Harnessing ChatGPT for Accessible and Differentiated Lessons

There are two versions of this text: keep reading here for the version written by a human, or click here to read the slicker version, re-written by ChatGPT.

Introduction

AI powered tools like ChatGPT offer amazing time-savings for teachers in preparing lessons and completing admin tasks. One often overlooked aspect of this is that it can help make lessons more accessible by speeding up the process of producing or adapting resources for a range of learners.

In January I made a YouTube Video about AI and accessibility in general, which you can watch here, and I will share some ideas for the languages classroom in this post.

Immersive Reader and Reading Coach

If you and your students have access to the Microsoft suite, it offers a range of great tools both for accessibility and for language learning in general. I am talking about Immersive Reader and Reading Coach.

Immersive Reader is an accessibility tool that is now built into all Microsoft products, including word, OneNote and Teams, with varying capabilities. It works best in OneNote but can also has many options in Word for the web as part of office.com (as opposed to the normal Word program that is installed on our computer). Look for Immersive Reader in the search box of the program you are working in, and you will be able to change the background colour, font and spacing of your texts to make them more dyslexia-friendly. You can also use the in-built dictionary to click on any word to see a translation, and Immersive Reader can read out texts in a large number of languages and at customisable speed. Immersive Reader is also built into the Edge browser, meaning that all websites can be read out aloud by clicking the A symbol within the address bar (next to the website address) and many pages can be changed into a more dyslexia-friendly layout, if you can see an icon showing a book and a loudspeaker.

If they have access to a device in class or at home, Immersive Reader can be extremely helpful for learners of learning difficulty or visual impairments, as it helps them to take in written text more easily with the different layout options or by listening to it being read aloud. When used in a web browser, it also significantly reduces visual “noise” by taking out a lot of the distracting images, colours and adverts and focusing just on the text.

Immersive Reader is of course an amazing tool for any language learner as students can listen to any text in the target language, either from a website or one they have written themselves. Another useful language learning feature is the fact that it can automatically colour code parts of speech in texts in many languages, showing all verbs in green, nouns in red etc. Here is a Microsoft Video that shows how to use Immersive Reader.

Reading Coach can be used in Teams assignments and OneNote as part of Immersive Reader. It allows learners to listen to a text and then record themselves reading it out loud. An AI will analyse their pronunciation and give them a score as well as show flashcards with five words that were pronounced incorrectly. Learners can then listen to them again and have another go at saying them until they are correct. Again, a great tool to prepare students for their speaking exams.

Here is a Microsoft Video on Reading Coach.

Lesson Resources to practise reading

Let’s have a look at how AI can help with planning lessons and creating and adapting resources very quickly to respond to the needs of our learners.

As a starting point, ChatGPT or a similar language generation tool, can help the teacher brainstorm some ideas to help a specific learner. At first the advice will be quite generic, but with more follow-up questions and more information about the lesson or the student, it could become more useful. This could be especially useful for new teachers or if you encounter a specific learning need for the first time and need more information on how to adapt to it.

Prompt: “I teach Spanish for English speakers to 14-year-olds. I have a student who is severely dyslexic and struggles with remembering new vocabulary, how can I help him?” 

For more experienced teachers, ChatGPT greatest value is in the speed with which it can adapt resources and its ability to juggle several languages at the same time.

To make use of the AI capabilities, you first need a text version of the text you are working on. Either you get ChatGPT to create a text, by providing it with a list of vocabulary you want to include, or you can use an OCR program to turn a photo of the textbook into text. If you have an online version of the text, I recommend a free little desktop app called Photo Scan which has the advantage that you can paste in a screenshot directly from the clipboard and do not have to save it as a picture first. You can download here.

If you are working with a physical textbook, you could use an app like Microsoft lens or google photos to take a picture of the page and copy the text from it.

Once you have your text, you can very quickly create a vocab list based on it, to support students who are struggling with too much new vocabulary. You could even make it a tri-lingual vocab list, if you have students how are learners of English.

Prompt: “Create a vocab list as a table in English, German and Polish, based on this text [paste text].”

You can even highlight the words in bold that are on the vocab list, to help students use the list efficiently.

Prompt: “write a text about my pets. Create a vocab list in German and English with it.” “now write out the text again but highlight all the words that are on the vocab list”. 

To keep the highlights when copying, don’t use the clipboard icon next to the text, but highlight and copy the text directly from the chat window (it will need a bit of formatting, once it is copied into your document).

You can also very easily ask ChatGPT to break a text up by adding paragraph titles in either the target language or in English, to encourage struggling students to tackle longer texts.

