First experiments with ChatGPT

 

If you use social media, or in fact if you have been looking at any kind of media recently, you won't have failed to notice all the talk about AI - Artifical Intelligence.   ChatGPT in particular has captured the imaginations of education professionals, who have been experimenting with its use in their work.

Over the past few months I have been keeping an eye on the various social media and blogposts about it, but, during what has been a very busy school year for me, I haven't had time to have a closer look at it.  I decided that it would be one of the things that I would have a play with during the school summer holidays.  In other words, now!

So I'm here to report on what I have been doing with it so far.  

I started off by thinking about the kinds of resources that I make often both for my own use in the classroom and for Light Bulb Languages more generally.  I often make worksheets for drilling vocabulary and structures, practising a specific language sets in various different ways.  With this in mind, I had a look at the Key Stage 2 units that I will be teaching new Year 4 and new Year 5 in September.  The examples that I'm going to show you here focus on the unit Les fruits and also Quel temps fait-il ?  

I quickly learned that it takes a fair bit of practice to get the instructions for ChatGPT right, so that it will actually give you what you are thinking of.

After a few false starts, I began with:

Write 16 simple sentences in French using the opinion phrases j'adore, j'aime, je n'aime pas and je déteste as well as the fruits les abricots, les kiwis, les bananes, les cerises, les fraises, les oranges, les pêches, les, poires, les pommes, les prunes. You can also use the conjunctions et and mais. The sentences need to be understood by 8 year old beginner learners of French. Don't include any other words in the sentences.

Here are the sentences it generated:

1.    J'adore les fraises et les cerises.

2.    J'aime les bananes et les pommes.

3.    Je n'aime pas les kiwis, mais j'aime les poires.

4.    Je déteste les prunes, mais j'aime les abricots.

5.    J'adore les oranges et les pêches.

6.    J'aime les fraises, mais je n'aime pas les cerises.

7.    Je n'aime pas les pommes, mais j'aime les bananes.

8.    Je déteste les kiwis et les poires.

9.    J'aime les abricots et les oranges.

10.    Je n'aime pas les pêches, mais j'aime les fraises.

11.    J'adore les cerises et les prunes.

12.    J'aime les bananes, mais je n'aime pas les kiwis.

13.    Je déteste les pommes et les poires.

14.    J'aime les abricots, mais je n'aime pas les oranges.

15.    Je n'aime pas les fraises, mais j'aime les cerises.

16.    J'adore les pêches et les prunes.

Normally it would take me quite a long time to come up with these sentences, keeping a tally on a scrap piece of paper to make sure I use all the fruits and all the opinions equally and so on.  It's interesting that it has used j'aime and je n'aime pas together in sentences, but not j'adore or je déteste.  I would more than likely edit some sentences for this reason, or have a go at getting ChatGPT to do it!

Next I decided to try creating a list of simpler sentences using the same vocabulary but not the conjunctions:

Write 20 different simple sentences in French using the verbs j'adore, j'aime, je n'aime pas and je déteste as well as the fruits les abricots, les kiwis, les bananes, les cerises, les fraises, les oranges, les pêches, les, poires, les pommes, les prunes. The sentences need to be understood by 8 year old beginner learners of French. Don't include any other words in the sentences. The sentences must only have an opinion and a fruit.

And here's what I got:

1.    J'adore les fraises.

2.    J'aime les cerises.

3.    Je n'aime pas les kiwis.

4.    Je déteste les prunes.

5.    J'adore les pommes.

6.    J'aime les bananes.

7.    Je n'aime pas les poires.

8.    Je déteste les abricots.

9.    J'adore les oranges.

10.    J'aime les pêches.

11.    Je n'aime pas les fraises.

12.    Je déteste les cerises.

13.    J'adore les kiwis.

14.    J'aime les poires.

15.    Je n'aime pas les pommes.

16.    Je déteste les bananes.

17.    J'adore les pêches.

18.    J'aime les abricots.

19.    Je n'aime pas les oranges.

20.    Je déteste les fraises.

The first attempt contained some identical sentences, so I had to ask it to make sure all the sentences were different.

