[Extra activity] Chatbots during the lesson: Two in-class activities for developing writing and argumentation
I wanted to see how I can use AI chatbots during the lesson to support learning. Check out these two activities!
I’m always experimenting with new ways to introduce AI into my lessons. Not just because that’s my passion and I love to explore how it can be used in teaching but also because I believe it’s our task as teachers to help our students learn to tame it and use it well to assist their learning.
So, I’m going to show you two activities that I already tried in my classrooms - one in-person and one online.
1. Debate with me!
This is actually a slightly modified version of the activity with the same name that’s in our book, AI Literacy in the Language Classroom. I played it with just one computer, which means it’s perfect if your students are under 13, they don’t want to sign up to ChatGPT, or if mobile devices are banned in school.
First, you pick a topic that’s going to be discussed during the debate. Make sure it can be the basis of a pro-con debate. Have some preparation activities with students, such as activating their previous knowledge or teaching them some necessary words.
Next, type this prompt into your AI chatbot of choice. Fill in the relevant details:
You are going to take part in a debate about [INSERT YOUR TOPIC HERE]. For context, [INSERT ANY DEFINITIONS OR BACKGROUND INFO THAT YOU THINK IS RELEVANT]. First, you need to decide which side (the pro or the contra) is more difficult to argue for. That’s going to be your side. Act as a proper debating partner, bring strong arguments to support your point. You start the debate. Do you understand?
The chatbot is going to spit out an argument, which will serve as the starting point for the class. Depending on class size, either break students up into groups of 3-4 or have them work as one big group. In my case, they worked as one group.
Have students read and understand the starting argument. Make sure the text is large enough for everyone to read. Ask if they need help in understanding anything. Then give them time to come up with a counterargument. They can either type their idea(s) into a collaborative online document (from where you’ll be able to copy and paste it into the chat conversation) or they can dictate it to the computer. Have them do 2 rounds.
The main strengths of this activity I think are thinking on the spot (because students have to come up with something right away) and unpredictability (we don’t know which side the machine is going to pick and what arguments it’s going to choose). It also helps them practice their reading, speaking, and writing skills all at the same time. What’s more, they can work together to “beat” the machine: my students were keen to find logical loopholes in the AI’s argumentation, which is actually a great method to improve their own critical thinking skills.
2. Academic writing ping-pong
I came up with this activity as I was thinking hard how to deliver an interesting and meaningful academic English course to teenagers, which is by the way online!! Yes, you heard it right: teaching writing online in this day and age??? But I didn’t want to throw in the towel, so at first we spent some time creating our own AI Code of Conduct, and I tried to make a strong point for this new educational setup: You’re only going to learn something if you’re willing to make an effort. If you want to cheat your way through the course, fine, I don’t care, but you’re only taking away as much as you’re putting in.
With that done, I went on and set up an academic writing ping-pong game via ChatGPT .
We were studying thesis statements, paragraph structure, and argumentation. So, first, students in pairs had to choose a topic from a list and were asked to write two thesis statements for it. This was done in a shared Google doc. I gave some short feedback on their thesis statements in open class, then went on to describe the AI-based activity.
The activity has two parts. In the first one, their thesis statement is evaluated against a set of criteria and a slightly upgraded version is offered. The second part is pretty similar to the previous game in that the chatbot takes up the opposite side and writes a short paragraph that follows what we learned about topic and supporting sentences, to which the student(s) should respond.
Prior to the lesson, I set up a chat conversation with the following prompt:
I want to set up a game for an English for academic purposes lesson.
Step 1: The student gives you the topic of the essay and their idea for a thesis statement. Analyse it according to the following criteria: 1. Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. 2. A thesis is never a list. 3. A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational. 4. An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim. 5. A thesis is never a question 6. A thesis should be as clear and specific as possible.
If you found the thesis statement well-phrased, move on to Step 2. If it's not well-phrased, help the student until they come up with an acceptable version.
Step 2: Write a paragraph of 4 sentences maximum (with a topic sentence and supporting sentences) that argues with the student's thesis statement. To this they need to respond with a paragraph that is in favour of their original statement. Keep this ping-pong match going for 2 more rounds. That's the end of the game. Do you understand?
The good thing about shareable chatbot conversations now (you can do this with ChatGPT and Gemini) is that whoever you share them with can continue the conversation. This basically allows you to create a custom game or bot that each student can explore individually.
In my case, I put students back into pairs, shared the conversation link with them (try it yourself! here’s the link), and asked them to work together by sharing one of their screens. (You can actually invite people into conversations on ChatGPT, meaning that both of you can take part in the same conversation, but I didn’t want to bother with it this time). To my surprise, they enjoyed working together on their paragraph, and were excited to see what response they got from the chatbot.
The additional good thing about this custom bot is that they can play with it as much as they want - by giving it different topics and thesis statements. They can also be encouraged to ask the chatbot in the end whether their paragraphs were well-formed.
I’m actually pretty pleased with these two activities 😊 Let me know if you created similar AI-based in-class tasks!
And now it’s officially Christmas time! 😄 No posts until January! Enjoy your time off! 🎄