The Role of AI in English Language Instruction

Hi everyone. I'm Jennifer from English  

with Jennifer. I have a very  special opportunity for you.

If you're learning English, I invite you to listen  to a recent conversation I had with another ESL  

educator. See how well you understand. You'll  have the chance to listen to two very different  

but clear accents: American and British.  I'll help by sharing some vocabulary notes.

If you're a teacher, I invite you to  listen to our discussion about AI and  

language instruction. There are different  viewpoints, and my guest and I share ours.

My guest is Alina, a fellow English  teacher and the Product Visionary at Twee,  

a company that offers AI-powered  tools to English teachers.

Hey, Alina. Thanks for joining me today.

Thanks for having me here. How are you doing?

Pretty good, pretty good. But I'm just so  excited because I love meeting other teachers,  

and I think it's pretty easy to find  common ground right away because we  

share the same passion. But I also  know that we have different stories,  

like...so with the way we've entered the  profession and how our careers have unfolded.

So, I just wanted to ask  if you could share briefly,  

what's your ESL story? Like, what kind of  teaching experience have you done in the past?

Um yeah. Absolutely. So, before I joined Twee,  I was working as a teacher at university. I  

taught different courses related to ESL and  EFL, um General English, Academic English,  

phonetics, um, different theoretical  courses about language teaching. Um,  

so I was pretty much in academia. I  was doing research, um, and I also  

gave private lessons as well for around  10 years...yeah before I joined Twee.

It's similar...like I've done the traditional  classroom experience. I've done one-on-one, face  

to face. That's how I started, you know, meeting  people in person one-on-one. Then I moved into the  

classroom setting, so I have that experience,  but I've been online for quite some time now.

Some people ask me, "Do you miss it?" And so,  

that's a question I have for you.  Do you miss the classroom teaching?

Um yeah, I do, especially here at Twee. I talk  a lot with teachers who are using the platform,  

and when I talk to them and when they tell  the stories about how they taught this and that,  

and you know everything about the classroom,  

the students that they have, um, I  realize I do. I do miss it quite a bit.

Right, but you have the experience to tap into,  and I think it's also important to keep up,  

um, by talking to other teachers who  are still actively in the classroom.  

That's good. I'm active just  in a different way online,  

but I think, correct me if I'm wrong, you  recently attended IATEFL. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. I was in the UK for the  IATEFL this year in Brighton. Um, it was  

amazing. I met so many people: teachers, school  admins, you know, um people who um you know are  

involved in EFL somehow. You know, publishers. It  was amazing. We had so many great conversations.

Right? I have not been to IATEFL. It's one  of my hopes for the future -- to um check it  

out and see how it compares to the um the TESOL  convention, which I usually go to every year. So,  

I went to the TESOL convention in Tampa, Florida.  But I think the one thing that is similar is that  

probably both conventions had a hot topic: AI. And  so there were a lot of sessions um in Florida on  

AI, ChatGPT, etc. etc., so you can see that there  are people in our profession who are excited.  

They're embracing it. They're teaching others  about the possibilities. There are people like me,  

who...I can't say I'm an expert, but I'm familiar.  I've been...I'm familiar with the technology. I've  

been using it. I'm learning more um, and then  there's still a camp, I think, that's hesitant,  

and they're kind of resisting the technology.  And I wanted you to address that. Like,  

why do you think some um ESL professionals,  ESL,EFL, or language teachers in general are  

hesitant and resistant when it comes  to AI technology in our profession?

Well, that's um that's a great question. I really  want to share something that I have learned from  

conversations with different teachers at IATEFL.  Um, most teachers I've noticed are reluctant to  

uh try using AI just because they don't trust  it. They have heard about AI, and you know,  

with all this hype around AI. They also tried  ChatGPT. They tried to create some exercises  

that they have been creating by themselves for  years, and it didn't work because you know either  

they didn't prompt it correctly or just, you know,  the chat didn't know how to do it at that point,  

so they were disappointed, and they stopped um  trusting it. And um, I mean that that's fair  

because I've seen also another reason. A lot  of companies who market the uh the AI tools  

as something that can replace teachers, and um of  course, I mean it's scary um if a tool is marketed  