Next I wanted it to generate a list of these sentences with the vowels missing, so that children would have to rewrite the sentences, filling in the missing letters and focussing on the spelling.  I found out that if you ask ChatGPT to create a didactic activity, it will give you a mini lesson plan, something which might be useful for teachers looking for ideas for classroom activities.

Create a didactic activity using these 16 French sentences. Rewrite the sentences with the vowels missing and put a _ in their place. J'adore les fraises. J'aime les cerises. Je n'aime pas les kiwis. Je déteste les prunes. J'adore les pommes. J'aime les bananes. Je n'aime pas les poires. Je déteste les abricots. J'adore les oranges. J'aime les pêches. Je n'aime pas les fraises. Je déteste les cerises. J'adore les kiwis. J'aime les poires. Je n'aime pas les pommes. Je déteste les bananes. J'adore les pêches. J'aime les abricots. Je n'aime pas les oranges. Je déteste les fraises.

Title: French Fruit Sentences Missing Vowels Activity

Objective: Practice reading and comprehension of French fruit-related sentences by filling in missing vowels.

Materials:

• Printed activity sheets with the 16 sentences (original sentences with missing vowels)
• Pencils or pens

·    Instructions:

1.     1.  Distribute the activity sheets to the participants.

2.     2.  Explain the purpose of the activity: to practice reading and comprehension of fruit-related sentences in French.

3.    3.   Instruct the participants to read each sentence carefully and fill in the missing vowels by writing the correct vowel in the place of the "_".

4.     4.  Encourage participants to take their time and try to sound out the words to determine which vowel is missing in each sentence.

5.   5.    Walk around the room to provide assistance and answer any questions.

6.   6.    Once participants have completed the activity, review the correct answers together as a group.

Activity Sheet: French Fruit Sentences Missing Vowels

1        J'd_r l_s fr__s_s.

2.       J'm l_s c_r_s_s.

3.       J_ n'm p_s l_s k_w_s.

4.       J_ d_t_st_ l_s pr_n_s.

5.       J'd_r l_s p_mm_s.

6.       J'm l_s b_n_n_s.

7.       J_ n'm p_s l_s p__r_s.

8.       J_ d_t_st_ l_s _br_c_ts.

9.       J'd_r l_s _r_ng_s.

10.   J'm l_s p_ ch_s.

11.   J_ n'm p_s l_s fr__s_s.

12.   J_ d_t_st_ l_s c_r_s_s.

13.   J'd_r l_s k_w_s.

14.   J'm l_s p__r_s.

15.   J_ n'm p_s l_s p_mm_s.

16.   J_ d_t_st_ l_s b_n_n_s.

17.   J'd_r l_s p_ ch_s.

18.   J'm l_s _br_c_ts.

19.   J_ n'm p_s l_s _r_ng_s.

20.   J_ d_t_st_ l_s fr__s_s.

Discussion and Review:

•  Go through the sentences one by one, inviting participants to share their completed sentences.
•  Discuss the correct vowels for each sentence, helping participants correct any mistakes they made.
•  Encourage participants to ask questions about sentence structures or vocabulary if they have any.
• Emphasize the importance of practicing pronunciation while reading.

Extension: For an extra challenge, you can ask participants to create their own sentences about their favorite fruits or other foods, leaving out vowels for their peers to fill in. This can encourage creativity and reinforce vocabulary.

I also asked it to take away all the vowels, this time not replacing them with a dash:

Rewrite these French sentences with no vowels. J'adore les fraises. J'aime les cerises. Je n'aime pas les kiwis. Je déteste les prunes. J'adore les pommes. J'aime les bananes. Je n'aime pas les poires. Je déteste les abricots. J'adore les oranges. J'aime les pêches. Je n'aime pas les fraises. Je déteste les cerises. J'adore les kiwis. J'aime les poires. Je n'aime pas les pommes. Je déteste les bananes. J'adore les pêches. J'aime les abricots. Je n'aime pas les oranges. Je déteste les fraises.

J'dr ls frss.

J'm ls crss.

J n'm ps ls kw s.

J dtst ls prns.

J'dr ls pmm s.

J'm ls bnn s.

J n'm ps ls prs.

J dtst ls brcts.

J'dr ls rngs.

J'm ls pchs.

J n'm ps ls frss.

