Ixchell Reyes 0:04
The DIESOL podcast

Brent Warner 0:05
Developing Innovation in English as a Second or Other Language,

Ixchell Reyes 0:09
Episode 81: AI in ESL

Brent Warner 0:28
Welcome to DIESOL This is episode 81. We are your hosts. I’m Brent Warner.

Ixchell Reyes 0:34
And I’m Ixchell Reyes. Live from Taiwan. Yay!

Brent Warner 0:42
All right, so now you’re finally telling us. Where’s the mystery location?

Ixchell Reyes 0:46
I’m in Taiwan. South of Taiwan. Yep. It is beautiful. It’s warm. So again, once again, in true fashion, as I’ve done in the last four years, I’m missing out on the cold wave that is hitting the states.

Brent Warner 1:05
That’s pretty smart.

Ixchell Reyes 1:06
As I heard, it snowed there in California.

Brent Warner 1:08
Yeah, we got snow. It graupeled. That’s that’s the word that I learned soft soft hail is called graupel and I’m assuming you can verbalize that.

Ixchell Reyes 1:19
And Brent is adding new words to his weather lexicon.

Brent Warner 1:23
Yeah, I was originally like, I’m never going to remember that. But now I’m just trying to use it as many times as I can so that it sticks with

Ixchell Reyes 1:28
grapple gra PP le?

Brent Warner 1:30
GRAUPLE, I think. Growl Pozible.

Ixchell Reyes 1:37
Growl-pull.

Brent Warner 1:39
It’s not it’s not- It’s not graupeling in Taiwan?

Ixchell Reyes 1:45
It’s definitely not it’s nice and balmy. 76 to 80 degrees.

Brent Warner 1:52
Nice. Okay. So good. Glad Glad you’re surviving and living there and doing your biz.

Ixchell Reyes 2:03
Attacking to the scooters.

Brent Warner 2:04
The scooters, scooters. Yeah, it’s a whole it’s a it’s a culture. It’s a scooter culture, right?

Mhmm

Ixchell, you forgot how to podcast. Your show you’re doing lots of like verbal – Non-verbals, you’re like nodding your head, and you’re like you’re smiling and things I’m like, this is audio (laughter)

Ixchell Reyes 2:28
I used to give props to moms in Tai- in Japan for riding their bicycles with their kids on like two kids on the bicycle. But now there’s a whole new level of respect for moms in Taiwan, on their motorcycle, and they’ve got two kids and sometimes three kids on a motorcycle.

Brent Warner 2:48
Well, you’ve seen some of those ones. I don’t know if it was Taiwan, or what country but you’ve seen some ones where they have like, they’re almost like a circus act. You got like, like, 12 people hanging off of a single bike and like a motorcycle and like going for it. So. So I hope to see some pictures of you doing that in the in the near future. So So today, we’re kind of coming back to the popular conversation of the day. Artificial Intelligence. We’ve talked about it a bit before but let’s let’s jump in and and get to the content. All right, so Ixchell, part of the reason that we are talking about this again today, so we talked about artificial intelligence one year ago, a little bit more than a year ago, February of 2022. So 259 Do you remember that?

Ixchell Reyes 3:42
I do. I just know it was a long time ago now. And but in internet years, it’s been a lifetime.

Brent Warner 3:52
Yeah. So we basically made a bunch of predictions. And I went back and listened to them recently. It was pretty interesting. We, we got some things right are kind of guided towards some right things. We definitely kind of skipped over a lot of the generative texts. That is really the big thing that ended up coming out this year, and that we’re really talking about a lot that is driving everybody. All sorts of directions. Right now, but But it was interesting, I think we got some parts really right on some kind of the ways that people were reacting and what might happen but other parts. It’s not so much that we were wrong. It’s that we didn’t talk or didn’t recognize what was going to be coming with some parts too, which is fine. You know, that’s, that’s our predictions. And then, in December last, just a few episodes back, we had ChatGPT with Eric Roth. That was a great opening conversation, I think, you know, and I actually just went to lunch with Eric Roth recently. And we’re still kind of talking about it’s just great to talk with him. about kind of the theory and understanding these big ideas behind ChatGPT. And we’ll repeat a little bit of that today as well. But today, we’re really looking at some practical advice, because I’m not going to make

Ixchell Reyes 5:15
an existential crisis.

