Thoughts about personalized and adaptive learning in ELT
Cambridge publishes a series of short academic titles called ‘Elements’. There are dozens of them and, for a few weeks only after publication, they can be freely downloaded in pdf format. They vary in quality. Some are very useful. For others, the quality is commensurate with the price you pay. A recent addition to the [ ]
The British Council likes innovation. For over 20 years they have been handing out ‘ELTon’ awards to celebrate ‘innovation in English language teaching and learning’. Last year, to mark their 90th anniversary, they organised the ‘ELTons Festival of Innovation’. As part of this, they produced a video, available on YouTube, called ‘Never Stop Innovating’, inspired, [ ]
English language teacher education, says the British Council (Edmett et al. 2024: 21), ‘must include a focus on AI literacy’ and ‘teachers also need to develop their learners AI literacy’. This report is referring to Generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT), the focus of my discussion here. There are basically two kinds of AI literacy relevant to [ ]
Much of the language we use is metaphorical. These metaphors both shape and reflect the way we think. Often, as in the preceding sentence, they give agency (a human attribute) to non-human entities, they give architectural form to abstractions and make them appear visible. We struggle to function without metaphors: they help us to describe [ ]
In the British Council’s recently commissioned report on AI and English language teaching, the ‘Executive Summary’ suggests that, ‘when it comes to AI replacing humans, the majority view is that AI will not replace the need for human teachers any time soon’ (Edmett et al., 2024: 11). This is based on the opinion of 1112 [ ]
Forgive me if you think these are badly-framed questions. Asking whether ChatGPT enhances learning is no different from asking whether technology more generally will enhance learning (a question that is fundamentally unanswerable), something that I had hoped we had moved on from some time ago. But please bear with me. Such questions matter (not because [ ]
If you were watching the 2024 Qatar World Cup, you may have noticed the brand Byju’s, among the list of official corporate sponsors alongside Visa, Adidas, Coca Cola and McDonald’s. You may have also noticed the pitch-side adverts for Byju’s, which flipped to read ‘The Future of Learning’. You may also have noticed photos of [ ]
The July 2024 edition of ELT Journal (78 / 3) contains an article entitled ‘ChatGPT in ELT: disruptor? Or well-trained teaching assistant?’ (Ahn et al., 2024). It aims to ‘contribute to the growing discourse on technology integration in ELT and offers practical recommendations for creating a productive learning environment using AI-driven language models like ChatGPT.’ [ ]
Technology (which usually means AI these days) and inclusive practices in education are being linked with increasing frequency. Earlier this year, the IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG organised a pre-conference event at the annual IATEFL fair entitled ‘Researching and promoting inclusive language practices through technology’. The ‘big debate’ at the same event was on the same [ ]
My attention was recently drawn (thanks to Grzegorz Śpiewak) to a recent free publication from OUP. It’s called ‘Multimodality in ELT: Communication skills for today’s generation’ (Donaghy et al., 2023) and it’s what OUP likes to call a ‘position paper’: it offers ‘evidence-based recommendations to support educators and learners in their future success’. Its topic [ ]