J dtst ls crss.

J'dr ls kw s.

J'm ls prs.

J n'm ps ls pmm s.

J dtst ls bnn s.

J'dr ls pchs.

J'm ls brcts.

J n'm ps ls rngs.

J dtst ls frss.

After that I also asked ChatGPT to change the order of the sentences.  It took a few goes to get the sentences with no vowels at all.

Next I had a go at some weather sentences.

Write 7 short imaginary weather reports in French using only these French words. Don't use any other words. et aussi mais en plus après finalement il pleut il neige il fait beau il fait mauvais il fait froid il fait chaud il y a du soleil il y a du vent il y a un orage lundi mardi mercredi jeudi vendredi samedi dimanche dans le nord le sud le centre l’est l’ouest de la France.

1.    Lundi : Il pleut dans le nord et il fait froid. Mais dans le sud, il y a du soleil.

2.    Mardi : Il neige dans l'est. En plus, il y a du vent. Après, il y a un orage.

3.    Mercredi : Il fait beau dans le centre, mais il fait chaud dans le sud. Finalement, il y a du soleil dans l'ouest.

4.    Jeudi : Il fait mauvais dans le nord. Cependant, il fait froid dans le sud. Dans l'est, il y a du vent.

5.    Vendredi : Il pleut dans le centre et il fait mauvais. En plus, il y a du vent dans l'ouest.

6.    Samedi : Il fait chaud dans le sud et il y a du soleil. Mais dans le nord, il fait froid.

7.    Dimanche : Il y a un orage dans l'est. Après, il fait beau dans le nord. Finalement, il y a du vent dans le sud.

I have kept ChatGPT's layout and formatting here.  I also did a second generation of sentences, this time not using the conjunctions, so that they are simpler.

Write 10 weather sentences in French using only these French words. Don't use any other words. Don't change the tense. et aussi mais en plus après finalement il pleut il neige il fait beau il fait mauvais il fait froid il fait chaud il y a du soleil il y a du vent il y a un orage lundi mardi mercredi jeudi vendredi samedi dimanche dans le nord le sud le centre l’est l’ouest de la France

1. Lundi, il fait chaud dans le sud.
2. Mardi, il pleut dans le nord.
3. Mercredi, il fait froid dans l'est.
4. Jeudi, il neige dans le centre.
5. Vendredi, il y a un orage dans l'ouest.
6. Samedi, il fait mauvais dans le nord.
7. Dimanche, il y a du soleil dans le sud.
8. Lundi, il fait chaud dans le centre.
9. Samedi, en plus, il y a du vent dans l'est.
10. Dimanche, finalement, il pleut dans le nord.

I wondered if it would make me one of the activities where you have to put the words in the right order.  

Rewrite these sentences with the words in each one mixed in a random order. Put " / " between each word. Make sure that all the words including le are in the sentences

Le / sud / dans / fait / chaud / il / lundi.

Dans / nord / il / pleut / mardi / le.

Mercredi / il / fait / l'est / dans / froid / le.

Jeudi / dans / centre / il / neige / le.

Vendredi / il / y / a / l'ouest / un / orage / dans.

Il / nord / samedi / mauvais / le / dans / fait.

Du / dans / sud / il / y / dimanche / soleil / a.

Le / dans / il / chaud / lundi / centre / fait.

Est / samedi / plus / il / y / vent / en / dans / a / du.

Il / nord / dimanche / pleut / en / finalement / le / dans / y.

This will take a bit of fine-tuning, as some words are missing and others are extra, such as the y in the last one.

This is how far I have got with ChatGPT so far.  I have been trying to get it to create a spelling exercise with animal words, where I have asked it to change two of the letters in each word.  I haven't got it to do it so far - it's happy to change one letter but not two.  All suggestions of how to phrase the instructions welcome!

I can see that using ChatGPT in this way to generate sentences from a specified word list will save time for me.  I'm still in the process of fine-tuning the instructions to get the result that I am after quickly.  Watch out for these sentences in Light Bulb Languages resources soon!

If you would like to look in more detail at using ChatGPT in language teaching, then I recommend that you seek out Joe Dale, who is leading the way.

I would love to hear how you have been using AI in your language teaching.