Brent Warner 5:18
We’ll get to that in just a second. The first reason is, because we’re launching a site site. Ai. Oh, yes. all.com.

Ixchell Reyes 5:27
That’s right. You forgot. So

Brent Warner 5:28
sorry about that. So AI in esl.com, we’re just launching it. It’s, it’s meant to be a practical site for teachers in ESL who are thinking about and trying to figure out ways to use artificial intelligence. We kept it with AI because it’s not chat GBT necessarily, as there’s more and more things coming out more and more of these chat bots and different things. But I think really what we’re looking for here, it’ll be a lot of my experimenting with things, and maybe some reviews of AI resources and things like that. But also, it will be hopefully, if any of you out there listening, and you’re trying to use artificial intelligence in your classroom and failures and, and successes, both. We’re interested in hearing about those. And if you want to write something up, or or put it up on the site, let us say something Yeah, share it out. Because I think our field in particular, we’re going to find lots of kinds of general AI in classrooms, AI in education kind of conversations. But a lot of the conversations that I’m seeing so far are how do we say that I mean, there’s still like, a lot of them are from edgy celebrities, who maybe not are not in the classroom, like they’re, they’re good ideas. There’s lots of good ideas going in out there and all those things, but maybe people who aren’t in the classroom or aren’t dealing with our student population. And so there will be more, of course, ESL related articles. And we’ll, we’ll try to share those to people, but it’s basically just a resource. And so AI in esl.com, and also announcing it here and talking about it for this episode means I have to get my, my stuff together, get the site actually properly launched, by the time this episode airs. So so there we go. AI in ESL. But Ixchell, let’s talk about this. So there’s lots of these conversations you were getting to this point here. The people are dealing with all of this technology in different ways. So what are

Ixchell Reyes 7:31
Yeah. So Well, definitely several differing viewpoints. I think, again, I call that a teacher existential crisis, because we’re sort of having to really rethink how we approach assessment and how we’re going to either shun or incorporate this tool. But you peg that right where you said that people are probably going through the stages of grief. And part of it is like, again, denial that no, this can’t be happening, this will this won’t take off, it’s not going to make it in nowhere, we’re going to this is going to ruin the profession and writing in general anger, of course, at the fact that immediately people are fearful of something new and going to the the worst case scenario, which is cheating. I think there’s a lot of conversations around plagiarism and cheating. And, and there’s real anger. And I think it’s because people have spent so teachers have put so much time creating assessments that are, quote unquote, plagiarism proof, which I don’t think really exists. And I think you don’t have one solution that works forever. So there’s anger in that. And then there’s this whole bargaining approach. And I think here, Brent, I think, is it where you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to how you’re going to incorporate the the, the tools or I’m not, I wasn’t sure, you know, you mentioned, how can we do this?

Brent Warner 9:01
Yeah, so like, maybe we’ll take parts of this. Maybe we won’t allow other parts of it. Right? We’ll do this, but we won’t do that…

Ixchell Reyes 9:06
Yeah. And and there’s been -Yeah, right. There’s knee jerk reactions. And many institutions. I’ve seen articles floating around about, you know, colleges immediately banning such and such or chat GPT or articles about how if anything is found to be created from a Gen autogenerated source. There are consequences and and again, that’s, I think, out of fear and anger and denial. And then there’s this whole like, well, what am I supposed to do now? I can’t beat it. So there’s a whole sense of depression. And kind of, again, questioning existential crisis and in terms of teaching because what you’ve grown accustomed to that has worked in the past, or seems to work doesn’t work with this new tool. And then finally, accept There’s an understanding that this is not going away, just like our cell phones and screens and cameras are not going away. This is just going to get better and smarter perhaps. And now it’s how can we coexist? And when you realize I think that there are teachers already embracing this that did not just shun it and and, again, fear it or react with fear, that there is a way that where you can coexist, and it can become a tool, then, then you’re simply just reframing how you’re approaching this. And I think that’s the that’s the existential crisis. Yeah. Grief, it’s grief, it really is.