Another way of adapting a longer reading task in your lessons is to shorten or simplify texts. For this you could ask the AI to re-write the text in a specific CEFR level (here is an overview: cefrlevels.com/overview/index.html), while still keeping the important language structures that you are trying to teach.

Prompt: “Re-write this text in CEFR level A2 but keep the words eager, share, comfort.”

You can also differente your reading tasks by varying the type of questions. With ChatGPT you can quickly generate different types of activities. By adding more guiding tasks like find the translation in the text” or by asking content questions in English instead of the target language, you can add tasks that support students understanding, while at the same time writing more difficult questions in the target language about the nuances of the text, for stronger students who need more challenge.

As ChatGPT can now write a whole text in second, you could also improve inclusivity in your class by creating reading tasks and vocabulary lists that are unique to your learners.

Prompt: “Write three texts in Spanish in which a child describes their hometown. One text should be about a town in France, one about a town in England and one about a town in Pakistan.”

Prompt: “Write a 90-word task in Spanish about my last holiday to Mallorca, from the perspective of a wheelchair using teenager”

Resources to support writing

A longer writing task like the 90- or 150-word tasks at GCSE level can be very daunting for students who struggle with the target language or with writing in general, but there are a few ways in which ChatGPT can help them to get started, by providing an outline or possible sentence beginnings. It is sometimes difficult to stop ChatGPT from writing the whole text for the user, so it is best if the teacher does the prompting and then adapts the results with the learner.

Prompt: Our task is to write 90 words about this " Write about your last holiday. Where did you go? Who did you travel with? How was the weather? What did you do there? How did you like it and why? Would you visit this place again?" can you give me an outline for this essay?

ChatGPT 4: Sure, here's an outline for your 90-word essay:

· Introduction (10-15 words): Briefly introduce the location and time of your last holiday. · Travel Companions (10-15 words): Mention who you travelled with. · Weather (10-15 words): Describe the weather during your holiday. · Activities (20-25 words): Discuss what you did there. Try to include specific activities or experiences. · Personal Opinion (15-20 words): Share your feelings about the holiday and explain why you felt that way. · Conclusion (10-15 words): State whether you would visit this place again and give a reason.

Remember, this is a very short essay, so each section will only be a sentence or two. Try to be concise and clear in your writing.

Prompt: can you give me a sentence beginning in French for each point, only give me the start of each sentence, not the whole sentence

ChatGPT: Sure, here are sentence starters in French for each point:

1. Introduction: "Lors de mes dernières vacances, je suis allé(e) à..."

2. Travel Companions: "J'ai voyagé avec..."

3. Weather: "Le temps était..."

4. Activities: "Pendant mon séjour, j'ai fait..."

5. Personal Opinion: "J'ai vraiment apprécié..."

6. Conclusion: "Je voudrais (ou ne voudrais pas) retourner à cet endroit parce que..."

Remember to complete each sentence according to your personal experience and feelings.

When it comes to grammar, ChatGPT 3.5 can sometimes make surprising mistakes, like trying to convince me that “taking” is a separable verb because it can be split into “take” and “ing”, but ChatGPT 4 is much better, especially in combination with plugins and browsing. It can then be used to write ideas for the teacher on how to explain a more difficult grammar point and suggest different ways and variety of examples, and these explanations could be added to a workbook for student. Having different ways of explaining the same thing will make it more accessible to different types of learners.

Students' use of AI

If your students can access ChatGPT with their own accounts, it means they always have a private tutor available who can answer their questions, give them more examples and or explain topics they didn’t understand in class understand in a different way. As mentioned above, there is some danger of wrong information, but that danger is decreasing with every day as AI tools are becoming better and more reliable especially when linked with online browsing. In a language classroom, for example, an AI like ChatGPT can act as a language partner for students who don’t feel confident enough to speak to a real person or who have speech and communication difficulties. Depending on the prompting, ChatGPT can provide different types of feedback for conversation practise or vocabulary learning, meaning it could be asked to feedback only on content and not on spelling. The availability of immediate feedback can also provide extra motivation at every step of a longer task.

ChatGPT is also quite good at writing out personalised revision timetables and giving ideas for exam preparation, which might help students who are struggling with time-management and organisation.

The simple, uncluttered interface also makes it easier for students to research topics, without being side-tracked by lots of links, pictures and adverts, and it makes it easier to use with a screen-reader like Immersive Reader.

All these ideas of using AI in lessons are only the start to changing lessons towards more personalised and tailored teaching which will enable all learners to progress in their language lessons.

Conclusion

All these ideas of using AI in lessons are only the start to changing lessons towards more personalised and tailored teaching which will enable all learners to progress in their language lessons.