Writing from a grid

 

Last week my Year 5 Spaniards needed a bit more practice of adding up Euros and cents, and also a reminder of how numbers under 30 are just one word (we've been focussing on 31-99 recently).

I arranged some Euro coins in a grid (above) which then generated 6 different sums of money for us to add up.  If space allows on the PowerPoint slide, you can also add up the diagonals as well.

It would be easy for the children to make a grid like this to help themselves or their partner to practise, as long as you have some fake Euros to use.

There are other things that could be practised in this way too, I think.

This one, for example, is a stimulus for 6 sentences (or 8 sentences if you count the diagonals) using tengo, indefinite articles and y.  The red sentence would be: Tengo un libro, un sacapuntas y una barra de pegamento.

Children can stick the grid in their books and write the sentences underneath.

Can you think of a way you could use this grid idea?

Sentencify.net

 

Yesterday I was browsing posts on the Secondary MFL Matters Facebook group, and saw a reference to the website sentencify.net, which can be used to generate sentences and retrieval activities from a sentence builder.  (Thanks Marissa!)

I've had a play with it this morning (up early as daughter #1 had an early shift at work!) to see what it does.

First of all, you click on the "Get started" button, and this takes you to your "sentence builder" grid.  I entered some simple pets sentences:

There are 10 boxes altogether to structure your sentences.  The next step is to click the "Generate sentences" button, and choose how many sentences you'd like sentencify to generate for you.  I chose 8.

Then you need to type in the English (L2) for the sentences generated.  The sentencify user guide suggests copying and pasting into an online translator as a short cut - I pasted mine into Google Translate (ssshhhh!) and then just had to change turtle to tortoise.

Once you have your sentences in the L1 and L2, click on "Generate activities" for the options for the retrieval activities.

The first is the Match Up:

The activity is designed to be completed online, but it would also be possible to copy and paste into your paper-based activity or PowerPoint.

The second activity is "Unjumble":

The original L1 sentences are jumbled up and students have to rewrite them in the correct order.  It's worth noting here that the program wants the sentences to have the format of the singular pet followed by the plural pets, but grammatically speaking the order could also be the reverse of that.  This is something that you may want to consider when designing your sentences, especially if you are going to ask students to complete them online.

The third activity is "Fill the gaps":

and the fourth is "Translate":

The final activity is "Drag and drop":

To be honest I'm not entirely sure of the aim of this activity.  Each one I generate turns out in a different format!  If you have used the drag and drop, it'd be great if you could say in the comments how you've used it.

At the top of the screen there is also a "Create a test" button.  You can generate a test where students have to translate either L1 sentences to L2, or L2 to L1.  

Once you have finished your sentence builder and sentences, it's possible to save them, but remember to copy the code that is generated for your activity, as you'll need to enter this to open it again.

There is also a function for entering impossible sentences into the sentence builder and using hashtags to clarify which words can go together:

I had a go with this, and it takes a bit of trial and error to get enough variation in the sentences:

Finally, it's also possible to put emojis into your sentences.  I saw this on the sentencify Twitter account.  I didn't know before that pressing the Windows logo key and the full stop together brings up an emoji menu!

The resulting "sentences" will be more useful for some of the activities than for others.

I enjoyed exploring the site and can see how it will be useful in particular for generating quickly and easily lots of sentences from a sentence builder, as well as retrieval activities.  Have a play and see what you think!

Things to do with sentence builders in the primary languages classroom: part 2!

 

In my last post, I talked about some of the activities that I do in the primary languages classroom with sentence builders, and asked readers if they have any primary-friendly activities that they recommend.

I'll be starting my planning for the week shortly (at the top of this post is one of the sentence builders I'm going to be using this week, with Year 5) and so will be looking to incorporate some of the activities that people have recommended:

And some others, from the Facebook group and blog comments:

• Trapdoor 
• Slalom listening - You give them a copy of the sentence builder and they highlight/ underline words they hear, then they have to read the whole sentence.
• Flippity 'fruit machine' style activity, particularly the fact that sometimes there are 'nonsense sentences appearing (with food likes and with clothes you wear in specific weather conditions.
• Pyramid translation
• Delayed repetition or writing

Many thanks to everyone who took the time to respond.

