Using Generative AI Tools in TEFL: A Practical Guide for Teachers

When AI came on the scene in 2022, many educators were quick to understand its benefits for them as teachers. However, the AI landscape is constantly changing, and the profusion of types of AI tools can be overwhelming. Therefore, teachers have to try to keep up as best they can.

This blog post has 2 objectives. The first is to give an overview of AI, what it is and how it can benefit teachers. If a teacher has a solid understanding of how to navigate the various types of AI, then as changes come, it is easier to adapt to them. The second purpose is to introduce a few AI tools that are useful for EFL teachers. 

What is Generative AI?

Generative AI uses algorithms to analyze enormous amounts of data then uses its understanding of that data to create new content. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? And confusing. 

What can you create with generative AI? Here are a few examples. 

• Text: lesson plans, articles, poems, song lyrics
• Images: realistic photos, paintings, 3D models.
• Audio: music, sound effects, human-like speech 

Why use generative AI?

AI tools can help teachers find resources, and create lesson plans and materials. However, keep in mind, these tools are not perfect and may not always be accurate and reliable. Educators have reported that AI may totally fabricate data such as scientific experiments and reports. If you ask it to plan a lesson or materials, you need to check carefully that it meets your students’ needs. Is the practice activity it suggests too easy? Is the vocabulary too high level? 

Where to start?

There are three primary types of AI tools that teachers can use depending on what they want to do: general-purpose AI assistants, AI-powered teacher productivity tools, and AI-powered image and audio creation tools. Let’s take a brief look at each category. 

General-purpose AI assistants

These are AI tools that most people are familiar with. They are designed to use for a variety of everyday tasks, from helping with research to brainstorming ideas and drafting emails. They can understand and generate human-like text, answer questions, summarize information, create content, and even generate images and audio. Examples include Gemini, Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Microsoft Copilot. There are several hundred general-purpose AI assistants available, and new ones are coming online every day.  

AI-powered Teacher Productivity Tools

These tools, specifically designed to meet the needs of educators, help save time on repetitive work, such as administrative and instructional tasks. They aren’t intended to replace teachers but should be used as digital teaching assistants.

How can these tools assist teachers? They can

• automate the grading of quizzes and assignments and provide feedback.
• create lesson plans, rubrics, and educational content.
• provide insights into the performance of students and identify learning gaps. 

Examples include Gradescope for automated grading, and Diffit and Magic School for interactive lesson and materials creation.

AI-powered Image and Audio Creation Tools

These tools use AI to create new, original visual and auditory content. The user provides a text description, a ‘prompt’, and the tool generates the image, video, or audio file based on that prompt.

They can be used for:

• Text-to-Image Generation: create a unique image from a simple text description
• Audio Generation: produce sound effects, music, or synthesized voices from text
• Image and Audio Editing: automate tasks such as removing background noise from audio or changing elements within an image

Popular examples include DALL-E, Leonardo, and Midjourney for image creation, and tools like Adobe Firefly, Descript, and Invideo for integrated image, video, and audio generation and editing. Natural Reader and Luvvoice are popular audio tools. 

The importance of prompts 

Writing clear and comprehensive prompts for AI is how you ensure quality output. 

Compare these three prompts. Imagine you are teaching a 7^th grade class of A2-A2+ English learners. What can you expect AI to provide for each?

1. Create a lesson plan that focuses on using present perfect tense.
2. Create a lesson plan at A2-A2+ level about “life experiences” using present perfect tense.
3. Create a lesson plan for 7^th grade A2-A2+ English learners. Include 6-8 vocabulary words at their level that they can use to talk about “life experiences”. The grammar focus is present prefect tense.

As you may have guessed, the first option is too broad, so you probably won’t get a lesson plan that fits your students’ needs. Option 2 is a little more specific, but still lacks adequate specificity. If you go for Option 3, you will probably get a lesson plan that fits the needs of your English learners. It may require some tweaking to fit your students and your teaching style better, but it will certainly give you a good starting point.  

Some advice from Gemini about writing good prompts

• Be clear about your goal
  • What do you want the AI to do?
• Be specific
  • The more details, the more focused the AI's response will be.
• Keep it concise
  • Avoid overly long or rambling prompts.
• Use keywords
  • Include relevant keywords to help the AI focus better.
• Provide context
  • Provide some background information to help the AI understand the context.

TEFL context

In the TEFL context, there is specific information you should include in your prompt whether you are asking for a lesson plan, materials, or assessment.

Your prompt should specify

• language level
• students’ age
• grade level
• type of course
• skills to practice/assess
• lesson objectives
• other specifics to help AI understand the context

Check out this blog post which has a good overview of writing prompts for several AI tools. Amy K. (5 May 2023). Prompting 101: Writing prompts for AI. GoDaddy Blog. https://www.godaddy.com/resources/skills/writing-prompts-for-ai

AI-powered Teacher Productivity Tools

Many AI-powered teacher productivity tools are user-friendly and will guide you through the prompt process. They may have dropdowns from which you can select language levels, ages, etc. Then when you write your prompt, you just focus on what you want it to do. 

Let’s look at an example from Magic School. You want to assess your students on their lesson using present perfect to discuss “life experiences”. You’ll choose “Multiple choice quiz/Assessment” which prompts you for the grade level and number of questions. Next, there is a text box where you write your prompt with specifics to create your assessment, such as topic, proficiency level, grammar focus. Then you generate the quiz and check it to be sure it’s exactly what you want.

Diffit is slightly different and can be especially useful for finding resources such as texts or videos. You want to find a text to guide your students in talking about “life experiences”. Choose the Text, PDFs, YouTube & Links tab then enter your prompt. A generic prompt asking for a text about life experiences provided a text that included a list of experiences that might have an impact on a person. A more specific prompt, “I need a text about life experience that uses present perfect for EFL students at the A2-A2+ level”, provided a level-appropriate story using the present perfect tense. Each text includes a sidebar with a vocabulary list, various types of questions about the text, a Think-Pair-Share graphic organizer, and activity suggestions appropriate for the text and context.

AI-powered Image and Audio Creation Tools

Finally, sometimes you can’t find just the right image, video, or audio for your lessons. This is where AI-powered image and audio creation tools come in handy. However, like everything else AI-created, you have to check the output. These tools have been known to fail and fail badly. 

Let’s look at a few.

• DALL-E: This model created by OpenAI generates digital images from natural language descriptions (prompts). It's often integrated into other platforms, such as ChatGPT and Microsoft products.
• Midjourney: A generative AI service that creates images from text descriptions. It generally creates distinctive and often artistic or stylized image output.
• Descript: An AI-powered video and audio editor that transcribes your media. Its core feature is "text-based editing," which allows users to edit a video or podcast simply by editing the transcript, similar to editing a document.
• Invideo AI: A user-friendly platform that generates professional-quality videos from simple text prompts. It uses AI to write a script, find relevant stock visuals, add voiceovers and music, and apply transitions.
• NaturalReader: A text-to-speech (TTS) tool that converts written content from various sources (webpages, PDFs, Google Docs) into natural-sounding audio. It can customize voices, languages, and listening speed.
• Luvvoice: A free online text-to-speech (TTS) tool that converts text into audio and is user-friendly. It provides a wide range of AI voices and supports numerous languages, useful for creating narrations for YouTube videos, audiobooks, and other multilingual content.

Explore the possibilities

We hope this introduction to the power of writing clear and specific prompts for a variety of AI tools which are EFL teacher-friendly will encourage you to explore the possibilities. Happy teaching!