ChatGPT Version

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Introduction

AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT provide remarkable time-saving benefits for teachers when preparing lessons and tackling administrative tasks. However, one frequently underappreciated aspect of this is the capacity to make lessons more accessible by speeding up the production or adaptation of resources suitable for a variety of learners.

Back in January, I created a YouTube video on AI and accessibility more broadly, which you can watch here, and I'm keen to share some insights for the languages classroom in this post.

Immersive Reader and Reading Coach

Should you and your students have access to the Microsoft suite, a number of fantastic tools are available that are useful for both accessibility and general language learning. Two of the tools in question are Immersive Reader and Reading Coach.

Immersive Reader, an accessibility tool, is now incorporated into all Microsoft products, including Word, OneNote and Teams, with each having a range of capabilities. The tool functions best in OneNote but also presents various options in Word for the web, a part of office.com (as opposed to the standard Word programme installed on our computers). Simply type Immersive Reader into the search box of the programme you're using, and you'll be able to alter the background colour, font and spacing of your texts to make them more dyslexia-friendly. Moreover, the in-built dictionary allows any word to be clicked for a translation, and Immersive Reader can audibly read out texts in a broad selection of languages at a customisable pace. Immersive Reader is also integrated into the Edge browser, meaning that all websites can be audibly read by clicking the 'A' symbol within the address bar (next to the website address), and many pages can be transformed into a more dyslexia-friendly layout, if an icon depicting a book and a loudspeaker is visible in the address bar.

Providing they have access to a device either in class or at home, Immersive Reader can be incredibly beneficial for learners with learning difficulties or visual impairments, as it aids in digesting written text more effortlessly with the different layout options or by listening to it being read aloud. When used in a web browser, it also substantially minimises visual "noise" by eliminating a lot of the distracting images, colours and adverts and focusing solely on the text.

Immersive Reader, of course, is an extraordinary tool for any language learner, as students can listen to any text in the target language, either from a website or one they've written themselves. Another practical language learning feature is its ability to automatically colour code parts of speech in many languages, highlighting all verbs in green, nouns in red etc. Here's a Microsoft Video demonstrating how to utilise Immersive Reader.

Reading Coach can be used in Teams assignments and OneNote as part of Immersive Reader. It lets learners listen to a text and then record themselves reading it out loud. An AI will analyse their pronunciation and assign a score, as well as display flashcards with five words that were mispronounced. Learners can then listen to them again and try to pronounce them correctly. Yet again, a fantastic tool to prep students for their speaking exams.

Here's a Microsoft Video on Reading Coach.

Lesson Resources to practise reading

Let's delve into how AI can assist with lesson planning and rapidly creating and adapting resources to cater to the needs of our learners.

To start, ChatGPT or a similar language generation tool, can assist teachers in brainstorming ideas to help specific learners. Initially, the advice will be quite generic, but with more follow-up questions and added information about the lesson or student, it could become more relevant. This could be especially beneficial for new teachers or if you encounter a specific learning need for the first time and require more information on how to accommodate it.

Prompt: “I teach Spanish for English speakers to 14-year-olds. I have a student who is severely dyslexic and struggles with remembering new vocabulary, how can I help him?” 

For more experienced teachers, the greatest value of ChatGPT is the speed at which it can adapt resources and its ability to manage multiple languages simultaneously.

To utilise the AI capabilities, you first need a text version of the text you're working on. Either you have ChatGPT create a text by providing it with a list of vocabulary you want to include, or you can use an OCR programme to convert a photo of the textbook into text. If you have an online version of the text, I recommend a free, small desktop app called Photo Scan which has the benefit of allowing you to paste a screenshot directly from the clipboard into the OCR programme without having to first save it as an image. You can download it here. If you're working with a physical textbook, you could use an app like Microsoft Lens or Google Photos to snap a picture of the page and copy the text from it.

Once you have your text, you can swiftly generate a vocab list based on it, to assist students who are struggling with too much new vocabulary. You could even make it a tri-lingual vocab list if you have students who are learners of English.

Prompt: “Create a vocab list as a table in English, German and Polish, based on this text [paste text].”

You can even highlight the words in bold that are on the vocab list, to help students use the list efficiently.

Prompt: “Write a text about my pets. Create a vocab list in German and English with it.” “Now write out the text again but highlight all the words that are on the vocab list”. 

To maintain the highlights when copying, don't use the clipboard icon next to the text, but highlight and copy the text directly from the chat window (it will require a bit of formatting once it's copied into your document).

You can also easily ask ChatGPT to break a text up by adding paragraph titles in either the target language or in English, to encourage struggling students to tackle longer texts.

