Thoughts on Using AI like Open ChatGPT

Open ChatGPT continues to cause uproar as people feed it university level tests and ask it to write abstracts and academic articles.

The obvious answer to this ‘threat’ to English language learning is to do any written work which is evaluated in the classroom and ban electronic devices while doing so. Problem solved. Next!

Let’s take a different tack and look at three ideas how teachers can use it for their and their students’ benefit.

1. Use OpenChatGPT as source of ideas

We can ask it to provide ten advantages and ten disadvantages of a particular issue or situation, for example.

Armed with these ideas we can ask students to brainstorm the same and we can feed in ideas from our GPT-created list. This helps us look very knowledgeable about the topic. Students can then write an essay based on these ideas.

Or we could give each student or student pair one of the ideas each and they have to use this idea in a discussion with other students in a group e.g., deciding which ideas are the most important. They cannot show their text to anyone else, but they can read out/tell their idea to the group.

Or we could give the students the AI generated lists and they could rank them in order of importance and then choose three advantages and three disadvantages and write an essay (in class) using these ideas.

2. Use Open ChatGPT as source of model texts

We can ask GPT to write an essay based on an essay question and once we have checked and revised the essay, we can do a number of things with it.

a/ discuss why the essay is (or is not) a good response to the question.

b/ create a gapfill of the essay.

c/ create a sentence re-ordering task of the essay.

d/ Ask students to compare their response to the essay question with the GPT response. What are the similarities and differences, and so on?

Or we can leave the essay as is if it is not a particularly good response and ask the students to improve it.

Or we can add errors into the essay, for instance grammatical or lexical errors, and ask students to correct the text.

3. Use Open ChatGPT to generate texts from different viewpoints

We can ask it to generate a text in favour of an issue, and one against an issue. We can then give these source texts to the students who use the ideas in the text to write an essay on the topic.

Basically, we can use GPT as a source of ideas and texts which we can then use with the students in some way. We then do not have to think up the ideas ourselves, but we should remember to review and/or edit what Open ChatGPT gives us, because it is not very intelligent and might make mistakes and contain errors.