Today I would like to share a highly productive way to revise vocabulary with our students in class. This can work really well as a warmer for the first ten minutes of the lesson. We can select off-the-cuff language items that have cropped up in class, and we can also choose language items from the coursebook.
I will be selecting language items from Jetstream Beginner (Helbling English) this time. They are found in a short reading passage in Unit 6: Work and Play. You can find this sample unit from the publisher’s site HERE (Jetstream Beginner. Lesson 6. Work and Play).
My goal is to revise some interesting language items from the passage by having my students use them in sentences in different and creative ways. I also want to read sentences from the board and focus on how those language items are used for further exposure and consolidation.
Here are the selected language items: ‘to smile’, ‘single’, ‘work about 60 hours a week‘, ‘to look after’, ‘people of all ages’, ‘from Monday to Friday’, ‘to do three jobs’, ‘a full-time job’, ‘an expensive place’, ‘I need money to…’.
We could write or display this on the board and give students the following tasks:
1. Write a sentence using one of the items
2. Write a sentence using two of the items
3. Write a sentence that is not true using one of the items
4. Write a sentence that is true of you using one of the items
(Acknowledgents to Penny Ur, from whom I learned this revision activity about 10 years ago in a very inspirational talk)
Early finishers can write more than one sentence. Meanwhile, we would be typing the following prompts into the Gen.AI of our choice (I will be using Claude this time).
First prompt: I want to revise these lexical items with my beginner English students: ‘to work about 60 hours a week’, ‘to smile’, ‘single’, ‘to look after’, ‘people of all ages’, ”from Monday to Friday, ‘to do three jobs’, ‘a full-time job’, ‘an expensive place’, ‘I need money to…’. Based on these lexical items, I will be giving you different tasks. The first task is to generate 5 sentences at that language level using any of those items, which can be modified to fit the grammar.
Next prompts:
– Now generate 5 sentences using any two of those lexical items.
– Now generate 5 sentences that are false statements using any of the items
– Now generate 5 sentences that are true of a famous pop star using any of the items
So now we have the reading material ready while the students are still writing their sentences. Once the students have finished, it’s time to elicit answers for the first task and also take a look at what Claude generated. We can also learn new words from it, and definitely have some reading and pronunciation practice, and further exposure to those language items and the grammar associated with them.
Now it’s time for the second batch of students’ sentences. We would encourage students to read out some sentences and then scroll down the cursor to view the sentences for the second prompt on the board. My favourite ones are the false statements: absurd, yet relevant to our goal.
1.
· I work about 60 hours a week in a full-time job.
· She looks after children of all ages.
· He is single and smiles a lot.
· I need money to live in an expensive place.
· I do three jobs from Monday to Friday.
2.
· I need money to look after my family from Monday to Friday.
· She works about 60 hours a week in a full-time job.
· He is single and works in an expensive place.
· People of all ages smile when they have a good job.
· I do three jobs to save money for an expensive place.
3.
· Elephants work about 60 hours a week in office jobs.
· The moon is single and looks after small children.
· Trees smile and do three jobs from Monday to Friday.
· Clouds need money to live in an expensive place underwater.
· Rocks of all ages have a full-time job cleaning windows.
4.
· Taylor Swift works about 60 hours a week creating music and managing her career.
· She looks after her fans and people of all ages who love her music.
· Taylor is single and smiles during her concerts from Monday to Friday.
· She does multiple jobs, including singing, songwriting, and performing.
· She has a full-time job in the music industry and needs money to support her creative projects.
This technique can obviously be extrapolated to all language levels.
AI in ELT 