Virtual ESL Teaching Assistant with School AI

Note: School AI is incredibly flexible and can be used in a myriad of ways. This lesson plan solely demonstrates one idea of how to harnass the app to create an individualized learning experience for your students while focusing on a common lesson objective.

Let's imagine that I teach an Intermediate Low ESL class and I'm going to teach a lesson on speaking to a doctor. Here's my plan:

Warm-up:

Use the School AI Spaces Discover tool to create a KWL chart activity specific for your ESL level (which you can describe to the AI assistant) about ailments, illnesses, and injuries. It's important to be as specific as possible when prompting the AI assistant. Here's an example of what I typed into the prompts (Note: The AI assistant helped me to do this!):

Title: Talking to a Doctor KWL Activity

AI prompt: 

You are a Space for students to walk through this KWL Activity. All of the students are adult intermediate low ESL students, so make the space experience tailored to this grade level, including vocabulary and expectations of answer length and detail. 

First, welcome the students to the Space and tell them that you'll be asking about what they know and would like to know about talking to a doctor. 

Then, take the students through the K portion of the activity, step by step. Ask them what ailments, illnesses, and injuries they know about in English. Encourage students to add detail. Encourage them to write their answers in their KWL chart.

Then, take the students through the W portion of the activity, step by step. Ask them what ailments, illnesses, and injuries they would like to learn about in English. Explain that they can write words in their native language if they need to. Encourage students to add detail. Encourage them to write their answers in their KWL chart. 

When the students have completed the K and W portions, tell the students they will then be learning the lesson and objectives. 

When they are done learning, they will come back into the space and reflect  on what they have Learned, the L portion of the activity. Encourage them to answer the questions that they asked in the W portion of the activity, and write down the new things that they learned. 

Once you've input the prompt, School AI will create a space for your students to interact with the assistant. Copy the link for the space and share it with your students (in your LMS, written on the board, on social media, through email, etc.) The assistant will ask what the students know on the subject and what they'd like to know. Students can always write words in their native language if they don't know the words in English.

Tell the students that they will use the SchoolAI assistant to teach them some vocabulary words and phrases to use when speaking to a doctor.

Students will use the SchoolAI assistant to generate vocabulary and conversational activities tailored to their prior knowledge and areas in which they'd like to learn. At the end of the KWL activity, students will type prompts into the assistant prompt box to generate lists of English words and vocabulary to practice with the assistant. 

Write the following prompt on the board:

Prompt 1: "I am an intermediate low ESL adult student. Teach me 10 phrases that I can use to describe the information that I already know to my doctor."

Prompt 2: "Generate a list of 5 - 10 questions that I can ask my doctor based on the W part of my KWL chart."

Activity 1: Think-Pair-Share:

When the students have finished interacting with the AI sidekick for the KWL activity, they should type 'done' into the prompt box.

They then type Prompt 1 into the prompt box and copy the resulting list in their notebooks.

They repeat this for Prompt 2.

When they finish, they share their 2 lists with their partners. If their partners don't understand something, they should ask, "What does that mean?" If their partner can't explain it, they shoudl ask the School AI sidekick to explain it either in English or their native language.

After sharing their lists, each student shares 1 thing that their partner already knows and 1 thing that their partner wants to know with the class.

Activity 2: Talk to your doctor.

Students will use the vocabulary/phrase/questions generated in the previous activity for this next exercise.

The students should type the following prompt into the SchoolAI prompt box: "Imagine that you are a doctor and I am your patient. Let's have a conversation. First, let's talk about what's wrong with me."  After inputting the prompt, the student will type (or preferably say, if they have a mic) one or more of the phrases from the K list and engage in the conversation. Let the students know that they can ask the sidekick for help when there's something that they don't understand or know how to say.

When the conversation is over, have the students type: "Doctor, can I ask you a question?" and type in (or say) one of the questions from the W list. They then engage in that conversation, asking for help when needed.

Meanwhile, the teacher can monitor the conversations and offer help to any student who is struggling.

Finally, after a set amount of time, group the students into small groups and have them read their conversations to each other.

The students type (or say) the following prompt: "I'd like to do the L part of my KWL activity, please" and discuss what they've learned during the lesson.

The teacher can monitor to ensure that the learning objective was met for each student.

Tell the students that they can continue to practice the vocabulary/English that they've learned today and use the sidekick to extend the learning. After that, they should practice using the English at the doctor's office during their next visit.