Embracing AI In Teaching English: Tips And Tools For TEFL Teachers

Artificial Intelligence, or AI as it is most commonly known, has arrived and is here to stay. From Siri to self-driving cars, you probably interact with AI much more every day than you realise. And now it’s in our classrooms.

AI in education

Initially, we might have been skeptical of AI – probably because of a lot of Hollywood movies from our childhood. But now we are much more accepting of and accustomed to AI. It has come to the point where many of us actively seek out opportunities to use AI. 

Such as AI in education.

AI can be found in classrooms all over the world these days, and for all sorts of subjects. Because we’re interested in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL), let’s talk about AI in teaching English. 

AI in teaching English

Both teachers and students can make use of AI in the EFL classroom to enhance the language learning experience.

Teachers can use AI to:

• prepare to teach an unfamiliar topic or language structure,

• create a lesson plan, or even a syllabus,
• write level-specific materials,
• source appropriate language examples,
• develop lesson materials, such as flashcards or comprehension questions,
• produce bespoke tests and exams, 
• keep track of student’s progress, and
• communicate with parents.

If you’re asked at the last minute to cover a colleague’s lesson, no problem! 

Simply pop a prompt (like the one below)  into ChatGPT and it’ll spit out a lesson plan including lesson objectives, target vocabulary, vocabulary activities, a lesson outline, assessment and additional notes. 

Not confident about explaining the first conditional?  Ask AI for a simple, student-friendly explanation.

Can’t find an appropriate reading text for a class of Beginners? No need to spend ages trawling the internet – make your own in seconds.

Got a new C2-level private student but you’ve never taught Proficiency before? Let AI tell you exactly what you should be teaching them. 

Not sure where to start? Here are some free AI tools you should absolutely check out to complement your teaching:

ChatGPT

TeachMate

MagicSchool AI

StoryBook AI

Bard

This is just the beginning. These are just a few examples of how you can use AI in your lesson planning. 

Let’s look at some more ideas for in the classroom and for independent learning.

AI-based activities in the classroom

Students can use song generators to create songs based on language items they’re learning. Songs are known to improve memory and learning so they’re a great tool for the language learning classroom.

Read more: 9 Amazingly Effective Songs To Teach English

Students can utilise ChatGPT for ideas before engaging in a conversation or debate. This is especially useful if the students aren’t familiar with the topic at hand. 

Students can create model answers for essay questions. These can be compared to their own answers. They can even ask for recommendations for improvements. AI can highlight the errors and mistakes and show them how to make the text better.

AI and your students

AI can be a useful tool for your students too. After all, the goal of both the teacher and the student is increasing the proficiency of the student in English. If we can provide them with the tools to do this for themselves at home, we should show them how to do this.

Students can use speech-to-text AI to role-play specific situations they need to practice, for example, a job interview or an English exam.

Students can paste text into a text-to-speech AI to hear the text being spoken while they read. This helps with pronunciation and listening. 

They can ask ChatGPT to assess their own sentences for grammatical accuracy. Immediate feedback is highly motivating. It’s infinitely better than waiting a week for your teacher to return a marked writing assignment!

If they want to watch a video in English, they can use AI to write subtitles for them to read while watching.

Free AI tools for students to use outside the classroom:

[Note: ChatGPT is not approved for use by anyone under the age of 13]

Grammarly

DuoLingo

Loora

Speak

ELSA

Tips for using AI in teaching English

Are you ready to use AI to upgrade your teaching? Here are a few top tips to help you on your way:

Be specific with your prompts for programs such as ChatGPT. The more specific, the better. Language generators work well from examples, so add examples of what you want where you can.

Prompts should include information on topic, context, format, style. In an EFL classroom this means including information on CEFR level, age of students, type of activity (individual, pair or group), topic, language structure, and timing. 

Don’t include any personal identifying information about your students, such as gender or race. AI programmes are constantly evolving. At the moment there are still possible inaccuracies which may be present in AI output, which can result in biases and discrimination in certain cases.

If you’re worried about your students using AI to generate work, there are numerous websites these days which can determine whether a piece of work has been generated by AI.Besides, serious learners understand that AI is a tool to learn the language, not a way to simply pass a test.

How is AI shaping the future of education? Will AI replace TEFL teachers?

This is a very topical issue right now. Teachers are understandably nervous. Many tech supporters argue that yes, AI can accomplish just as much, if not more, than language teachers. 

Teachers like to think we are irreplaceable, because we have the human touch. 

There are a number of reasons we believe teachers won’t be replaced by AI – or at least, not anytime soon! 

Teachers have a better understanding of emotions. They can relate better to students and foster relationships with them. Plus, conversations with AI lack the facial expressions and tone of voice available in real-life conversations.

Studies show that current AI learning systems for AI fall short when it comes to oral proficiency. So while learners improve in grammatical accuracy and vocabulary knowledge, there wasn’t a similar improvement in their speaking skills. A particular study from Michigan State University concluded that a hybrid approach of online learning and classroom learning is the best way to learn a language.

Interestingly, research by Preply shows that the majority of students are apprehensive about using AI in learning. They prefer human-human interaction and guidance in their language learning journey. Some students had concerns about privacy issues, but many noted that AI cannot motivate them the same way their teachers can.

This supports the teaching method of flipped classrooms, which is becoming more and more popular.

Read more: Innovative Teaching Trends: Why Flipped Classrooms Are Thriving

All this shows that even if we use AI extensively in our teaching, we need to be around to add the human touch to the language learning materials. 

When you think about it, the internet was a foreign concept when we first connected in 1983. Today we can’t imagine life without it. 

We can assume the same will happen with AI. Rather than fighting AI in teaching English, let’s embrace it to help us do our jobs better. 

AI can help us embrace a work smarter, not harder mentality. We can save time, tailor lessons to our specific students, increase student engagement and upskill your teaching techniques.

Winning all round! What do you think?