Things to do with sentence builders in the primary languages classroom

 

Writing frames, sentence builders, whatever you call them, are enjoying considerable popularity in the languages community at the moment, due mainly to the work of Gianfranco Conti.  If you are a tweeter or if you are in one of the languages Facebook group, you'll have seen lots of posts about them and ideas for using them.

You can see at the top of this post one of the sentence builders that I have been using most recently.  I nearly always use the flowchart format (thanks Joe!) in primary, as I find with the tabular format it's too easy for them to miss columns out.  I also make them in black and white, as colour photocopying is only for special occasions at my schools!  If it's not clear enough without colour, it's not clear enough, I think.

I've been experimenting with using them and knowledge organisers this academic year to facilitate our work in class at a time when I have to stay at the front and not go to help individual children.

We have been trying out different activities with them, for example (in no particular order):

• I say the Spanish sentence, children tell me the English
• I say an English sentence, children tell me what it would be in Spanish
• Children test each other in one of the above two ways 
• I say a Spanish sentence, but leave it incomplete, either just saying the first sound of the last word or stopping at a suitable place, and children need to complete the sentence with the correct word or with suitable words.
• After a little practice, I show a sentence from the sentence builder with a random extra word in it.  The children have to tell me which word is unnecessary.
• I say a sentence in English and the children write it in Spanish on their mini whiteboards and hold it up for me to see.
• I write a sentence from the sentence builder on my mini whiteboard, and the class between them have 10 attempts to guess the sentence, which I then reveal after the 10 attempts or when it is guessed correctly.
• I prepare a sentence from the sentence builder and conceal it.  The children all prepare a sentence and write it on their mini whiteboards.  The children stand up.  I reveal my sentence word by word.  As soon as the children have a word in their sentence that is different to mine, they have to sit down, until we reach the end of the sentence and hopefully there is someone left who has the same sentence as me.  Thanks to Sue Cave for this idea - Year 3 loved it this morning, although one of the boys saw through my strategy of not wanting to repeat words!

Do you have any favourite activities when using sentence builders?  There are some that I have seen that are a bit reading-heavy for primary children; I'd love to increase my repertoire!  Please leave any ideas in the comments.

Messing around with text!

In the past I have written about practising word and sentence structure by mixing it up in some way and asking students to sort it back out into the correct order.  I have done this most often with missing out the spaces and making anagrams.

I have also asked my students to rearranged jumbled sentences into the right order so that they make sense, one of the ideas in my search for ideas for translation.  When I was preparing resources for Studio 1 (French Key Stage 3 course book) I put together worksheets like this one where I had jumbled up the sentence myself.

I was really pleased to see this tweet from@EClaire71247211 recently:

One of my favourite hacks - paste a load of TL sentences into this site and it instantly creates a sentence unjumbling exercise - good for making your own Conti-style 'sentence puzzles' or for scaffolded translations into L2. #mfltwitterati #langchat https://t.co/QhkT38WoCQ

— eclaire (@EClaire71247211) May 4, 2020

The Scramblinator is so easy to use - type in or paste in your sentence, hit the "Scramblinatorize" button, and it does all the work for you!  Resources are quicker and easier to put together.

It reminded of the Reverse Text Generator which is useful for messing around with text.  It also has a "Disemvowel" tool, which you can use to remove vowels or any other letters from your text quickly and easily (and which makes your sentences look like they belong in Only Connect) and a Word Scrambler / Descrambler amongst its Obfuscation tools.

Here are some of the effects you can get:

ORIGINAL SENTENCE	Je joue au foot avec mes amis.
Scramblinator	joue / foot / au / Je / amis. / mes / avec
Disemvowel	J j  ft vc ms ms.
Word Scrambler	Je euoj au ootf vaec mes asim.
ORIGINAL SENTENCE	Il fait chaud aujourd’hui.
Reverse	iuh'druojua duahc tiaf li
Reverse the wording	hui'aujourd chaud fait il
Reverse each word’s lettering	li tiaf duahc druojua'iuh
Upside down	ınɥ,pɹnoɾnɐ pnɐɥɔ ʇıɐɟ ןı

UPDATE 13.5.20:  I've found some more sites which can do similar things to your text:

To create word shapes, click here

NimbleText does disemvowelling and reverse text among other things (scroll down the list)

LingoJam puts your text upside down for you

The LingoJam Number Generator makes a number code out of your words

LingoJam will also disemvowel your words

Spellbackwards will reverse your text in various different ways 

Flowchart Sentence Builders (pt. 2)

Since Joe's brilliant post about Flowchart Sentence Builders I have been starting to put some together to accompany my new scheme of work.  I've been sharing back and forth with Joe and with Carmen, who I first met at a Consejería event and who, it turned out, had been trying out a similar thing.

