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.
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Here are some ideas to help get you started with how you can prompt chatbots to help you:
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."
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."
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."
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."
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."
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."
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."
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.
By using AI to adapt content to meet individual learning needs, educators can create a more inclusive and effective learning environment for all students.
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.
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.
English is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world, but how much do you know about the language? Here are 11 facts about Englishthat you might not know.
Students all over the globe learn English for many reasons. Some of these motivations may come from the students themselves – perhaps they are learning because they are travelling to an English-speaking area, or they want to be able to converse with English-speaking friends and colleagues. Other reasons for learning could include meeting school requirements, studying abroad, or progressing their careers.
As well as different reasons to learn English, there are also different goals. Many students are still focused on becoming fluent in English, and we are seeing an increase in people who want to learn the language for specific reasons. For example, immersing themselves in a particular culture or simply being able to order from a menu while travelling abroad.
Teachers are focusing on these personal needs to help students achieve their actual goals. It’s likely you’ve already spoken to your students about why they want to learn English. Understanding this is important as different motivations can influence a student’s attitude towards learning the language – and it may be necessary for you to adapt your teaching strategies for different groups of learners.
Let’s meet some different groups of students, learn a little more about their motivations and explore whether different motivations alter how students learn English. You may recognise some of these learners in your classes.
These students are learning English for pleasure or personal reasons. It might be because of travel, social or family reasons or perhaps because a better grasp of English might assist them with their careers. There are also adult learners who could be learning English as an immigration requirement.
For example, 23-year-old Alice decided to learn English so she could meet people and have more meaningful interactions with her English-speaking neighbours. She says: “I was very shy and not very confident in speaking to people, but learning English helped me connect with others and meet new people. I have changed a lot.”
A motivation like Alice’s requires strong teacher support and peer motivation woven into structured learning. Alice can set her goals and with the GSE Learning Objectives map out what she needs to do to achieve them. Teacher encouragement and personal support – and easy access to digital coursework, a social community of others all learning English, and small classes that emphasise conversation – keep people like Alice engaged and motivated to achieve her language goals. “I cannot do it without them”, she says.
These learners are typically in a more formal type of English programme and are learning the language to achieve specific career milestones, such as a promotion. Their employer might even be paying for their learning or they might be reimbursed for the cost of their lessons.
Vincenzo is 33 and works as a Product Manager in Milan for an international organization with offices around the world. He says: “I asked to take English classes as part of my professional development. My company chose an English provider and gave me a choice of group or one-to-one classes. I chose one-to-one classes as I’m easily distracted.”
Professional learners like Vincenzo succeed using a blended learning model of learning in class and at home that they can tailor around their lives. They have a strong motivation to succeed – that’s why learning at home works for them – but step-by-step progress provided by the GSE Learning Objectives is also important to keep this motivation alive. “I met with my teacher once a week where we would work on mistakes I would make while speaking English. He would also give me extra practice materials, like interesting games and videos to listen to in my own time, to help me really get a better understanding of the language,” Vincenzo says.
Learning English is a requirement for many school programmes and students will continue this at college or university. Many of these students will be learning English with a formal course that offers practice tests for high-stakes exams.
Seventeen-year-old Subra is from Malaysia and learns English at school. Some of her family live in Australia and she is considering studying abroad to attend a University that specializes in health care. When she was young, she learned in a traditional classroom backed with tests that helped her see how she was progressing. Now she uses technology, such as her Android Huawei phone to practise her English but still needs the validation of regular testing to know she is on track.
Subrasays: “I am used to studying for tests as I prepared hard for exams to get into middle school and senior school, which was totally determined by test results.”
Academic learners like Subra need to see demonstrable results to help them stay motivated and guide them to the level of English they need to achieve to get the required score on high-stakes tests. With the clear GSE Learning Objectives and a placement test, academic learners can map out where they are right now and where they need to be in order to reach their academic goals. These learners need encouragement and validation of their progress from their teachers to help keep them on track.
Understanding student motivations will help you teach to their specific needs, thus helping them to stay focused and motivated in achieving their goals.
A shared language is central to many families, and this can carry extra meaning when your children are growing up in a country that speaks a different language. It's not just about words; it's about culture, identity and connection. If you'd like to teach your kids the language that holds a special place in your heart, here are some tips to get you started.
