Chat GPT to the rescue!
No more tedious writing for teachers - Chat GPT can draft practice activities and student prompts in seconds!
I had 15 minutes left before class, and I was scrambling. I’d just finished grading my student’s homework, and it was clear they needed more practice with the past tense. I needed some quick sentences for them to revise… and I didn’t have anything handy.
“I’ve dealt with a myriad of impossible situations throughout my career! Learning to maximize Chat GPT? Piece of cake!”
Chat GPT to the rescue!
Yes, friends, Chat GPT is able to generate any type of practice activity you need. Prompt it to produce exactly what your students should practice and in a few seconds you have a draft. Chat GPT ‘remembers’ your prompts, so you can refine and have it rewrite as you wish. It’s not a perfect tool, so of course you’ll have to do some editing. But, Chat GPT can give you a great first draft of student exercises, and sometimes it generates ideas you haven’t thought of. The only limit is your imagination, and your willingness to work with the tool.
I spend so much time as a teacher searching for prompts and student practice exercises, and I often end up with the time-consuming task of writing them myself. No more! Chat GPT is an amazing time saver for this sort of tedium. Here are a few examples:
Grammar Practice (Past Tense)
My Prompt: Write five sentences with past tense errors
Chat GPT Answer: Sure, here are five sentences with past tense errors:
Yesterday, I goed to the store to buy some groceries.
She runned in the park and played with her dog.
Last week, they writed a letter to their grandparents.
The movie was really good, and I laughed a lot during it.
He falled off his bike and hurted his knee.
Remember, it's important to use the correct past tense forms:
Corrected: Yesterday, I went to the store to buy some groceries.
Corrected: She ran in the park and played with her dog.
Corrected: Last week, they wrote a letter to their grandparents.
Corrected: The movie was really good, and I laughed a lot during it.
Corrected: He fell off his bike and hurt his knee.
My Analysis: Whoa, it gave me the answer key without being prompted. Question 4 doesn’t actually have a past tense error… but these would definitely provide the quick practice my students need.
Grammar Practice (Indirect Objects)
My Prompt: Write five sentences with indirect objects
Chat GPT Answer: Sure! Here are five sentences with indirect objects:
Sarah gave her friend a birthday present.
The teacher taught the students new concepts.
The company sent its employees a special holiday bonus.
My parents bought me a new laptop for college.
The chef prepared the customers a delicious three-course meal.
In each sentence, the indirect object is the recipient of the action and is typically preceded by a preposition such as "to" or "for."
My Analysis: Each sentence has both a direct AND an indirect object, which certainly gives me sentences to work with. Chat GPT’s commentary, that the indirect objects are usually preceded by ‘to’ or ‘for’, is not actually correct in the sample sentences.
My Prompt: Change the indirect object in each of those sentences to a pronoun.
Chat GPT Answer: Great! Now, let's replace the indirect objects in those sentences with pronouns:
Sarah gave her friend it.
The teacher taught them new concepts.
The company sent them a special holiday bonus.
My parents bought me one for college.
The chef prepared them a delicious three-course meal.
My analysis: Interesting! Chat GPT had a little trouble, and made some mistakes! The first sentence incorrect (‘it’ is a direct object) and the syntax is unnatural. Sentence 4 uses ‘me’, and therefore nothing to really analyze. 2 & 3 are essentially the same as far as sentence structure. Not great.
Still, this gives me language to have students practice with, and it would be fun to have them analyze and correct Chat GPT’s errors, or improve its performance. I don’t know how long these types of errors will exist in the algorithm, but it’s surprising to me that Chat GPT is struggling with something that seems fairly objective.
Student Comprehension Tasks
My prompt: Give me 5 sentences starting with “Bring me” and include a school supply and a color.
Chat GPT Answer: Sure! Here are 5 sentences that begin with "Bring me" and include a school supply and a color:
Bring me a blue notebook for taking notes in class.
Bring me a red pen for marking corrections on the assignment.
Bring me a green highlighter for highlighting important passages in the textbook.
Bring me a black backpack to carry all my school supplies.
Bring me a yellow ruler for measuring lines and angles in geometry.
My Analysis: A little repetitive, but I can use the first part of each sentence (and 15 more similar prompts) to create an in-class race for students to practice this vocabulary. I could have written these myself, but Chat GPT did it faster.
Speaking Prompts
My Prompt: Give me 3 speaking prompts at the novice high language proficiency level that require names of buildings in the community in the answer.
Chat GPT’s answer:
Can you tell me the names of three important buildings in our community and what they are used for?"
"Imagine you are giving directions to a newcomer in the community. Mention the names of three buildings they will pass on their way to the town square."
"Describe your favorite place in our community, including the name of the building and what makes it special to you."
My Analysis: These are pretty good, although perhaps a bit challenging for novice high. I could fairly easily alter them to work for my students.
Pronunciation Practice
My Prompt: Write three tongue twisters that require me to practice the /th/ sound.
Chat GPT Answer: Sure! Tongue twisters are a fun way to practice tricky sounds like the /th/ sound. Here are three tongue twisters for you:
Thin and thoughtful Theo thought three thousand thorny thistles.
Three thirsty thirteenth-century thieves thoughtfully thawed thick thumb-sized thimbles.
Theophilus and Theodore threw thirty-three thousand thorny thistles in the thick fog.
Practice these tongue twisters regularly, and you'll improve your /th/ sound pronunciation in no time! Have fun with it!
My Analysis: there’s some repetition here (lots of ‘threes’ and ‘thistles’)… but I can definitely pull some usable pronunciation practice from these.
No more tedious writing for teachers - Chat GPT can draft practice activities and student prompts in seconds!
A Time-Saver and a Great First Draft!
As a teacher, I can now use these prompts as a starting point to write practice exercises for my students (read aloud, correct the errors, answer the questions, change the indirect objects to pronouns). In each case, Chat GPT probably saved me a good hour of work searching for appropriate prompts or writing my own from scratch.
Is there a learning curve associated with using this tool? Of course! But hey, I have figured out how to teach without any curriculum, how to teach classes I’m not trained for, how to teach 37 students in a classroom with 28 chairs, how to teach during a pandemic, and a myriad of other impossible situations I’ve had to deal with throughout my career!
Learning to maximize Chat GPT? Piece of cake!