Brent Warner 10:41
It is. Big time. We were talking a little bit pre show about this. And it’s like, you know, for you and me, and, you know, some of our colleagues who are gung ho to try these things out, right, we might be a little bit faster to get through these process, because, because we’re working through it directly, right all the time. And maybe, you know, I know, right now, you can’t do it, but But you know, like it, being willing to incorporate it into the class and trying it out and seeing what happens and, and experiencing the failures and the successes with it. Right. And so, so I think that that has, at least for me, kind of fast tracked me through the process, because I still get those feelings, right? Like, like, wait a second, this is not, right, sometimes or, you know, if students don’t learn how to use these things in a good way, then they’re just going to, you know, use it foolishly right or, or use it in ways that are going to stop them from possibly studying or getting the knowledge gaining the knowledge that they may be need. And so, so I still definitely go through all those. And we even we talked about some of those when Eric was on the show, we talked, you know, like, and it’s not perfect, right? I’m not at the end, but But mostly, I’m at the acceptance stage. And so I think that this is, it’s going to take a lot more time for a lot of people who are, you know, hey, I read an article this week, maybe I Oh, yeah, I thought about it again, you know, a month later and, and that’s going to be a lot harder conversation or a slower process through the grief, I guess, as as people go. So wherever you are, that’s totally fine. But I guess we are kind of making the assumption that eventually you’ll get to acceptance and, and kind of recognize that this is the we are living in this future. And we are living in this world. And if you don’t agree, that’s okay, you can stop the episode. Right here. But but if you agree later. Yeah. So Ixchell, I thought, we talked a little bit about this. And today, we’re going to kind of split into two parts. One part is practically using AI with your class. So things that students can do. And then the second part will kind of talk about using AI in your workflow as a teacher. And so let’s begin with things that students can do and things that students can actually use this in the classroom with. So you want to start us off.

Ixchell Reyes 13:12
Okay, so here in Taiwan, I’ve run into a teacher who has a writing class. And he told me right away that he was using chat GPT. Because he can have the students enter a particular topic. And if he wants to focus on a grammar point, he can, or a grammar point or a style or writing style. So for example, a comparative paragraphs, the students can look in groups, they can look at the sample and then generate their own using, I guess what we would normally say like the framing of the paragraph, or the framing of the grammar, they can see it immediately from a sample. And then now that leaves them free not to have to come up with different examples from text, but one, that they can see a pattern immediately automatically, and it could generate a different example every time. So that’s a really good way to get the students interested in not immediately calling chat GPT or this AI tool, you know, an enemy because it is not.

Brent Warner 14:17
Yeah, you know, I bet you could also, you know, prompt it to, to say, Hey, break this paragraph down or break this essay down into the different parts and clarify what’s going on with each section, right? Because I bet it could do that. I haven’t tried that yet. But, but I could absolutely see that. So that use of of examples and creating examples, and we’ll talk more about that too. A little bit later. Different versions of that. But yeah, I love that. There’s already people out there that are also using it, trying things out. That’s awesome. So I’m going to kind of flip to the next part of this, which is self analysis. And so I think this there’s a little bit of work here on the teachers side. So one thing that I think a lot of us are starting to figure out is the way that you prompt these AI things really makes a difference in the output, right? And so, so one thing that you can do is you can actually have AI, analyze the students work, right? So you can you can create a prompt into something like ChatGPT, or whichever one it is. And then you can say, hey, analyze this, analyze this assignment that a student wrote, right? And then it’ll go through, and it’ll do the analysis based on the parameters that you gave to it. So this is where the practice will come in for the teachers is like, Okay, what is what are the parameters that I’m trying to set up? So you can say, you know, you can start real simple, but I think the, the better details, so the more clear you are with it, the better response it’ll give to you. So. But anyways, I did do this with my class, and I said, Hey, show me the strengths and weaknesses of this particular writing assignment. Then I had, then I had the students take that analysis of their work, and I had them compare it against what they actually wrote. And then I said, Well, what are you learning from? What AI is telling you? Right? And so what do you agree with it? Do you disagree with it? Is it missing anything? Is it missing any pieces of information? And what do you think about those? And so then, it’s kind of cool, because they get to say, Oh, well, what’s the computer saying about my work? And what is it understanding and not understanding? And they’re kind of motivated internally, because it’s the computer analyzing them at this point. It’s still novel for them. So they’re like, Oh, that’s interesting, what’s going on? It might be in the future, a couple years down the line. They’re like, whatever. Like, that’s what everybody does. And I don’t care what your says. But right now, it is pretty interesting to people. So they can actually use that as a way to get reengaged with their own quality of work, which is a really interesting way to play with it.

