How to Deal with AI, ChatGPT, and Google Translate in the World Language Classroom? – Part 3

When asking myself how I get students to avoid using ChatGPT or Google Translate (or upper level friends who translate for my students), my reflections always have to circle back to the question “Why are my students using Artificial Intelligence (AI) software?”. If I don’t know the “why” of my students, then my solution could be temporary. I want long-term solutions and relief from the use of the ChatGPTs and Google Translates of the world in my French classroom. 

Think about the answers to these 4 student “whys” in terms of your French, Spanish, or World Language classroom. Which questions are easy to answer and which questions ruffle your feathers a little? 

Student Why #1 – Lack of vocabulary and grammar knowledge

Reflect on this question:

• Can the students spontaneously say most of what you’re about to ask them to write?
  • If the student can’t say it, they probably can’t write it.
  • I am heavy on partner activities throughout the unit where students practice the ability to spontaneously use the vocabulary and grammar structures with classmates day after day. 
  • Front load the unit with speaking activities that focus on the expected vocabulary and grammar.
    • “But that takes time to create partner activities.”
    • Yes, and then you have them forever.
  • Tell students why they have to be able to first talk about a topic before writing about a topic.

The interpersonal mode of communication is when students can speak (or write) spontaneously about a topic. The single activity might be limited in scope, depth, and verb tense but that is where students have to start. Continue to scaffold the speaking activities to include more vocabulary and more complex grammar as the weeks progress. When students have the ability, confidence, and practice of speaking spontaneously with others about a topic, they begin to think in French.

Sure, I provide them with sentence starters, word banks, and question prompts during these practiced speaking activities but they are doing the work. They understand the importance of being able to spontaneously talk in French as a precursor to being able to write better French. That is my broken-record message to students starting in French 1.

Student Why #2 – Wanting to write in French exactly what they think in English

Go back and reflect on “Student Why #1”. If they can’t talk about the topic spontaneously, they will continue to think in English and feel constrained to write their English thoughts in French. When this happens, I have invited ChatGPT and Google Translate to stand in the hallway outside of my classroom door. And they are knocking on my door trying to get in.

Reflect on these questions:

• Have I front loaded the unit with French or Spanish speaking activities?
• Are those French or Spanish speaking activities scaffolded with vocabulary and structures over the course of 2-3 weeks?
• I scaffold the input of French or Spanish vocabulary and grammar structures AND I provide opportunities for them to show me their scaffolded output over the course of those 2-3 weeks.
  • Both speaking and writing need opportunities for scaffolded output over time. 
  • Don’t wait until the end of a unit to see the final output of your scaffolded input.

Student why #3 – Fear, stress, perfection of retaining a high GPA

Reflect on these questions:

• What French or Spanish writing activities during the unit have allowed students to practice the vocabulary and structures on regular intervals during the previous 3-4 weeks?
  • “But that takes time to keep correcting sentences and paragraphs.”
  • Yes, and if I want students to learn the process of writing, revising, and correcting, then I need to take the time to give them feedback.
• What routines surrounding the writing process have I put in place since French 1, Spanish 1 (or since you first had that student)?
  • Do we write regularly in class? How often?
  • Graded or not graded?
• When am I giving them feedback?
  • On the spot during class? 
  • When I hand back their papers with my red marks on them?
  • When they finally get a chance to revise their summative paragraph or essay?

Yes, getting students to write in French or Spanish takes time and energy on my part – inside and outside of class. I have 35 students in class and it is not easy. I intentionally schedule and plan my French writing activities across my classes so that I don’t have more than one level of students writing during any one week span.

Student Why #4 – Student doesn’t know where to start

If my student sits down at the end of 4 weeks to begin a final French writing activity and doesn’t know where to start, then I have not done my job correctly. I have failed.

Yikes. That ruffles a few feathers.

I am the creator of my French classroom environment. I deliver the French lessons that set the students up for success – or not. I have scaffolded my French speaking and writing activities over the previous 3-4 weeks. 

Reflect on these questions:

• Has the student been absent?
  • Go back to the first few scaffolded French writing assignments
• Has the student understood the first few scaffolded writing assignments?
  • Take them out and have a discussion around them – in English, if necessary.
• Are my expectations clear? 
• Are my expectations a little TOO clear? (8 past tense sentences, 4 locations with different prepositions, at least one sentence using the negative, and at least 6 words per sentence)
  • Oh boy, there is very little room for creativity there. There is too much focus on form (the grammar) and not enough on the meaning (the concept, the idea).
  • Grammar IS part of a rubric but not THE rubric. Dial that grammar part of the rubric down to 20%.

It’s okay to ditch the final French or Spanish writing assignment when you realize that it is too far over the students’ heads. Instead, maybe take the previous 3-4 small formative writing assignments and combine them into a beefier final writing assignment. 

Show your French or Spanish students how to combine and expand on their previous writing pieces. Teach some French or Spanish transition words between sentences or paragraphs. Create 2-3 topic sentences together as a class from which to choose. Allow them to give you more of what they’ve already given you. And yes, that means you might need a new rubric. OR, maybe that means you grade it as a summative but for 35 points instead of 55 points. Maybe consider changing some of the above French and Spanish class routines before the next writing assignment.

Writing is a process for all humans. My end goal is to avoid students using ChatGPT and/or Google Translate in my classroom so therefore I must look at how I have presented the French writing process to my students. Do I have a routine for teaching the writing process and how often have we practiced it? 

I realize that I still haven’t gotten to the exact nitty gritty pieces of when students write – and I will in the next blogs in this series. My name is Lisa and I enjoy being your new French colleague. How can I help you tomorrow?