The ELT News Report
All the "buzz" in ELT for the week of Jan. 9th.
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Dear Teachers,
I hope everyone is having a great start to 2023. So much “buzz” recently in ELT. Here are some highlights. See the full directory here.
Much ado these days about ChatGPT. Find a lot of useful links, references in our growing Google Doc. Also, our online reader of general education articles.
Recent “Buzz”
Top 10 People In ELT. Who are the top 10 all-time people in English language teaching. Join the conversation. Do you agree with this list from ChatGPT? Many don't, many do.
2022 Wrap Up. The folks at the Learn Your English podcast meet and discuss what they learned over this last year - 2022. They run through specific lessons that drive success, failure, and resilience.
TBLT Talk. Sponge ELT sits down with Martin East and they talk about Task Based Language and Teaching and especially its relationship with teacher training and development.
A Last Post. Russ Mayne looks back on years of blogging and signs off with a last post listing many highlights on his Evidence Based ELT blog.
2023 Predictions. Larry Ferlazzo makes his annual predictions for education. He shares 8 things he think will or won't happen in 2023.
13 Questions. Hana Ticha answers 13 questions as part of a New Year reflection on her teaching and her views, stance on education and learning.
2022 Thank Yous. Joanna ESL shares some of her thoughts about blogging in 2022 and what's ahead for the coming year - 2023.
ChatGPT Advice. Helen Blundell of Activate Learning asks ChatGPT what she should do with her life. The reply and her response to it is revealing.
Video Lessons
This year, we are focusing on our Youtube Channel. Please check us out and give a like/subscribe. Also, see our exclusive Top Youtube platform. Of course ELT Buzz Video will continue to grow and highlight the best video out there for English language teaching!
I think you make a lot of good points but based on my own experiences and knowledge of NLP - we are still a far off distance from your vision, description. Though I do think AI will continue to chip away at the brick n mortar, f2f teaching - like online provisioning of books did to book stores. But didn't kill them and I think it might in the end be a good thing, to get rid of the "bottom feeders" so to speak of language lessons - which keep wages so low in ELT. Thanks for the insightful thoughts! Agree about Asia driving a lot of these changes. I'm for the moment in Korea and I'm astounded by the level of interaction between AI and humans in the day to day world.
The first time I saw the movie "Her," I realized that the chatbot is engaging and motivating BECAUSE she cares intimately for the man's feelings and responds to his needs. We have all had one or maybe two teachers like that in our lives. What if every teacher was engaging, caring, and found us attractive? I made a short video using a clip from the movie... https://youtu.be/1N9NMjfaBCA
I expect China will be first to release large-scale Interactive English Learning Services (I won't call them AI because they are far from it.) Despite China’s population decline, it continues to have the single largest demographic need for English teaching and the greatest political need to control how English is taught.
Many will recall that in late 2021 Chinese President Xi made it illegal for Chinese people to learn English online with foreign teachers. Almost overnight 250,000 American, English, Scott, Irish, Canadian, and Australian online teachers "lost their jobs". Terms of Service for the Chinese teaching portals made it clear that their millions of online lessons were recorded and became the property of the Chinese companies "employing" foreign teachers.
By now the online lessons and related graphic assets for all levels of ability and covering all issues related to the smooth acquisition of English language have been transcribed, organized, and ranked for quality. ChatGPT-type robots can be male, female, old, or young. It doesn’t matter, they can all use the same database. The provision of lessons will cost only the electricity needed to operate the servers plus robots do not get grouchy or think about forming unions. The attractions are far too many to ignore.
Consequently, the global requirement for human English language teachers is in secular decline. Only the most traditional schools; those with powerful unions that recognize the threat, will be able to delay the coming changes but only for a decade or so. Almost every type of standard semantic knowledge transfer is at risk of replacement by attractive chatbots connected to adaptive databases. On the plus side, home schooling is about to take a giant leap forward. Parents and adult learners will be able to rent time with a super tutor who will adapt not only to the learner’s personality but also to their specific andragogical needs. New content will be delivered at an optimal pace and, most likely, include spaced repetition to inculcate long term recall ability.
I apologize if this seems like a dark message. I was motivated to write because the author indicates that chatbots will be incorporated like prior technologies. However, chatbots are not like laptops and mobile apps, or even adaptive databases. Chatbots provide an emotional interface between an adaptive database and a human being. And in case you haven't noticed, it has become abundantly clear that we humans are not only willing to accept digital replacements for human interactions; a majority of us seem to like them better.