Ixchell Reyes 16:59
Yeah, so another, another cool thing that you can do is, have, have, chat GPT style has to work. So for example, convert something and convert information or pieces of writing into a rap battle. Form screenplays, I earlier today, I was I was in putting stuff in there to see hmm, I often have trouble. I mean, I bought plenty of materials to help me have ideas for communicative activities. Usually, it’s a roleplay, or a skit or some kind of dialogue. And so I entered in there, write a dialogue about blah, blah, blah, and I had specific grammar points. And I had a specific vocabulary target that I wanted to hit, and it sure did create a dialog. And I thought, wait a minute, I didn’t even tell it how many people. So if I now and it was just two people, then I typed in, write a rap song about a guy from this country. And his job is this and it sure did write one. So I can see how this would become really interesting for students trying to learn how to input something clearly. And then also realizing Wait a minute, I wanted it to do this, but it didn’t do it, because I didn’t specify. So it also helps. It helps you to be more specific. So I think that’s really cool. Students can then determine what’s missing. And they can change, they can take the framework and then turn it into something that’s their own. And I think this is maybe a little bit more interesting than when the teacher gives, like those close exercises, where there have pre written and, and I have a class right now that I’m thinking, Oh, my gosh, they love American music. They are going to love they want to sing and they said we want to say in class, we’re gonna have a karaoke day. I was like, well, we can have a karaoke day. But it’s got to be related to the content. So now I can sort of start to see the possibility of, hey, we can actually do this and you can create your own song because you guys liked the style of such and such artists. So let’s try to work with that. So – go ahead

Brent Warner 19:06
I was just, like, as you’re saying that I’ve seen a couple people do things like rewrite the lyrics to such and such Taylor Swift song with this. Right? And it actually does it and so it’s like, if you know, the rhythm and the the, you know, kind of the, the pacing of that song. And then you said, Well, yeah, rewrite it with this content and make sure they’re using this. Yes, you know, these tenses or whatever, that can be super cool.

Ixchell Reyes 19:34
Yeah. I put in use gerunds. And so it used a bunch of gerunds in the, in the I don’t, I think there was like four verses. And it’s like that is pretty cool. Now if I really want to say make sure you use the word this, this and this or use higher level, use academic. I don’t know the Academic Word List, sub list number one. You could really now that’s something pretty cool.

Brent Warner 19:58
That’s super cool. Yeah. I love that. Because it you know, that’s kind of it’s making me think of like our talk with Holly Sawyer that we had about her programming and the way students get, you know, to the point where they really want to specify that language to be able to get those, you know, she was doing the programming and the robots moving around. But now we could talk about that for just things like –

Ixchell Reyes 20:19
like words! Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. And, and I think that it helps students become more aware of their own ability or lack of, yeah, just being specific, that that can be very difficult when you when I mean, just in watching my students this week, talk to each other. When I say, Okay, you have the right now you have to write the dialogue. And you have to make sure that the audience understands what your topic is. Sometimes it’s hard for them to convey a topic if you’re not pointing out like, oh, but how are they going to know this? Or how do they where’s the context for this. So this might be a way that frees the teacher to help others. And students can become autonomous or their own, I guess, awareness of what they’re lacking. And I think I like that part. Because right now, I normally have small classes, right? Now I have classes I considered larger, for a very short period of time, so their time has to be used very carefully and wisely. So if it frees me up to work with really struggling students, then then they’ve got at least some place to go for help. Yeah, it doesn’t replace me, but it’s something that they can..

Brent Warner 21:31
(laughter) Let’s be clear, it doesn’t replace me.

Ixchell Reyes 21:36
It doesn’t replace me (laughter) Well, it doesn’t talk yet, so that’s coming. That’s