Another method of adapting a lengthier reading task in your lessons is to shorten or simplify texts. For this, you could request the AI to re-write the text at a specific CEFR level (here's an overview), while still preserving the important language structures you're trying to teach.

Prompt: “Re-write this text in CEFR level A2 but keep the words eager, share, comfort.”

You can also differentiate your reading tasks by varying the type of questions. With ChatGPT you can quickly generate different types of activities. By adding more guiding tasks like "find the translation in the text", or by posing content questions in English instead of the target language, you can incorporate tasks that support students' understanding, while simultaneously providing more challenging questions in the target language about the nuances of the text, for stronger students who need more challenge.

As ChatGPT can now write an entire text in seconds, you could also enhance inclusivity in your class by creating reading tasks and vocabulary lists that are unique to your learners.

Prompt: “Write three texts in Spanish in which a child describes their hometown. One text should be about a town in France, one about a town in England and one about a town in Pakistan.”

Prompt: “Write a 90-word task in Spanish about my last holiday to Mallorca, from the perspective of a teenager using a wheelchair.”

Resources to Support Writing

Extended writing tasks can be a challenge for learners grappling with both writing in general and mastering a new language. In these scenarios, AI tools like ChatGPT prove enormously beneficial, offering students invaluable resources such as structured outlines or potential sentence starters.

Prompt: Our task is to write 90 words about this " Write about your last holiday. Where did you go? Who did you travel with? How was the weather? What did you do there? How did you like it and why? Would you visit this place again?" can you give me an outline for this essay?

ChatGPT 4: Sure, here's an outline for your 90-word essay:

· Introduction (10-15 words): Briefly introduce the location and time of your last holiday. · Travel Companions (10-15 words): Mention who you travelled with. · Weather (10-15 words): Describe the weather during your holiday. · Activities (20-25 words): Discuss what you did there. Try to include specific activities or experiences. · Personal Opinion (15-20 words): Share your feelings about the holiday and explain why you felt that way. · Conclusion (10-15 words): State whether you would visit this place again and give a reason.

Remember, this is a very short essay, so each section will only be a sentence or two. Try to be concise and clear in your writing.

Prompt: can you give me a sentence beginning in French for each point, only give me the start of each sentence, not the whole sentence

ChatGPT: Sure, here are sentence starters in French for each point:

1. Introduction: "Lors de mes dernières vacances, je suis allé(e) à..."

2. Travel Companions: "J'ai voyagé avec..."

3. Weather: "Le temps était..."

4. Activities: "Pendant mon séjour, j'ai fait..."

5. Personal Opinion: "J'ai vraiment apprécié..."

6. Conclusion: "Je voudrais (ou ne voudrais pas) retourner à cet endroit parce que..."

Remember to complete each sentence according to your personal experience and feelings.

When it comes to grammatical nuance, ChatGPT 3.5 can occasionally fall prey to confusing errors, such as trying to assert that "taking" can be divided into "take" and "ing", marking it as a separable verb. However, ChatGPT 4 has shown remarkable improvements, especially when used in conjunction with plugins and web browsing capabilities. The AI can be tasked to draft a variety of explanations for more intricate grammatical points, providing the teacher with different explanations and examples to clarify the concept. These elaborations can be added to a student's workbook, allowing for diverse explanation styles to cater to an array of learner types.

AI for Students

Should your students have access to their own ChatGPT accounts, it's like having a private tutor on call, ready to answer queries, provide additional examples, or explain topics that may not have been grasped during class time. While there is always a risk of misinformation, this hazard is gradually being mitigated as AI tools continuously evolve to be more accurate and reliable, especially when connected with web browsing capabilities. In a language classroom setting, ChatGPT can serve as a conversational partner for students who may not feel sufficiently confident to engage in dialogue with another person, or for those with speech and communication difficulties. Depending on the prompts provided, ChatGPT can offer varying types of feedback for conversation practice or vocabulary expansion. For instance, it could be instructed to only provide feedback on content, disregarding spelling errors. The provision of instant feedback can also invigorate motivation throughout the course of a more extensive task.

ChatGPT also demonstrates proficiency in generating personalised revision timetables and offering innovative ideas for exam preparation, potentially aiding students who are grappling with time-management and organisational skills.

ChatGPT's streamlined, distraction-free interface allows students to delve into research topics without being waylaid by a varitey of links, images, and advertisements. It also offers enhanced compatibility with screen-readers like the Immersive Reader.

Conclusion

These propositions for incorporating AI into the classroom only signify the dawn of an educational shift towards more personalised and customised teaching strategies, aimed at empowering every learner to make advancements in their language studies.