It takes a while to put the flowcharts together, especially the first few, and they go through a few incarnations before you are happy with the layout.  Once you've done a few, they are quicker to put together as you can start copying and pasting and moving existing boxes around.  I use Microsoft Publisher to create mine (I use Publisher for nearly all my resources).

Here are the ones that I've done already.  All comments welcome!

FLOWCHART by Clare Seccombe

Flowchart Sentence Builders

At the weekend I saw a post on the Languages in Primary Schools Facebook group by Joe Barnes Moran.  He showed a picture of a sentence builder presented as a flowchart.  Immediately I could see the benefit of this for my young learners.  Over to Joe to tell you more about them:

I am honoured to have been asked by Clare to write a guest post on flowchart sentence builders. Between Spanish lessons, I am also a Year 6 class teacher and SLE at Parkfield Primary School, Middleton.

Convenient timing brought me to the world of sentence builders. There was a big push around knowledge organisers at my school and I was tasked with sourcing or creating them for Spanish. Knowledge organisers – or sentence builders as they are known in language circles – are by no means an entirely new concept. Everyone has their own idea of what a knowledge organiser should look like, and how it should be used. This is just me putting my hat into the ring. Take it or leave it.

I studied the work of Dr.Gianfranco Conti and, with the wonderful support of Dylan Viñales, head of Spanish at Garden International School, I put what I had learnt into practice and produced my first set of sentence builders! Proudly, I presented a sentence builder to each of my classes. Here’s a Year 6 example that I created a year ago. Yikes!

The impact was…mixed.

Students really liked them but what I found disappointing were the occasional errors that students continued to make even when the pathways to a coherent sentence seemed so logical to me. In hindsight, it was just too complex: there were too many possibilities with their own, grammatical intricacies that presented a minefield for my students – cognitive overload would strike!

Back to the drawing board I went. 

With lockdown offering me the perfect opportunity to devote some significant brainpower to the problem I was faced with, I diligently set about to simplify and streamline my sentence builders. For a sentence builder to facilitate real learning it had to be easy to follow, and without all the grammatical possibilities crammed into one table. In the words of Señor Viñales, creating the ideal sentence builder meant it had to, “avoid the possibility of impossible combinations.”

At this point, I have to take time to mention my wonderful and supportive husband, Mark. One evening, seeing how frustrated I had become with a particular sentence builder focusing on prepositions, he offered to help. Owing to the mathematical and scientific kind of person he is, he actually understood the explanation ramble on the grammatical possibilities and faux pas that the humble preposition would inevitably create.

“Give me half an hour and I’ll see what I can do!’ he said to me as he disappeared, determined to help his floundering husband.

What he presented was to be the lightbulb languages moment (see what I did there?) I had been trying to create. This was a simplified, easy-to-follow-and-impossible-to-make-impossible-combinations sentence builder. We named them ‘flowchart sentence builders’ owing to the similarities they present with the traditional flow chart (apologies to any purists out there). Any grammatical exceptions are studied in a separate sentence builder. This way it’s possible to maintain the simplified view. By providing the English equivalents, the possibility of cognitive overload is reduced further. I raise awareness of any recurring grammatical patterns (plural, masculine or feminine) by highlighting appropriate endings. Children will be able to follow the arrows and come up with a possible combination, safe in the knowledge that it will will be correct. I feel the space is freed up to focus on what’s important – modelling a high quality, grammatically correct sentence.

Since this initial creation, Clare and I have chatted about the possibilities and I have since spent this portion of the lockdown busily devising flowchart sentence builders for each of my classes. I can’t wait to use these with students when schools return to normal!