Blog Podcast Teach Languages Online
July 12th, 2023
How to Use ChatGPT for Online Teachers
Are there uses of ChatGPT for online teachers? AI can be a very powerful tool in lots of areas of work for online language teachers. Here’s how.
Enjoy Teach Languages Online Your Way
Before we get started, you can enjoy this episode in the way you prefer. We’ve got a video version and the podcast below. So pick your place and let’s go!
The Video
The Podcast
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a tool that allows you to ask questions or ‘chat’ to an AI ‘large language model’, in particular one built by the company OpenAI. The quantity of data it draws from means that you have relatively ‘natural’ conversations.
Is AI something to be scared of?
With a plethora of Black-Mirror-esque dystopian films where the robots take over, it’s easy to see where the fear of AI comes from. Part of this is founded in the idea of not necessarily knowing and/or trusting the full ins and outs of who is behind a particular technology.
I can’t answer the question with a solid answer. However, I believe that much like social media and many other things, AI is a tool. And that tool’s potential damage is dependant on the uses that a user gives it.
A knife can do a great job helping you to prepare dinner, but equally it could kill another human if the user decided to use the tool in that way.
So perhaps a better question is ‘are users of AI something to be scared of?’
Again, difficult to answer.
But if there’s one thing that eliminates fear most effectively it’s knowledge. So by engaging with and understanding the basics of things like AI, you are able to be better equipped to answer that question for yourself, as well as use these tools for good.
Does AI mean I never have to write a blog post again?
No. Well, not yet at least, and hopefully not ever.
Let me explain.
Sure, you can ask AI to write a blog post for you, but it will sound a little…clunky? Artificial? Not quite in your voice.
The best way to bring AI tools into your online language teaching business is as a tool and facilitator but not to become overly reliant on it to create everything for you. Copying and pasting a block of AI produced text without proof-reading isn’t what we’re talking about here.
ChatGPT for Online Teachers.
We could have made this more broad and talking about how online language teachers can use AI, but to be honest, AI is already integrated into many tools that you perhaps already use – Canva, your social media scheduler, Gmail.
Perhaps you’ve used these features without even noticing.
So instead we’ll focus on ChatGPT specifically.
Generate & Expand Content Ideas
Rather than rely on ChatGPT to fully write your blog articles for you, instead use it to generate ideas.
So, for example, if you want to write a blog article called ‘5 Ways to Refresh Your Language Learning Motivation’, you could try this in ChatGPT:
- Suggest 10 ways to refresh your language learning motivation that would be suitable for a blog article for intermediate language learners who are already quite experienced for the website [insert your website here]
Here’s what that generated:
As you can see, it’s not a publishable blog, but we do have some ideas we can springboard from.
First of all, let’s talk more about the prompt. We asked for 10 ways when we were only planning on a blog including 5 because this gives us flexibility. We might really resonate with 5 out of the 10 ideas. Or we might love all 10 and expand the article.
Another thing to note from the prompt was that we asked specifically who it is for – ‘intermediate language learners who are already quite experienced’. And we also included which website we want to publish it on to be even more specific. I’ve got to be honest and say I’m not sure if it’s yet smart enough to use your website as a benchmark of ‘content style’, but who’s to say it won’t in the future if not now? So it feels like a useful extra.
Give You Hashtags & SEO Word Ideas
The free version of ChatGPT has limited knowledge after 2021 (at the time of writing in 2023!). So it’s not going to be the most up-to-date option for getting hashtag and SEO word ideas, but if you like to keep your tech tools to a minimum, it won’t be drastically different.
Try a prompt such as:
- I teach people how to learn languages. Generate 3 batches of 30 hashtags that I can add to Instagram feed post captions for my account @lindsaydoeslanguages that will reach smart, independent and eager language learners.
Here’s what was generated for this:
You can do similar things to get ideas on SEO keywords for particular topics. For example:
- I write blog articles on lindsaydoeslanguages.com for smart independent language learners who want to get better at language learning. I am writing a blog article titled ‘5 Ways to Refresh Your Language Learning Motivation’. What would be some SEO optimised keywords that would be worth including in the blog article?
I also recommend using the AIOSEO plugin in you’re on WordPress. This gives you an idea of individual words and short phrases that are different types of SEO words – common, uncommon, emotional, and power words.
I have a list to get you started with these in your free Content Tracker. Join my email list below to get your copy now.
Help Plan Your Launches
If you’ve done one before, you’ll know that there’s a lot that goes into a live launch!
Use ChatGPT to help figure out a launch calendar, give you ideas for email subject lines and topics, and plan your bonuses, to name just three suggestions.