as something that can uh replace a teacher. You  know, this teacher doesn't want to use it. Uh  

so of course, teachers see that, and um many of  them believe this can happen, and they are just  

um afraid. And you know, there are also ethical  concerns, especially with school teachers because  

some teachers have tried using ChatGPT and other  AI tools, and uh they have seen wrong or you know  

dangerous information, and they um they don't  want to introduce it in the classroom quite yet,  

and um you know another thing. Maybe this is the  last one, um is that teachers just they don't have  

the time to explore. You know, they're so busy  because um you and I probably know that teaching  

is not just you know teaching in the classroom.  It's also preparing materials, assessing,  

you know all that, so maybe they're just  overwhelmed. They see so many AI tools on the  

market. They want to try them, but you know with  so much work, they just don't have the time,  

so it's not that they don't want to, it's  just that um they haven't been able to yet.

Right, right. And I think some of those  fears...and concerns were addressed um especially  

at TESOL, and I appreciated the open discussions  that we had um through the different sessions, and  

I've been blogging about it to digest it further  and hopefully continue the discussion um that it  

doesn't have to be a threat or a replacement.  It's something that can enhance our teaching,  

so you're not asking it to do your work for you.  You're collaborating with it so that's number one  

number. Two, it's easy to fear what we don't  understand, and if you take the time to learn,  

you can control it, master it, and then it works  to your benefit. So okay, it didn't work. Again,  

you mentioned prompt. You have to learn how to  craft the prompts. This is a new skill that we  

have...everyone has to develop if you want to  work with ChatGPT or any AI tool. How do you  

work with it? There's always a learning curve. It  just doesn't produce miracles right away, and as  

you said, it...the technology will only develop  and and get better. But it doesn't have to be  

a replacement for us. It's something that we can  use to enhance our instruction. I personally still  

love to create things, um you know, for certain  projects, but there are times where I'm like,  

"Wow, this is great because it saves me time for  that exercise." Um because this doesn't need to  

be a masterpiece. It just needs to be a piece  of instruction, and then I can push my creative  

juices somewhere else where I really want it to  be, so I think that's important to acknowledge.

Um, how did you get involved in AI?  Because you came from the classroom,  

and this path then led you to AI.

Um you know, it's a great question. Um the  thing is, I don't really understand. You know,  

I was I was doing research, and I liked it,  but at some point I just realized, you know,  

I need um a new challenge. And so I started  looking into how I could transition into  

high-tech, and I had this amazing opportunity  to join a team that was just starting to build  

a product, where I thought I could, you  know, share my expertise and experience,  

and uh it just worked out. And I've  been here for a couple of years,  

and uh it's amazing, so it just uh  it was a very smooth uh transition.

And um you said correctly that teachers  have to learn how to work with AI,  

and I've been learning too because,  you know, I have a lot of teaching  

experience, but...when I came here, I  didn't have a lot of experience with AI,  

and so all this time, I've been learning and  learning and learning, and I really enjoy it.

I think that's the...what we need to do is like  we have to remember that we are learners -- always  

learning, whether we're learning more about  grammar, learning new words, like, "Oh,  

I didn't know that expression." Right? I have...I  work closely with this one um student uh who's uh  

based in the UK, and I'm always picking up new  British expressions. I'm learning as...I'm like,  

"Wow, I didn't know that difference," you  know, so whether it's language or technology,  

I think that's part of the excitement, but also  part of our responsibility to grow and learn,  

so I think I can totally understand the  appeal of learning something so new.

But so, we talked about why  people might be resistant.  

How do you see AI benefiting us as  teachers? How can AI work for us?