Brent Warner 21:41
Alright, So I have another another, you know, another thing that people can do, which are the students can do, which is, you know, they can have a debate, right? So they can set it up, where you can say, hey, this is one of the ones that people have been really playing with a bit, but you can set it up. And you can tell AI to take whatever side of an argument, right? And so that could be really personal to students, right? So for example, they could say, Hey, I got in an argument with my boyfriend, girlfriend, my child, my, my, you know, parents, whatever it is about this, you’re going to take the side of the other person, I’m going to take my side, and I’m going to try to work my way through that debate. Right. And so they could actually have and kind of figure out what the language for an argument that they’re trying to support is, it could, of course, be a local, you know, a global issue or a world issue like regular debates. But I think that for students to customize it to things that they’re like, I was, you know, like, I get students who said, like, I just couldn’t talk about this thing. I was so upset. And I really wanted to be able to say this thing, but I didn’t know how and I was like, Well, you could plug that in and practice it and see what the reactions might be coming back from it as well. So So there could be some really interesting things. And then, and then remind students that as they’re going through and having a debate, they can actually pause, and then ask, ask the artificial intelligence to say, hey, clarify what you mean by this, right? And because the AI is not emotionally invested in the debate, it’s a hole, right? So they’re not going to, like if you’re talking to your, your husband or wife and you’re in the middle of a fight you, you kind of can’t just say, I don’t understand these words. I mean, you can I’ve done it (laughter)

Ixchell Reyes 23:30
Has that happened to you? (laughter)

Brent Warner 23:32
Yeah. But you could say, but you need to stop to get like clarification on everything, right. But you can when you’re practicing with something like this, so that might be an interesting thing. And it can take the opposite side.

Ixchell Reyes 23:46
That’s very, very cool. You can also use it to have students get clarification on unclear ideas. So one of the things that I didn’t understand initially, it was checkout GPT itself. So just by asking it, please explain chat GPT. It explained it to me step by step in a way that I could be like, Oh, I can now take this information. And I can verbally tell someone else who now will understand that idea. And you could do this about battles. You could do this about history movements, you can do it about science, cycles, like all sorts of just anything. Really.

Brent Warner 24:27
Yes. And then every time it’s too hard, you could say make it easier or or explain paragraph two, or whatever else it is. So I think one of the big things about these, like, I’m five, that one is the popular way to people people are taking to it, but but you can also say like, Hey, can you can you clarify what you wrote in paragraph two, right? So it does, maybe they understand parts of it, but not every part. And so you can actually ask it to get those two. So I like that. And then just one kind of last one here, which is it grammar points. Right? So we talked about grammar before and how, you know, you said your, your colleague is using it and doing some grammar checks. But you can actually go in there and type I’ve had my own students do this when they start typing in their own language, it does understand and does put out pretty amazing content in their language. Yeah, so like, so I had someone right now. Yeah, no, well, I was I wasn’t aware of, we were experimenting with it in class. And my students were like, and I said, Well, let’s, let’s see what happens. And they’re like, they started figuring out and they’re like, Oh, well, if I write, you know, do this in Chinese, right? I’ve got some Chinese students in my class, and they, and they start the the second part, they said answer in Chinese. And then it started printing, like putting out Chinese content. I’m like, Oh, this knows all these different languages too.

Ixchell Reyes 25:50
It – it just did that in Japanese for me!

Brent Warner 25:52
Yeah. Isn’t it cool? That’s amazing. So you can actually, just so you can say, like, Hey, I don’t understand subject verb agreement. I know, I always use that example. I don’t understand Subject Verb Agreement, explain it to me in Japanese, right. And so then they can come back. And then they can get the full Japanese explanation of that English language grammar point, and that they can get a little quick clarification as they’re ready to move forward. So lots and lots and lots of ways that you can actually encourage students to use this to benefit their their language growth, and not just to replace it as a quick like, Oh, here’s the English result pulled out of, of, you know, generative AI, but no, you’re actually interacting with it and using it as an opportunity to build your own language skills. And so I think there’s a lot of really cool things. We’re just starting to see people figure out how to use those.

Ixchell Reyes 26:47
Amazing.

Brent Warner 26:52
All right, so quick break, I’m sure we’ve talked about this a couple times, and we’ve gotten some takers will here and there before presentations and things. If people are looking for consultation training presenters, we do have limited slots. You know, as we’ve mentioned before, you and I are both full time teachers. And that is our priority. But we do want to help people out, we and so if there are, if you are looking for some ways to help your team develop or better interact with your students, you can reach out and work with one of us or both of us, whatever your needs are possibly depending on your needs and our availability. But please do reach out if you want to talk about the details, you can find us at DIESOL.org.