Here’s an example with the results…
- I have created an online course in which I teach intermediate French learners the essential grammar they need to go beyond the intermediate plateau. Can you create a one week launch plan for me to promote this new course to my existing email list of French learners? Include emails, social media, and live webinars as well as other promotional ideas.
Personally, I recommend including more emails and adjusting as fits your needs and where you hang out and connect the most with people.
Generate Conversation Starters & More for Students
AI tools aren’t just useful for online language teachers for marketing. ChatGPT can help online language teachers generate conversation starters and other lesson ideas to use with students in 1:1 and group lessons.
Whether it’s simply asking “What are some ideas to make teaching Portuguese grammar fun?” or something more detailed like this one…
- I teach A2 Portuguese learners. We’re learning about how to talk about family and friends right now. Can you suggest at least 15 conversation starters I can use in our next lesson?
Notice how the questions are even in Portuguese?! Pretty impressive. Of course, I also recommend checking anything not produced in English as they’re working with far less data for other languages, given that English is over half of the Internet for a start!
Storytelling Help
One of the most useful skills for online language teachers is storytelling, and ChatGPT can help you get better at that.
This is a use where you’re really relying on ChatGPT to teach you rather than give you the answers. Your voice is essential to storytelling in your marketing, your lessons, and your products.
Here’s an idea of how to do that:
- Can you teach me more about the Pixar Storytelling Model?
- Can you give me feedback on a story I wrote?
It said yes. So I wrote a very quick story using the Story Spine template it gave me when I asked about Pixar…
- Once upon a time there was a Japanese learner named Keith. Every day he studied Japanese on his favourite language app. Until one day his phone broke. Because of that he lost his streak. Because of that he gave up Japanese. Until finally he realised that his app streak doesn’t make him a perfect language learner. And ever since then he has gotten even better at Japanese by using a variety of fun resources and methods.
Pretty cool!
Code Support for Your Website
ChatGPT doesn’t just produce text-based ideas. It can also create code. Yup.
I tried a full on task to start here…
- Can you create some html code to make a basic homepage for my website lindsaydoeslanguages.com? The theme colours are #123456 and #098765 and fonts are Comic Sans and Times New Roman. I teach people how to learn languages, have 20 years experience learning languages myself, earned a BA (Hons) in Modern Language Studies and an MA in Applied Linguistics, and my name is Lindsay.
Impressive, huh? I tested this to see how it looked…
It’s not pretty. But I gave it data that made it that way.
However, it’s more likely you’ll need this for smaller one off tasks then building a whole website!
Let’s try another one…
- Can you write html and css code for my website clickable buttons? Background colour #123456, font colour #098765, font Comic Sans, hover colour #135791
As you can tell, I kept the colours and fonts pretty weird – demo purposes!
To take this further if you’re relatively confident with coding, you can even produce simple WordPress plugins.
If you ever need code for those little snags on your website, ChatGPT can be useful for that.
Social Media & Micro Copy Ideas
But what do you write on those buttons? We’ll start with some research…
- What does research into website clickable buttons find?
I wanted to know about the writing, the copy on those buttons. So let’s ask again…
- Tell me more about number 4. What copy is most effective on clickable buttons on websites?
The more you know!
This sort of enquiry can be adjusted for all those smaller bit of your copy such as social media captions, social media bios, email subject lines etc.
Create a Quiz
If you’re after. quick icebreaker for live sessions, or would like something to engage with people on social media, create a quick quiz with ChatGPT.
Simply ask it something like this:
- I’m hosting a language learning themed quiz night. Can you give me 20 questions and answers I can use?
I have to be honest, some of the questions were a little easy…so I asked:
- make the questions harder 😉
…and got 10 additional more difficult questions.
Check translations quickly
Of course there’s individual translation tools like Google Translate and DeepL, but if you’re already in ChatGPT, it can work in different languages too.
We saw this already with an example above.
So this means a chance to double check any quick translations, a tool to recommend to students to practice their text-based conversations, and a way to get direct feedback and learning for you in languages other than English.
I’ve tried this in Guarani and even then, it still works not too terribly, which is impressive!
But I wanted to find out just how powerful it is on the language front, so I asked directly:
- How many languages to do understand and can respond in?
ChatGPT repsonded:
“As an AI language model, I have been trained on a wide variety of text from the internet, which includes content from multiple languages. While I can understand and generate responses in several languages, my proficiency and accuracy may vary depending on the specific language. My performance is generally strongest in English, but I can also handle other languages such as Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean to some extent. However, please note that my responses may not always be perfect or fully accurate in languages other than English.”
I think they’re being modest.