Oh wow. There is uh so, so much so much to  say. One of the things you have uh already  

mentioned...it's outsourcing some of the tasks.  So, I just mentioned before how overworked some  

teachers are, and you know, AI can help take  this load off their shoulders. Basically,  

teachers have mundane and repetitive tasks  too, so if you can trust AI to do that for you,  

I mean like um, you know, creating  templates and uh some, you know,  

working with some management issues, emails, some  types of assessment, etc. Uh, AI can do all that,  

and that can free up some time for you as a  teacher to create because teachers love to create,  

and you know uh, if you can spend more time  creating exercises for your students, that's  

great. And um another thing that I think AI can  help with is creation of materials itself because  

um...you know, it takes so much time, like if  you take, for example, a video and you want to  

create a listening exercise, you need to watch  the video. You need to create the questions,  

create the answers, create you know a lead-in  activity, some follow-up exercises. With AI,  

it can be done much faster, so you can um you  know, you have a lot of ideas, and you can turn  

much more of them to life basically with uh AI.  And uh that's great. And it's not only, you know  

video content and text content, by the way. Now AI  can create images and videos, and it's so exciting  

because uh we can have so many different types  of new teaching materials. It's amazing. It's  

amazing for different types of listening and um  I mean it's great, and it also boosts students'  

engagement because um in their private lives, they  use their phones, and they...they're so used to  

this bite-size content on like in Instagram and  TikTok, and when in the class they are asked to  

work with a paper textbook, you know, sometimes  um they're not as engaged and as happy to do  

it. But um if AI can uh change that as well  for us and make the students more engaged,  

um why not? You know? ...Amazing. And uh I can  go on and on, you know, personalization. Well,  

you know, we used to have one textbook for the  whole class, and now you can take a text and  

you can create a different level of exercises for  it. That's great for mixed ability classrooms. Um,  

also you know, so many people are working right  now on um AI tutors, personalized assistance.  

Um that's also coming out very soon. Um so  you know, there are so many possibilities,  

and the great thing about AI is you know, you  and I sitting here, we can't even imagine what  

can happen in the next you know six months or  a year, so um teachers can benefit a lot. Uh,  

these are the things that I see, that I have seen  so far, but uh there are many more, I'm sure.

And it partly depends on our willingness, but  also our creativity um also is going to bring  

it out. I just um blogged about a teacher, Susan  Gaer, who's very creative with all technology. She  

had this uh lesson on plastics and the dangers  of plastics, and she turned to the different  

AI tools. She generated a rap like that about  the dangers of plastic: "Beware of Plastics!"  

And then she generated a song like that!  So...it was like wow! You got the vocabulary,  

and it was such an engaging format. She got the  words, she got the music, generated images. And  

there's your whole package. I mean wow! Like it  really is so creative, saves you time, but also  

produces things that you previously thought, "Wow,  how would I ever get that?" And as you mentioned,  

personalization. I've turned to ChatGPT with  vocabulary, and maybe it could even be similar GRE words,  

but I would contextualize it differently for  different private students because one's an  

engineer. Another person might be in real estate.  Another person is um running a small business,  

you know, so I might take the words and ask  ChatGPT to help me create a short little  

paragraph um like that but for different  people. Then my job as the teacher is to  

continue. We read it aloud. We do pronunciation.  We do discussion. We do all the production things  

that ChatGPT would not be able to do, so again  I see it as a collaboration. Um it's really fun.

But tell me specifically then -- Twee. Some  people have heard this as you talk about Twee,  

and they don't know what you're referring to.  

What is Twee and what does it do  and what does it offer teachers?

Um yeah. So, Twee is an AI platform that we  created specifically for language teachers,  

and uh it allows you to create um lesson  content for your class. You simply paste  

a link to a video or a topic for your lesson or  a list of vocabulary, and Twee can generate all  

sorts of exercises matched to different  skills: listening, speaking, uh writing,  

reading. You know, multiple choice activities,  open questions, fill-in-the-gap. Um creative  

exercises for speaking, essay topics, whatnot.  So, you can literally build a unique lesson  

from scratch just like you mentioned. You have  different students who have different interests,  

and you can in minutes create different lesson  plans for them. I mean this is amazing, and what  

makes Twee different from ChatGPT is that Twee  reduces this um learning leap for the teacher,  

you know, by providing the most intuitive  design where you just click. You paste your link,  

and you click one button, and you have  everything as opposed to having to craft  

this prompt and interact with the chat  to make it um give you what you want.