All right, so next up, you know, we talked a little bit about some things that students can do for themselves, in maybe in your class, or how they can use it to build. But there’s the back end too, right? The teachers themselves us, we might have things that we want to do to set up or use some of this technology. And I someone just sent me an article, I think today or yesterday that they said, it’s basically teachers are using chat GPT and other AI more than students are. And I was like, I haven’t read the article. So I’m not sure exactly what it says. But I’m not totally surprised, because teachers are going crazy and like trying to figure it out and learn about it. And so maybe we’re spending a lot more time kind of, you know, trying to figure out how these things work. But we’ll start with some of these ways that people can use them. So very easy. And this is the one that everybody kind of starts off with, which is write an email or an announcement for students reminding them about homework, campus events, whatever those things are. You can also customize it to language levels, right. So you could say, you know, if you know, the Common European Framework, you can say, you know, write an email, reminding students to do this homework, this homework and this homework and that this event is happening in town this weekend, and do it at the b1 level, right, you know, and so you can do all this cool stuff, and then and then have it do it. And then it can write a little bit of a longer email. And so you spend 1015 seconds, thinking of the prompt, but it might be an email that you would have spent, you know, 15 to 20 minutes crafting itself, right. So, so I think that that is one way that the teachers might get started playing with and again, it’s just about getting comfortable here, right? It’s not about that you have to do all of these things. But once you start getting comfortable with this, then you can say, Okay, let me let me use that as a starting point to my next thing, but that’s one way.

Ixchell Reyes 29:42
Yeah, you can also use AI to simplify things. So for example, I know that I oftentimes have someone, a colleague for For example, take a look at an email I’m writing or take a look at a message I’m going to send to other people to make sure they understand what I write but that also takes away from there. or time or I have to wait until they’re available. And you can just ask AI to simplify your writing and make it easier to understand, then, I mean, if it’s that, then I can also have a colleague look at it if I need to, but that would just free up that time. Plus, it’s more, it’s faster.

Brent Warner 30:17
Yeah, absolutely. It’s faster. Um, so this is when I started playing with a little bit, but you can actually have it build quizzes, right? So in our school, we use Canvas, and I figured out this is for low stakes assignments. But you know, one of the things that we always just like, Okay, let’s have a quiz bank, that students can go in and practice this work. And then it’s like, well, who’s gonna sit there and write 100? Questions, right? Because that’s a lot of work. Yeah, with all of the possible, you know, multiple choice answers and all these things. So I went and did it. And I had it right. I think the the max that was able just for content length that was able to get me about 25 questions at a time. But in a matter of 20 seconds, right. So I did you know, I did a asking it to use models of speculation, right. And so, so then it made this quizzes with ABCD, right. And then basically, you can have an export and regardless of your platform, so if you’re using Canvas quizzes, or if you’re using something like a hood, or whatever else it is, all of these things have ways to upload your own content. And that could be in a spreadsheet, for example. And so you can actually have chat GPT or whatever your AI sir sources created in a way that’s already going to be output into the required spreadsheet format. And then you can just click another bunch off to it’s pretty quick. Yeah, and then upload it right in there. And then it’s generated the quiz for you. So I’m like, Oh, my God. So instead of waiting, you know, just like, Okay, I’m gonna I’m gonna spend all day today writing 100 questions. It’s like, a little bit of cleanup. I did, I did go through and look at some of them. But about what a what a time saver. And I you know, I’m not super, super fancy. But yeah.

Ixchell Reyes 32:11
So So Brian, as you’re talking about that, I am on chat GPT. And I wanted to test the true or false, I sometimes do a little quizzes just to get the students thinking or about the previous content, just just comprehension checks quick, again, low stakes, and I typed in a write a true or false quiz of 10 questions about Taiwan. And sure enough, it generated a true or false quiz with the answer key. And I think the only thing that I’m curious about is, Where can I get the sources for it so that I can double check. But that is really cool. Because now it’s like, oh, my gosh, if I’m running behind, or there’s a change in my schedule, and suddenly I need to check something or have a sometimes an icebreaker, an icebreaker in between classes. I can do it very quickly and not have to spend all this time creating something that I’m going to use only for five minutes. Yeah, amazing. Yeah, that’s the big one. Right? Amazing.

