of card and placing pictures all over the classroom, hoping it would get some vocabulary action going, only to start the class and receive no response from the students.

    Conversely, lessons where you don’t feel very motivated or have no idea what you are going to do until you get into the classroom (which I call the ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ lessons) can turn out to be the best ones. I once had a lesson in which I was, admittedly, rather hungover. On the way to the lesson, I grabbed a book called ‘Taboos and Issues’, full of discussion topics, which I used as a basis for a rather impromptu lesson on addictions, which was very successful indeed."

    5. Teaching English isn't easy

    "Teaching English is a love/hate profession. There are weeks when you absolutely loathe it and want to quit, but then within the space of a lesson or two, you get inspired by something completely unexpected, rediscover your joy for it and love it again."

  • Children sat next to their teacher in a classroom, smiling at eachother

    Tailoring language learning for diverse needs with the GSE

    Por Heba Morsey
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    Why inclusive language teaching matters more than ever

    You’ve probably heard the word “inclusive” more and more in recent years, though I first encountered it over 20 years ago. (I say 20 because that’s when I graduated, and we had a course on diverse learners called “individual differences.” But back then, actually meeting their needs wasn’t nearly as comprehensive as it is today.)

    Today, learners come with a wide range of proficiency levels, cognitive styles, educational background, and personal goals. That’s why — it’s essential. In simple terms, inclusive teaching means making sure all learners feel they belong and can succeed.

    It calls for differentiated instruction, flexible assessment and learning materials that respect individual needs. That’s where the Global Scale of English (GSE) comes in.