And another thing that I really wanted to  mention that I'm sure many language teachers  

will appreciate is that we built Twee um in  connection with CEFR. Everything is aligned with  

the Common European Framework of Reference for  Languages. You have all your levels from A1 to C2,  

and we really put a lot of effort into ensuring  that the content produced by Twee um could be  

matched to levels, and that makes it great for  working with mixed ability classrooms, and you know,  

basically any type of teaching -- English tutoring  as well. Because you know everyone uses the  

levels and uh yeah. And then when you create the  lesson plan on Twee, you can download it as a PDF.  

You can export it to Google forms. Uh we're now  working on making Twee interactive. In the future,  

students will be able to um, you know, do  the interactive exercises straight on the  

platform. The teacher will just share the link  to the lesson, and the student will choose the  

correct answers, or you know, type in an essay or  voice record an answer to a discussion question  

and then the teacher will be able to get all  that together with AI-assisted feedback if  

they want um to use AI uh to provide feedback,  of course. And um yeah, so that's Twee.

Amazing. So again, to clarify, it is like  ChatGPT, but it's specifically for the teachers,  

and again, it's aligned with the levels, so  you don't have to worry, "Am I writing the  

right prompt? Um am I going to generate...am  I have to regenerate three four times to get  

something that is usable?" Or again, Twee cuts that  down to one result that works from the get-go.

Yeah, yeah, of course, you know,  if you need to, you can regenerate  

um certain text on Twee as well,  but you don't have to do it um,  

and it doesn't have the chat interface where  you have to interact with AI. It's uh something  

that teachers are more used to. You put in  the information, and you get the result.

Exciting. So, you touched upon this, but  what is your vision -- whether it's for Twee  

or something larger? What do you see happening for  us as teachers in the next, let's say, five years?

That's a great question.

What do you hope?

Yeah, I'm trying to, yeah...I'm trying to  stay positive. I do think that AI will change  

education, uh especially EFL in particular, which  interests us, and um I know that a lot of teachers  

will be listening to us, so I don't want to  say you know that AI will replace teachers,  

but AI will find its way um into EFL teaching.  But the teachers will stay. We will collaborate  

with AI. We will try to make the most out of AI,  and we will become better teachers. We'll become  

super teachers, I think! And uh you know, while  our generation is more used to human tutors,  

and I think they will keep choosing human  tutors because they want the human interaction,  

younger generations who are, you know, they're  using TikTok, and they prefer to interact with AI,  

they will maybe opt for some AI solutions.  It's great to have a choice, but um you know,  

a lot of people will still um be taught by  humans, but these humans will be different.  

We'll be different teachers. And as I worked  at university that provided teacher training,  

I just wanted to mention that teacher  training will have to change as well,  

you know? Yes. The things that they teach future  teachers will have to include AI...yeah...into  

the curriculum, and this has to happen fast  because AI is developing at this crazy speed,  

you know? And with schools as well.  Look at it. They have to come up with  

all sorts of regulations of, you know, on how  to use AI in the classrooms. There is a lot of  

work to be done in different areas, and research  as well, by the way, but you know it's just so,  

so exciting. So, I'm looking into the future  with excitement. It's a great time to be in Al.

It is. And we can be a part of it; we don't  have to be on the sidelines watching it develop,  

as you know...can be a part of it and shape it  together. I also had heard, I like this viewpoint  

that I'd heard, and I share it -- is that I  don't see the threat from technology that it  

will replace us. Um I heard someone say that it's  not that we're going to be replaced by AI. So,  

people who worry about being replaced and  losing their job should worry more about  

a competitor who knows how to use AI. So, the  idea is you want to inform yourself. You want  

to get comfortable and skilled at this because  it's going to be part of your toolkit. It'll be  

part of your skillset, so you want to embrace  this and allow it to enhance your teaching.

Yeah, we have to keep learning. Exactly.

So, super! Thank you so much, Alina. I really  enjoyed talking with you about AI and Twee,  

and hopefully we'll get a chance to talk further  again in the future, but thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

I hope you found my conversation with  Alina interesting and useful. I encourage  

students to review the words and  expressions that I highlighted.

As for the teachers watching, I  invite you to check out Twee for  

yourself and see how it can  become part of your teaching  

and language instruction. I'll put  the link in the video description.

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you know who has interest in how AI is  being used in English language instruction.

As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!  

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