Dear AI, don’t write us down so quickly. Regards, Language Teachers

/ Lesson tips, New to ELT

I might be unemployed soon, thanks to the AI, at least this is what some AI developers suggest. Some technological advancements have really revolutionised our lives, so we, language teachers had better prepare to learn programming languages soon. In the meantime, though, I’d like to argue for the necessity of language teachers. This article aims to show you some examples where the human factor outweighs numeric information, where a computer at today’s time cannot substitute a person. I’m going to talk about entry testing, the first encounter between a teacher and a student and in particular, their motivation to learn a language.

Smart parents grow smart kids

This week, I’ve had the pleasure to chat with some parents about teaching, language courses, text books, their kids’ progress, and in general, about the future. I see with great pleasure that more and more so-called ‘average’ people prove to be incredibly sensible when making investment decisions: they want their kids to speak languages. However, while just 10 years ago the main reason to make children learn a language was to get them out of the country, today they name another motivation: to make them become better professionals. Parents are getting really smart: they also want courses for their kids that deliver results.

I remember my first day as a didactic coordinator talking to an upset mother who showed me her daughter’s English books: the one from the year we were in and the one from the year before. She noticed that all the topics were exactly the same: her child was not learning anything new. The difference between the two books were about 40 lexical items, she had counted them. She was right and she also detected the biggest problem with YL (= Young Learner) teaching: kids are being taught the A1-level syllabus over years (at least four, but in many schools even more). They learn numbers and colours and animals and then they start again. A parent who found the time and attention to compare language books, deserves attention. Her request was to move the YL at least one level higher. Due to company policy, I could not do that (at least not on my first day).

At that time, and in many schools even today, the main factor when deciding about a kid’s level is their age or they are just simply enrolled onto a course with their friends.

My kids know some good English (they are native Italian, though), and as much as I love being with them, I preferred to enrol them into language schools, so they commit themselves to their teachers and classmates. Last year, they followed a year in one school with an excellent professional level, but with very little human attention (remember my son criticising his teacher for forgetting about his reward certificate on several occasions, see post here). So this year, I had to do some research and my kids went under a series of entry testing. An entry test is an excellent way to test teaching staff. Young colleagues test a list of grammar structures and base their decision on them: for example, a student doesn’t use simple past, they must be Movers, simple past is introduced at that level. Fair enough, but did your student understand your use of simple past (passive knowledge) or did you have to elicit the meaning of the grammar structure (lack of knowledge).

Experienced teacher ask very different questions and they check more than only grammar structures:

They test problem solving skills: did the child freeze when not knowing a word or an answer, did they change into their mother tongue or did they play along? When you ask a student how busy they are in the afternoons and they answer: my afternoons are ‘incasinated’, you understand that they know past participle and have a great capacity to improvise (the word the student was looking for is ‘messed up’, but used an Italian word with English grammar). If a YL is able to ask for repetition or capable of explaining a word they can’t recall, you cannot consider A1 level for them any more.
They look into a kid’s schedule: is the child overwhelmed with after-school activities? This directly influences their possibility to do homework or any activities for the language course.
They check the kid’s motivation: do they want to study the language or are they forced to do so? Some kids prefer soccer training to an English course, a teacher can use this as an input for the coming lessons.
They check on the parents: two students with the same characteristics might perform differently just because they have or don’t have support at home. A parent who speaks languages gives an excellent example and motivation to their children. Their attention, their interest is the best help a teacher can ask for. To translate it into level testing: these kids could go to a higher level, they will handle it. While a student with busy, uninterested or unskilled parents will need more support and very probably, I repeat very probably, more time.

All this might change over the course: what the teacher cannot evaluate in a first meeting is what real potentials the Young Learner has. So, adjustments over the year are necessary, although extremely difficult in a school environment – due to costs: if a student is moved to another group, they will need new materials and these will have to be provided by the school for free, in addition, the school loses one year of income from a paying client. On the other hand, it could also trigger a wave of complaining parents who also want a ‘promotion’. These are the reasons why schools are reluctant to let students skip levels.

Testing adults is about reading between lines

Adults have clear CEFR levels, a wide range of teaching materials available, with or without special purposes, nonetheless, their evaluation is also challenging. Partly due to gaps between skills (for example, it is typical that adult students possess good reading comprehension skills, but very low listening skills), partly (and mostly) due to self-esteem issues.

Language is self-presentation: the difficulty with any self-accomplished student (a doctor, a lawyer, a businessman, etc.) at A1 level is not to teach them grammar or use only the target language in the lesson, but their frustration for not being able to express themselves. I’ve recently attended an interview to enrol into a Spanish course: it’s paralysing, nerve-racking and infuriating to answer a simple Spanish question about my daily routine 5% in Spanish, 45% in Italian and 50% in English. Every teacher should try this feeling.

So language teaching is only a small part about grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, etc. It’s about dealing with people’s self-esteem: a very delicate game around emotions, self-perception, good and bad days, with an incredible need of attention, empathy and compassion.

Just imagine the scenario that you ask a person to introduce themselves and they answer: Hello, my name is zzzz, I’m a medical doctor at the University of …, and a researcher at … This type of introduction, where a person pronounces their name in an intelligible way, but gives a long and detailed list of their titles, gives a really important input to the teacher. This person is an expert in one or more fields and is expected to experience a high level of frustration in a learning situation. So giving a set of language ‘ready to use’ is key here. On the other hand, they also tend to analyse the target language and get lost in their first language. So, a more consistent methodology and lesson routine can reassure them in their own progress.