Brent Warner 33:05
So I know you’re distracted and like trying to jump

Ixchell Reyes 33:09
because I like this is so cool. So okay, so you said earlier that it could build a lesson plan. So I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. So I said I typed in also build the lesson plan on what did I type I erased it already. Because you can clear you can clear your the history of what you’re doing. But I typed in build a lesson plan about writing a roleplay. On, on on basic training in the military. And it broke apart the lesson into it was I didn’t specify how long so that’s what I caught right away. I was like, Oh, this is going to take 60 minutes for them to do this. No, I need I need a shorter time. And then I need to put which vocabulary is a target vocabulary. But you can build out a lesson plan and then adjust and fine tune for your needs. And that’s one of the things I didn’t do is give it a timeline. If I wanted to say write a 50 minute lesson plan where the students write a skit you’re seeing 10 words from this list, then I bet I would have gotten something that I could now fine tune again I won’t be the final product but now I can I don’t have to spend all this time formatting and laying things out and now it’s broken apart into it’ll even tell you materials that you need.

Brent Warner 34:30
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. And I wonder

Ixchell Reyes 34:32
what it’ll do if I yeah, oh, yeah. Well, you can say language learners. Oh, cool. Well, I was gonna I was thinking what if I add add what oh my gosh, made the words are escaping me right now. tailor it for lower level students, lower level language students or emerging language students to see what happens or create a variation For, I don’t know, a longer for higher level students. I wonder what that would do?

Brent Warner 35:05
Yeah, you can do that. It’s pretty cool. I know, I know, hold on will you can play with it all you want. I know you’re like, I just gotta go do it all right now. But yeah, you can set up a timeline, you can, you can provide it with standards that you’re looking for. So if we go back to our old, we did a little series on ISTE standards, we did a little series on TCL standards, right? All of these different things. And so you could plug those standards in. And then like you said, you can give it a timeline and say, Hey, this is a one hour class or you know, across for, for two hour classes, or whatever else it is, right, and it’ll do it. And by the way, the lesson plans it builds are pretty, pretty good. I gotta say, I was like, oh, like, I’ve spent a lot of time building these in the past. And now it’s just making this really good one right here. So that works. And then this last one here, Ixchell, this is what I wrote a recent one of my most recent blog posts for the tea soul blog, is really about building custom super hyper focused custom content. And the reason this came up was because I was doing a presentation on this up in Northern California in Salinas, which is, I don’t know if you’ve spent any time up there. But that’s you know, Steinbeck country, agricultural farm area. And I was thinking about it as we were kind of talking with the the group that I was talking with, and I was like, you know, what students hear, like, they’re interested in a lot of things, but like, their life is around rural agricultural life. But you know, content in ESL textbooks, or, or whatever they’re working with, are almost always about, like, urban life, and what is it like in New York City and all of these things? And I’m like, What about custom content that really connects to what they’re interested in? What about their neighborhood? Right? What about what would have happened, if they had a story about George Clooney coming to visit their town, right, or whatever else it is, right. And so, and going to the restaurants that they know, you know, and so they could really customize it, and fine tune it. So that it’s, it’s super interesting directly to the student and relevant to their, their interests, right. And so this is, this is where I think there’s a ton of room to, to experiment, and to bring this in is that, you know, we all have this ambition as teachers, like, Oh, I’m gonna make custom content, I’m gonna do this and this and like, some of us are able to do it. And then we kind of get tired or like, we kind of have like a little kid that we use, but it kind of fades over the years. And, you know, whichever celebrity we’re talking about, maybe isn’t that popular with the next group of students. And so you could just with a quick flick, you can get these all updated, all customized all the time. And I think that is really where we’re gonna see a lot of power here. And it’ll, you know, and this has always been an issue with the major publishers is that it takes so long to get that custom that content, which is not customized. And now you can just make unending custom content that is just so focused for your students. So we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. But custom content, I think this is going to be the the power move for a lot of teachers with building building stuff for their students on the back end before they go into class. Ixchell is gone. She’s just like, “I’m ChatGPTin'” (laughter).

Ixchell Reyes 38:37
No, actually, I’m not I was sending a colleague, the link to chat GPT, because I told her about it, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is going to be a time saver – ANYWAY!

Brent Warner 38:45
Get off the phone! (laughter) Alright, so lots of different things. This is just kind of kicking things off. But if you’re using AI in the classroom, and you want to share and again, like we said earlier, we want to hear about successes, we want to hear about failures, we want to hear about problems, we want to hear about new and different ways of playing with it with AI in your language classroom. And this doesn’t matter if you’re in America, if you’re in Egypt, if you’re in Japan, wherever you are, if you’re trying these things out and seeing let us know. So AIinEsl.com It’ll be you know, we’re gonna slowly be building this over time and trying to add some parts in here. But we want to hear your voice and this is not just us, right? This is anyone who could be benefiting from this. So AIinESL.com Please check it out.

