HARVEST TIME - Creating an AI-enhanced corpus-based teaching material and a lesson plan 𐔌˙.

Hello, dear farmers! It's been a while since we had an educational talk, right? In today's blog, I'll be talking about our assignment for our Current Issues in Teaching course.

For this assignment, we were asked to create an AI-enhanced corpus-based material and an ASSURE lesson plan for preparatory EFL students in Turkey. Since it was a group project, I grouped with my lovely classmates, Melisa and Zülal (I recommend you check their blogs as well).

We chose Theme 1 and focused on explaining the difference between 'must' and 'have to' structures. Both are used in expressing obligation, but how do we know which to use in which context?

Since it is important for students to be active learners, we designed materials that encourage them to learn through discovery. Using corpora (plural form of corpus, a database that provides authentic examples and is used for language studies) was the perfect choice for this assignment. We integrated AI tools into our material to enhance their learning. We created an environment for inductive learning to occur.

ASSURE PLAN - DOCS link

Must VS Have to - First Draft.pdf

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SOME DIFFICULTIES...

We dealt with some challenges since it was our first time integrating AI into our materials. Choosing activities appropriate for our theme was also a hassle. After spending time arguing over them together as a group, we created a material that we liked. It was rich in visuals as well as comprehensive. We should not be discouraged just cause we do not have prior knowledge about the topic. In the end, we are pre-service teachers, and teachers are called life-long learners for a reason.

IMPLEMENTING OUR MATERIAL INTO A REAL EFL CLASSROOM

might cause some problems, since in Turkey, using corpora for EFL classes is not a common practice. Using corpus sites may confuse the students because of their complex interfaces, especially COCA. Also, we assumed our students had access to technological devices and AI tools. However, in a real classroom, the chance of all of our students having access to these devices is considerably low. Making a student-centered activity under these conditions is hard but not impossible. Hence, we, teachers, should encourage our students to use technology to enhance their learning, and we should make them take responsibility for their own learning. Additionally, with our material containing many activities, it may be time-consuming, and we might need to spare more lessons to get this material done. It may take us a while to implement our material into a real EFL, but we should not forget that baby steps are also steps!

FEEDBACK...

In our class, we had a chance to get feedback from our friends, as we also gave them feedback on their materials. After discussing what can we do to improve our material's quality, we made some changes on it. You can find the final version of our material below!

Must VS Have to - Final Version.pdf

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