Language teaching is also a constant fight against some false beliefs. Let me name only a few:

English is an easy language: typical for students who get stuck at A2/B1 level, because they simplify the language and use only a basic register (only simple tenses, pre-intermediate vocabulary, simple linking devices, etc). Whether a language is easy or difficult, it depends on how similar or different the person’s mother tongue is to/from the target language. However, every language has levels of difficulties, so no language can really be called easy.
I’m terrible at learning languages: this is a major self-esteem problem and needs a special way to deal with it. Students who think this way are seeking an excuse for a coming failure. They prepare for failure. Their belief, though, has nothing to do with their real capacities. Most of them succeed in languages with an attentive teacher.
Grammar is not important, you just put words together: well, I’m a linguist, I must disagree. Yes, you can get by using simple grammar (see the first point of this list) at pre-intermediate level. However, English is a context language. A relevant part of a message is hidden in the grammar form, not in lexis. So, if a student says I will study more for the next lesson vs I’m going to study more for the next lesson, they send two different messages to the teacher. A simple sentence like I have never seen such a nice house transformed into Never have I seen such a nice house charges the same words with emotional emphasis, it intensifies the sense. We could go on forever about this topic. So obviously, a student who comes with the belief above also gives an important imprint onto the long-term plan of the course.
Without perfect grammar you cannot speak a language: this is the other extremity. This belief is a burden, because it often blocks a person from speaking. So they keep thinking about the structure instead of forming a sentence – even with mistakes. As long as there’s silence, a teacher has very little to do. The moment there’s an utterance, teachers can detect patterns in mistakes/errors and make students notice them, auto-correct themselves, and finally, avoid them (in this chronological order).
My mother tongue is very difficult: Italian students often state this, usually when they find a similarity between their mother tongue and English, but no overlap (see present perfect vs passato prossimo). I’m native Hungarian, my mother tongue is really one of the weirdest languages on Earth, so I learnt very early not to look for similarities. Learning Italian was neither easy nor hard: it’s a relatively logical language (except for prepositions and some plural forms), it gives us freedom in word order, a great choice of compatible tenses and a wide range of words to select from. The real message behind the sentence above is not about a language, it refers to the fact that it differs from the target language and finding parallel structures is harder and harder. So leaving the student’s first language behind early can lead to a change in this mindset.

There is a famous saying in German: Sprache is Macht (language is power). This is what language teaching is about – EMPOWERING people.

Why do you want to study a language?

As I mentioned at the beginning, the motivation of parents to enrol their kids into English courses is changing, so are the reasons why adults start learning a language. Let me list just the most important ones here:

real needs in their job (they have to communicate with clients, colleagues in English or they are expected to give a presentation in English);
a job interview or a more competitive curriculum;
travelling or immigration reasons;
mind training;
a positive place: where they feel accomplished.

While we are clear about the first three points, the last two are less recognised, but more relevant in today’s language teaching. The group of people looking for a place where they can think, express opinions, debate about topics, ‘widen their horizons’ or a place where they feel ‘bravi’, good, accomplished is growing. Let me rephrase the main message here: Learning a language trains critical thinking, it sharpens one’s mind and even helps to perform better in other fields, such as programming, rhetoric, team work. Learning a language is also giving you a place where you can make mistakes, you can understand and finally correct them. Applying this onto any other flaws is a piece of cake.

As Dr. Evelina Galaczi, Director of Research for @Cambridge University Press & Assessment English said: “Teaching and learning are all about people, and AI can’t replace the social and emotional aspect of learning.” I couldn’t agree more.

“You’ll never have to learn a foreign language ever again.”

I’d like to connect all this to a new app which transforms any videos into other languages by adjusting also lip movements.

Let’s say, I have a short video and I want to use this app. What targets might I follow?

Great tool for content creators: I’m already thinking about a video-series in Arabic about my teaching business. I might even get some new online students and as I hear some Arabic countries pay better than the European market. But jokes apart, it’s a breathtaking invention.

However, its use is extremely limited:

You cannot use it in a video resume: it will be very embarrassing to arrive at a job interview and produce basic sentences with a lot of hesitation after you have built up high expectations about your language skills.
You cannot make friends with this: I can already see Adam Sandler starring in a scene where he tries to pick up a girl with this app (if you are a Hollywood director who likes this idea, please DM me for a commission).
You cannot seem smarter: as I understand, it simply translates what you say into another language, so you still need the capacity to come up with some thoughts. In order to have these, you might try to join a language course and get some new stimuli, ideas, some pressure to think about things.
And it will definitely not help you improve your mind, personality or any soft skills: Your frustration in situations where you don’t understand something will stay with you, you won’t defeat your timidness to speak to new people, you might never understand the richness of your personality without a teacher and helping study friends.

So, I’d like to challenge the Human Intelligence of the AI expert who wrote the slogan above: Could you ask your AI for a better one? This one shows very poor knowledge of language teaching and learning. Don’t write us down so easily. We are able to offer more than just pretend-videos.

PS: I really and truly hope that some computer scientists work on an AI that aims at solving real problems: climate change, poverty due to unjust distribution of resources, plastic crisis, cyber crime (!!!), bullying, etc. I find it worrying that most of the advertised applications of this new technology relate to fake identities and pretending to be smarter than we really are.

PS: This article was originally published on Linkedin on 1st October 2023. H ere is the original post.

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