Live teaching – Page 2

Listen and clap

There are a handful of voice extensions we can install in our browser as add-ons to interact with ChatGPT through voice. These extensions can also read ChatGPT’s responses outloud. Some popular extensions include Voice In, Talk-to-ChatGPT, ChatGPT Voice or VoiceWave. I have Voice Control for ChatGPT installed. This extension allows us to adjust the playback speed of the generated text, which is an added bonus for the language class. We can also install the ChatGPT app on an Android phone or tablet for voice interactions with ChatGPT and connect the phone to speakers.

Vocabulary review

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.

Open-ended grammar exercises

Grammar exercises in coursebooks tend to be close-ended or controlled, leaving little to no room for creativity. The main reason for this is that such exercises are easier to check, whether in class or at home, where students can correct them by looking at the answer key. Today I would like to explore how to turn close-ended grammar exercises into open-ended ones and also take advantage of Gen.AI to create examples for the students. I will be focusing on the elementary level.

Conditional sentences

Today I will be adapting 3 types of activities focusing on practicing conditional sentences to involve our language assistant –ChatGPT- to, in turn, engage and provide extra motivation for our students live in class.

Graded readers

Today I’d like to share a couple of games inspired by graded readers that can be played live in class with no prior material preparation. All we need to do is type a prompt into ChatGPT (or copy and paste it from a Word or online document). I can guarantee maximum student participation and engagement.

Games: Family Fortunes

There are many language games that we can create or adapt for our language classroom using Gen. AI. One of my favourite board games for the classroom is Family Fortunes. I own the board game, which I resort to once in a blue moon for a bit of fun. In this blog post I am going to try to share a few ideas on how things could unfold if we use Gen.AI instead.

Explaining vocabulary in class

If the expression “a dump” cropped up in class, how would we go about explaining it? This word may appear on a page from the coursebook or perhaps from a video we may be playing for the class. Perhaps our students are involved in some speaking practice in pairs or small groups and, as we circulate and eavesdrop on those conversations, we might suggest this word in an “off-the-cuff” reformulation.

Class debates 1

Today we are going to explore the potential of using ChatGPT in class and bend it to our will to help us generate ideas for class debates and also to present us with arguments and counterarguments to engage our students in these debates. Additionally, we can use it to search for relevant lexical items in relation to those debates.

Speaking exam practice: monologue

Today we are going to use Claude for live brainstorming in class to generate subtopics from a general topic provided for a speaking exam. Next we will focus on gathering some useful vocabulary and expressions to use in the exam.