Text and media literacy is a key aim of English language teaching at secondary level and is recognised as a separate area of competence in the curriculum. English teachers deal with written texts in the foreign language in a variety of ways, especially in Year 10, which focuses on the receptive and productive use of different types of texts.
The availability of AI-based text generators/writing assistants such as Deep L Write/Translate, Grammarly and ChatGPT presents (prospective) teachers with challenges: How can I recognise that a text was written by the students themselves? How do I motivate my students to engage in creative writing activities (as a counter-concept to the "stochastic parrot")?
At the same time, AI tools open up new possibilities for learning native language collocations and syntactic patterns, as well as for automated peer review.
In this course, the advantages and dangers of using AI tools in the area of (written) language production in a TEFL context will be critically discussed.
Using three types of texts (i.e. news report, argumentative essay and a creative writing format), the course will introduce general text features such as cohesive devices and information structure, as well as genre-specific characteristics such as text arrangement and style. Students will engage in writing tasks similar to those suggested in textbooks for grade 10 and Oberstufe (e.g. Green Line Transition, Green Line for Oberstufe, Context for Oberstufe) and will experiment with AI tools such as Deep L and ChatGPT. |
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