I hope that even one of these tips and suggestions for decreasing student use of AIs has connected with you and your students when teaching how to write in French or Spanish. We’re not done though. Decreasing the use of artificial intelligence in my French class is one of my chosen battles to fight. Besides committing class time to the topic of writing, I am also dedicating a series of blog posts to the topic.
What follows are three more tips in a series of blog posts to consider when weaning your students off of their ChatGPT and Google Translate needs. Pick and choose, change a little of this or a little of that. Reflect on what will work for your style, your classroom, and your students.
Tip #10 – Explicitly teach how to organize a paragraph
The English teachers in your school have seen and worked through the process of writing with their students. They have a wealth of resources at their fingertips. Take some time to ask the English Department if they have a standard structure that is taught for how to organize a paragraph.
One of the recent high schools I taught in had a very solid English Department who taught PEE-style paragraph writing. Point. Evidence. Explanation. State your point. Provide evidence from the text or examples. Explain to the reader how the evidence relates to the point being made. The PEE format is one of many possible structures of writing but what made it a solid resource for students is that it was taught in grades 9-12 at my school. My French students (even French 1) saw this standard structure at all grade levels in all subject areas.
Tip #11 – How to help absent students?
Conveniently absent? Truly absent? The reason for students’ absences isn’t important. How I provide structure and scaffolding to help those students catch up is critical. As I mentioned in Part 5 of this blog post series, I commit 3-5 class periods (45-minutes each) to the writing process and hopefully a student is only gone for 1 or 2 days and we can catch up in class.
If a student is absent for all four or five days of the French writing assignment, then I greatly extend the deadline and work to schedule a before or after school time for 1-to-1 work. Additionally, they have already written one or two paragraphs related to this unit so my student is only behind on 2-3 French paragraphs. Since brainstorming and organizing can take a day itself, I might skip that process and just assign the student a topic that relates to previously written French paragraphs and have them expand on those.
I will certainly work with the student and family to agree on a fair summative because that student is probably overwhelmed with all of the subjects missed – not just French class – and this is a prime example of when a student will slide down the slippery slope of using ChatGPT to complete an assignment.
Tip #12 – Be flexible
Be flexible with YOURSELF. If you realize halfway through the French writing process that the students do not have the skills, vocabulary, or structures needed to complete the final copy, then change the expectation:
- Make it a formative instead of a summative
- Adjust from five paragraphs to three or from three to two.
- Give them five (pre-written) topic sentences to choose from and let them start there.
- Let them work with a partner or group of 3 to write a collective closing paragraph.
- Pre-choose all of the 10 examples of textual evidence for them and let them choose which six they will use to support their thesis statement.
- DON’T GIVE UP! Finish this year and change the assignment and your approach for next year.
Next year you can make the changes needed to prepare the students differently. Keep writing as a part of your World Language classroom. There is a process to writing AND there is a process to change how you present writing in your language classroom. Find what works for you, your style, and your students. Stay strong!
For more thoughts on how to decrease student use of Artificial Intelligence in the World Language Classroom, click on other blog posts in this series:
- How to Deal with AI, ChatGPT, and Google Translate in the World Language Classroom? – Part 1
- How to Deal with AI, ChatGPT, and Google Translate in the World Language Classroom? – Part 2
- How to Deal with AI, ChatGPT, and Google Translate in the World Language Classroom? – Part 3
- How to Deal with AI, ChatGPT, and Google Translate in the World Language Classroom? – Part 4
- How to Deal with AI, ChatGPT, and Google Translate in the World Language Classroom? – Part 5
My name is Lisa and I enjoy being your new French colleague. How can I help you tomorrow?
