I suppose this post was inevitable. I chose to start a series of posts on classroom tech; it was inevitable that AI would be included. However, it wasn’t necessarily inevitable. Until about three weeks ago, I had barely used it and was deeply sceptical that it could help me in my teaching. I had tried various tools on a number of occasions, but I simply didn’t understand how to make use of AI to help both my teaching and my learners, effectively. I was certainly guilty of rejecting the idea of AI as being at all useful.
Then, I saw Daniel Martín (see his blog) give a wonderful presentation on the topic of AI at TESOL Spain Burgos (2025) and, finally, I understood how AI could help me. As he said, AI is the most amazing teacher’s assistant. The key as I see it, is to remember that AI needs our expert input to generate content and needs our expertise to assess and adapt the output for our purposes. Using my expertise to generate prompts is where I had been failing to make good use of AI and so I hope that my recent learning can help you, too. There’s nothing suggested in this post that I can’t do myself, it’s just that AI can do it all much, much more quickly.
Below I’ll share a little bit of what I have been using AI to help me with. Before that, I just want to note that I’m still using published course materials. What these prompts and ideas are allowing me to do is to provide extra and personalised practice for my students.
IELTS
I’ve been using AI to help me prepare additional practice material for my IELTS preparation students. First, I construct a listening gap-fill based on a TED ED, 5-minute animated explainer video. This I still do manually, partly because I’m not sure how I would put a prompt together; mainly because I want to be in full control of the vocabulary items I pull out of the transcript and the grammar of the sentences that the students have to fill in. Then, however, I let my prompt work its magic.
I’m teaching a group of students preparing for IELTS. They are aiming for a level 8. Can you give me 8 gap-fill style sentences that practise unreal conditionals. After each gap, put the necessary verb in bare infinitive form and in brackets? Then, take this set of words (…) and for each one produce a sentence that requires my students to change the form of the word. Leave a blank space for the word in the sentence and at the end of the sentence, put the original word in brackets. Next, generate a text of about 500 words on the topic of (…) using grammar and vocabulary items that are at least C1. At the end of the text, put 5 TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN statements. Then, generate 8 sentence that summarise the text that each contain a gap that my students can fill using a word from the text. Finally, take 10 advanced vocabulary items from the text. For each, generate two incorrect definitions and offer the correct definition as multiple-choice options (avoid a repeating pattern of correct answers!). At the end, provide with me an answer key (with answers justified).
Now, there’s a lot going on there! Each (…) or underlining needs to be adapted for your purpose, but otherwise, it’s good to go. You can then copy and paste the output and format to create a worksheet to your taste. Part of your expertise, and why AI has not replaced us, is that you absolutely must check the output! Ask yourself:
- Are you happy with the level of the text that has been generated? Is the content also reasonable? I recently asked a colleague who teaches economics to check one about tariffs (nicely topical) for me.
- Are you happy with the difficulty of the T/F/NG questions? And are the answers (and justifications!) correct? This is one part where it struggles and I often find myself making changes, but the AI gives me a good start.
- Check the grammar, summary gap fill and vocabulary exercises:
- for correct answer keys
- that the sentences make sense and are appropriate for your students’ age/level
Cambridge Use of English
I have also AI to help me quickly generate practice tasks for Use of English. So far, I’ve only used it for word formation (as above) and to generate part 4 questions. One benefit here is that you can specify precisely what grammar aspect(s) you want the exercise to practise.
I’m teaching a group of students preparing for Cambridge FCE. They’re finding the Use of English Part 4 difficult and I want them to do extra practise. Can you provide me with 20 questions formatted as they are in the exam, focussing on passive to active, the causative ‘have’ and direct to indirect speech? Please also provide an answer key.
Student use of AI
I’ve recently started giving suggestions to students of how they can make use of AI to support their studies/revision. Before going further, please be aware of any local, legal implications regarding the age of your students and any institutional policies that might be in place where you work.
- One of my students has been having a common spelling problem: doubled consonants. We looked together at constructing a prompt that would result in his chosen AI tool to test him on random words with doubled consonants, in a way that he could revise while taking public transport, for example.
I am studying for my GCSE in English Language. I am struggling with doubled consonants in English. Can you help me revise? I’d like you to test me on a set of 20 words. Some of the words, randomly, should be misspelled without a necessary doubled consonant, or with a consonant unnecessarily doubled. Give them to me one at a time and ask me to tell you correct or incorrect. Tell me if I’m right, before moving on.
- Teaching writing. I’ve suggested to one group of students that they could use AI to help them improve their writing, by moving through a series of prompts to adapt and change the AI-generated text. The role of my students here is to notice and note the difference between the versions generated. I remain sceptical about the levelling of the text that AI, especially free AI, produces. Nonetheless, the differences between the different texts generated are still useful.
Prompt 1: I’m studying for my B2 in English. Can you produce a model answer for this essay question that would fail the exam, achieving a B1 level instead?
Prompt 2: Thank you. That’s really helpful. I know I write better than that! Can you reform that model answer to be a pass at B2 please?
Prompt 1: I’m studying for my B2 in English. Can you produce a model answer for this question requiring a formal letter that would pass?
Prompt 2: Thank you. Can you now highlight all of the formal expressions you used?
How are you using AI? Have you got any great, effective prompts to share?
Chris Richards ELT 