Webinar for TESOL Simple Education, Vietnam, on how students can get feedback on their speaking using their phones

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of addressing about 250 participants in a workshop about how students can get feedback on their speaking whenever they use Turboscribe to record themslves.

I started off using a DirectPoll survey to find out whether participants were equiped to participate in the workshop. Only 120 of the 250 people present responded.

So I suggested the people who hadn't got an account with Turboscribe.ai should get one as soon as possible.

Fortunately, nearly everyone had the ChatGPT app on their phone. I explained that the app was much better than the browser version when it comes to listening to texts read aloud unless they were using the Edge browser, which also allows you to select text and ask for it to be read aloud.

I explained that anyone using their phone to follow the webinar might have problems using the same device to also record themselves and use ChatGPT.

The question I didn't ask, and regret not asking was whether participants had a QR code reader or not, but of course that would only have worked if someone had put the short URL in the chat.

Nearly two hours later I asked participants to evaluate the ideas I had been putting forward and they had been using as if they were students. This time there were only 32 responses, but they were overwhelmingly positive:

Finally, I invited everyone who was still following the workshop to join my WhatsApp group called 'Speech to Text in Language Learning and Teaching'. Only 18 people joined, which was slightly disappointing.

An improved 9-step prompt

The main difference between this version of the webinar and previous versions was that I had improved the 9-step prompt to try to guarantee that there would always be a steady progression in level between the original transcription and the corrected version and the three improved versions. Here is the revised prompt:

Remove timestamps.

Decide the level on GSE and CEFR (+ for half bands) but don't reveal it.

After each of the steps 1 to 9, wait for me to say "next."

Write in continuous prose.

Answer questions at the learner's level.

Steps:

1 Identify errors in bold and enclose them in brackets

2 Correct errors, showing corrections in bold next to (errors)

3 Write the corrected version without mistakes

4 Rewrite half a CEFR level up from the version in step 3 but more logically structured, with better cohesion, more complex grammar, richer and more idiomatic vocab, and more details, marking changes as in step 2

5 Write the changed version

6 Rewrite one CEFR level up from the version in step 5, improving as in step 4, marking changes as in step 2.

7 Write the changed version

8 Rewrite one level up from the version in step 7, more complex, even better linked, even more detailed, even more logically structured, marking changes as in step 2

9 Write the changed version

Here is a QR code and short URL that link to the prompt so that you can use any slight improvments I make in the future.

I suggested that teachers and even learners could adapt the prompt to suit their needs. For example, leaners aiming to improve their IELTS speaking scores could ask ChatGPT to use this scale rather than the GSE and CEFR scales. I reminded everyone that there is a limit of 953 characters including spaces when making changes to the Custom Prompt to be pasted into Turboscribe.ai 

Setting up Communicative Speaking Activities

A second difference between this version and previous versions of the webinar is that this time I had added a section with suggestions about how to set up communicative speaking activities for students in class and for homework. These were taken from my presentation for a Google Hangout with the late Vance Stevens back in 2016.

Recordings of the webinar

I recorded a rehearsal for the webinar, but haven't had time to edit it yet, but when I have, I'll share it on my YouTube channel Chris_Fry_Barcelona - YouTube

TESOL Simple Education will also be sharing the edited recording of the live webinar, I'll post the link here. 

How good is ChatGPT at writing at specified CEFR levels?

I had always used Pearson's Text Analyzer to get a grade for the different versions of transcripts produced by ChatGPT, but was slightly suspicious that grades rarely went higher than B2, so I compared these grades with the ones assigned for 'writing' on TextInspector. They were often higher, particularly at B2 and above, so I used an average of the two grades as in the table below.

Using the average (and the sums) convinced me that the progression was useful even if ChatGPT isn't perfect at writing at the levels demanded of it. ChatGPT is 'good enough'!