I believe in technology and I believe that every new development has its place if we use it properly. AI, more specifically ChatGPT has been one of the hottest topics these days among language teachers. Another one – perhaps only new to me, but certainly less talked about – is Twee.

I wanted to give it a try: can it really help me in lesson planning? Can I use them to create actual learning material? The answer is a very definite “Yes”!

The latest grammar point for a group of students preparing for the B2 level exam was Future Continuous and Future Perfect. We also had a short text on the future of film-making, so here is the way I used artificial intelligence to create some activities, combining grammar and topic:

  1. I asked ChatGPT to create a text on the topic of film-making at level B2 using lots of verbs in the Future Perfect and Future Continuous Tense.
  2. I simply copied the paragraphs of the text to a Jamboard. Task for students: put the paragraphs in the correct order.
  3. I dropped the text to Twee (Reading- Open questions) and asked it to create comprehension questions. Task for students: discuss the questions in pairs. Checking in plenary.
  4. Using the gap-fill function in Twee I picked some words to practice – it created a gap-fill task in no time! Task for students: fill in the gaps with the appropriate words. A little technical step: before I put students into pairs again to do the task I covered the original, full text from the paragraph ordering task so that they cannot look at it. It is a very simple tool in Jamboard in the menu.
  5. Grammar practice: I picked some verbs, some in the Future Perfect, some in the Future Continuous and put them in the “Open the brackets” function in Twee. It created beautiful sentences to me where students have to put the verbs in brackets into the appropriate tense.
  6. Follow up: basically any follow up is appropriate. I picked a speaking activity: students have to design some interview questions to be asked from a film director on the difficulties of film making. They prepare the questions in pairs and then in new pairs they interview each other.
  7. I put the solutions on the last page of the Jamboard for reference. It can also be kept covered during the lesson.

Was AI useful in preparing the lesson? Absolutely! Was it fast to create the tasks? Yes!

Does AI have its place in language teaching? I believe so. And I also think that this was just the beginning for me and more complex tasks will follow.

https://jamboard.google.com/d/16G06FUCCVR3pz3k3xLY8ZXYK5kVPg19xkgR_RmCRwUk/edit?usp=sharing