Can Artificial Intelligence Really Support Students Gaining Language Proficiency in The Classroom?
by Sarah Said
Months ago, I was sitting at my dinner table and my sons and husband were going on and on about this thing called ChatGPT. I thought they were speaking another language. Then, those same words were showing up on my Twitter. Great, a new buzzword I knew nothing about! I did some research and at first I was SCARED! I kept reading blogs and posts about this fear that Artificial Intelligence would take over the world and do everything for everyone. I wouldn’t touch it in my classroom because it made me nervous.
When we are thinking about education, we are thinking about creating supports for students that lead to college and career readiness, right? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is prevalent in the news as a tool across industries. . Since AI seems to be an inevitable part of the future workplace, our students need to learn how to use it appropriately and responsibly. As educators we need to keep up with this world. As educators who support students with accessing stronger language proficiency, we need to teach our students how to navigate AI by incorporating it into our classroom setting. I teach high school and many of my students work and support family businesses with one foot already in the career world.My own students told me that they do use Chat GPT on a regular basis, not just to support them in school work, but in their own lives.
Let me reiterate, when ChatGPT came out, the sentence “This is surely cringy,” popped up in my mind. But, the more that I have dabbled into OpenAI, I have learned to embrace the fact that it does exist. There are apps that I use in my classroom regularly that have incorporated Artificial Intelligence into their settings. For example, when Google Translate surfaced more than a decade ago in the language education world, we didn’t just cringe, we gagged. Yet Google improved their application with the support of linguists over the years and we have found ways to make Google Translate work in our classroom with caution to help support students.
Here are some definitions if you’re still not understanding this whole Artificial Intelligence world. It took me a while to really grasp the lingo of this technology breakthrough.
Artificial intelligence is the concept that machines have the ability to perform human functions such as a self-driving car, recognizing speech, image and video analysis, and functions in finance like fraud detection and accounting. Obviously, there are concerns about accuracy- that’s with anything tech driven really.
OpenAI is a research organization that is headed by many corporate bigwigs; one of them used to be the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk. They are developing ways that all people can have access to artificial intelligence. One of their developments is a language model of GPT-3, GPT- 3.5 and GPT-4 with the chatbot of ChatGPT. They are a for-profit organization. The free version only lets you ask three questions a day.
ChatGPT is a chatbot that in a sense can have a conversation with someone about information through the answering of questions. ChatGPT is pretty much very similar to a search engine, but instead of giving you websites for information it just answers the questions you have. You need to have an OpenAI account (which is free with limitations) to access ChatGPT. Bard is the Google version of ChatGPT.
Yes, it seems like another language and world but really it’s more practical and easy than we realize. Here are some tips for making the most of it in your classroom:
Using AI to Teach the Structure of Language
To start with, you can open a free OpenAI account. I wouldn’t recommend asking students to open accounts just because for students to use an application your school needs to have a SOPPA agreement with any company that is utilizing student data. Unless your school district allows students to sign up, they really can’t.
The way I have used ChatGPT in teaching language is that I have actually asked questions about the topics that we are learning about or researching. Then, I type them into ChatGPT and put my screen up on our TV for students to see. From here, we can analyze how questions are answered. We even deconstruct sentences to and discuss whether or not the sentences are structured appropriately. It’s almost like using the research from Lily Wong Fillmore’s Jui and language diving content you get from ChatGPT. In this way, ChatGPT not only helps teach language, but it teaches kids how chatbot language is structured and we have a discussion on what differences we see.
Teaching Kids That AI isn’t Always Going To Be What They Want
One day, I got really excited that Graphic Design application Canva added an Artificial Intelligence feature called Magic Write. Woohoo! Now, I used it to help me write an assignment explanation on a “flier”. Wow! My work was a hot mess. No offense to Canva or Artificial Intelligence, but this is where I get into what I call “the old school Google Translate argument.” It’s not going to be what you want it to be. It can help you save some time, but it won’t do the whole job for you. Artificial Intelligence is not real human intelligence.