Ixchell Reyes 39:42
It is time for our fun finds. And this time around I have Taiwanese guava spring Have you ever had one?

Brent Warner 39:49
A Well, I’ve been to Taiwan, but I don’t think I had a guava when I was there.

Ixchell Reyes 39:53
So well. I don’t I don’t I mean, I didn’t know that there was a difference. But of course there is a difference because not all guava laws are the same Math and Taiwan are exactly or Mexican for that reason, because I’m comparing it to a Mexican guava, which is what I’m used to. But Taiwanese GLOBIS are pretty big. They’re like, they’re almost as big as like your, like a one to compare it to an apple. But an Apple could also be small. It’s pretty big. It’s like a, like the size of a hand, an adult hand. Got it. It’s pretty big. Mexican glass are small. So and Taiwanese. They’re very good. They’re green, and they’re very crispy, almost like a pear consistency. And they’re very juicy. Whereas the guavas I’m used to back home are small, like a baby’s hand. They’re yellow. They’re kind of they’re yellow on the outside or kind of like a soft, squishy, pinkish or yellowish on the inside. And they’re not as I need to ask ChatGPT to compare the differences and just more…

Brent Warner 41:07
How do I compare ChatGPT to summer’s day? All right. We’re going loopy here.

Ixchell Reyes 41:14
They’re delicious. And I have them every morning. And I don’t know if I can live without them in the States. So I need to find where I can purchase them. Okay, delicious.

Brent Warner 41:23
All right. So mine is a TV show. Poker Face with Natasha Lyonne. Have you heard of this? Okay, so if and now I know you are not a fan of this. Not not not a fan. But I don’t I don’t think you’re aware of Columbo, which is a very famous detective show starring Peter Falk, from the 1960s all the way through the 90s. I think it’s just like this massively long show. One of the just great detective shows but Natasha Lyonne is in the show called poker face, which is basically the same premise. So if you liked Colombo, and you’re bummed that Peter Falk is dead, and that there is no more Colombia, you will really like poker face. It is really, it’s an excellent show the premise it kind of flips the murder mystery on its head. And so So what it does is it actually shows someone doing a crime. In the in the whole story of the crime, it can be half the episode, like 30 minutes of an hour long show can just be showing like the setup to the crime. And then the second part of the show is when Natasha Lyonne comes in and actually kind of figures out what’s going on. There’s like a little bit of a premise to this, which is that she just has a an inborn sense of when people are lying to her. And so it kind of makes it makes it easy for her to somewhat figure out what’s going on. But it’s a fun show. It’s lots of different really a list celebrities are on the show as guests were every episode and so it is worth checking out. If you’re if you’re a fan of detective type shows, she’s not a detective, she’s a vagrant, which is also a good good fit, but, but it’s really interesting. So Poker Face with Natasha Lyonne.

Ixchell Reyes 43:16
All right, as always, thank you for listening. I just also want to say that Brent and I have done our very best to still reach out to you, even when we’re overseas. And that’s because we want you to hear all of those ideas. So thank you for listening. Thank you, even if you’re I know a couple of our listeners have said, Oh, well, I’m behind on episodes. It’s okay. Listen at your pace. We love hearing feedback. And if you’re giving us a shout out anyway, tag us on social media, we’re mostly alive somewhere. on all the platforms.

Brent Warner 43:55
Yeah, so we’re kind of out there. We’re we’re definitely responsive if you want to send us a message on DIESOL.org or send us an email but but yeah, a little a little lower on the social media these days, but we’re around. So we do have a Patreon. If you want to support the show. We have a buy us a coffee over there to show notes for this episode at DIESOL.org/81 and of course, you can listen to us at VoiceThread Canada as well. And social media wise. Let’s stick let’s say Twitter for now. I mean, we’re still struggling with that but @DIESOLpod for the show, and I am at @BrentGWarner.

Ixchell Reyes 44:38
I’m @Ixy_Pixy that’s I x y underscore pi x y and in Taiwanese thank you is To-sia, to-sia for tuning in to the DIESOL podcast.

Brent Warner 44:51
And please check out AIinESL.com if you’re so inclined. That’s right, everybody