As someone who was in a position where I was asked to translate documents into Arabic and Spanish, that takes a lot of time. My translations also could have been better. So, I started the translations with Google Translate then took time to change and edit. Yes, sometimes it was a mess, but I got translations done. This is how we can use features like Magic Write on Canva. It isn’t always going to be what we want it to be, but we have to work with it.
Now with my students, I was able to show them this and it discourages them from using it to do the work for them. Do they use features like this to help them get started? Yes, but they know it doesn’t get them exactly what they want so they go through a process with using features like this.
Using AI To Facilitate Discussions
Just like we can use ChatGPT to analyze language, we can use it to facilitate discussions. My district is a district that works with Instructional Empowerment on Academic Teaming and having students really learn through engaging discussions with each other. Now my preference would be to have students use their own devices to ask questions and discuss answers, but with SOPPA I really don’t recommend having students put their own data in to sign up for OpenAI. How do I use this?
In teams, I take a topic that we are learning or reading about and ask students a question about it. In their groups students use a Summary Board from Instructional Empowerment to share answers in their groups about the question. Group facilitators will then share their group’s answers. Afterwards, we use ChatGPT to ask the same question to see what answers pop up. Groups compare their answers and then it becomes a larger class discussion.
Using AI to Help With Analyzing Research
We have been working on research projects as a class. My district uses a database in order to help students find content about research they are completing. With Multilingual learners, language can be a struggle when reading journal articles or newspaper articles. One of the current projects I am working on is a “they say, I say” project. Students read and analyze claims from articles about historical events and come to conclusions about what they read. ChatGPT can be used to help with this.
Informational text with academic vocabulary can always be a struggle for English Learners to dissect. When you teach students how to use ChatGPT to ask questions about the content they are reading, it can give them more clarity. Students can use ChatGPT to help them define vocabulary words or answer questions about historical background on an event that they don’t know about. I explain to them and show them that ChatGPT cannot do the work for them, but it can give more clarity to the work that they are doing.
Students can also use Quillbot, an Artificial Intelligence based paraphrasing program to help paraphrase content from research. I would advise modeling for students how this is used so that they do not assume they can write a whole essay on this application. Students need to learn the fine line between using an app to support you in writing and not plagiarism.
How Can Teachers Use AI in Their Planning?
Teachers need ideas all the time to plan lessons and keep up with students. Like I would say to students, AI is not going to do all the work for us, but it can help us be more efficient and creative. Here are some cool apps and features teachers can use:
Curipod: What I like about Curipod is that when you are stuck, they help you get started. Curipod is a Norwegian company. The creators are the awesome dudes at the tech conferences in orange pants. But, what can this do for you? It can help you generate lessons and presentations through typing in your content and grade level using its artificial intelligence features.You can also utilize it the way you would Pear Deck or Nearpod with live presentations. Can it do your whole lesson for you? I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a starting point, you as a teacher need to add to it. But, for English learners it can help you create great visual and interactive presentations to engage kids with language.
Microsoft Flip Topic Co-pilot: Back in the day when it was flipgrid, I was a loyal user of Microsoft Flip. Lately they have introduced a feature called Topic Co-Pilot. Sometimes, we get exhausted with coming up with topics and questions.This can actually help you generate discussion content so that you can start and facilitate discussions on Microsoft Flip among your class.
Copilot: This is actually an application that can help teachers write unit plans and go through the process of making content more engaging. It can help create presentations, handouts, quizzes and student reports to send to parents. I always stress that you as a teacher plan the content, this tool just supports you.
In Summary
A few months ago, I didn’t think I would be writing about the wonders of Artificial Intelligence, I huffed and puffed and was extremely cynical. But, there are many benefits to using AI to help us create a shelter and scaffold for our students in learning language. This isn’t just a buzzword and it isn’t going away in schools or in the “work world”. As educators, it can be exhausting to keep up with the world, but we serve our learners better when we do.
To Further Your Learning:
15 AI Tools For the Classroom https://ditchthattextbook.com/ai-tools/