✅ We embrace innovation that saves time and sparks creativity.

❌ We reject "AI hype" that lacks pedagogical value.

The 3 Golden Rules of this Hub:

AI is the Co-Pilot, You are the Captain. Never let the machine steer the lesson. Use these tools to support your teaching goals, not to replace your expertise.

Trust, but Verify. Generative AI "hallucinates." It invents facts, quotes, and grammar rules. Always check the output before taking it to class.

🗺️ How to navigate this Padlet:

🤖 The Generalists: The big models (ChatGPT, Gemini...) and how to prompt them.

🛠️ The Specialists: Dedicated tools for teachers (Worksheets, Videos, Grading).

🪄 Prompt Library: Copy-paste magic for English lessons.

🧠 Brain Food: Methodology, ethics, and research to keep us grounded.

📢 This is a living document! Found a great tool? Discovered a terrible hallucination? Created a perfect lesson plan? Post it in the "SHOWCASE" column!

Let’s tame the machine together. The Chat4EFL Team

• EFL Superpower: Its Voice Mode (in the mobile app) is the infinitely patient conversation partner your shy students need before their speaking exam.

• EFL Superpower: Creative Writing. Use this for generating roleplay scripts, short stories, or emails that actually sound natural and idiomatic. It captures tone better than anyone else.

• EFL Superpower: Heavy Reading. You can upload a whole PDF textbook or a long article, and it won't crash. Ask it to "summarise Chapter 4 and create a vocabulary list based on it.

• EFL Superpower: Web Search. It accesses the internet by default. Good if you need current events for your lesson, but it can be a bit more "strict" and lectured than the others.

• EFL Superpower: Multilingualism. It handles European languages exceptionally well. A great alternative if you want to support "local" tech and keep data closer to home.

• EFL Superpower: Logic & Structure. Great for lesson planning structures. Just one rule: Don't ask it about geopolitics or human rights, or it will give you the silent treatment. 🤐

• EFL Superpower: Citing Sources. Unlike ChatGPT (which likes to invent links), Perplexity tells you exactly where it got the information. Use this when researching facts for CLIL lessons.

• Best for: Turning any viral video into a legitimate B2 lesson plan before your coffee gets cold.

• Best for: Mixed-ability classes. You can give the "same" article to everyone, but adapted to their level.

• Best for: Shy students who are terrified of speaking in front of the class but need conversation practice. Plus, it grades their performance for you.

• Best for: The "Panic Planning" moments when you walk into the staff room 10 minutes before the bell rings with zero ideas.

• Best for: Creating custom listening exams or dictations where you control exactly what vocabulary is used.

Prompt:

"Analyze the following text based on the CEFR framework for English learners.

1. Estimate the overall CEFR level (A1-C2).

2. Highlight 5 specific vocabulary words that might be too difficult for [INSERT LEVEL, e.g., B1] students and suggest simpler synonyms.

3. Identify any complex grammatical structures that might block understanding.

Text: [PASTE TEXT HERE]"

💡 Andrej's Pro Tip: Never trust the level blindly. AI tends to overestimate students (it thinks B2 is C1). Always manually check the vocabulary list it extracts.

"Act as a [INSERT ROLE, e.g., grumpy shop assistant] at [INSERT LOCATION, e.g., a souvenir shop in London]. I am a student trying to [INSERT GOAL, e.g., return a broken mug]. Start the conversation with a relevant question. IMPORTANT: Wait for my response before writing your next line. Do not write the whole script at once. Keep your turns short (max 2 sentences)."

💡 Andrej's Pro Tip: The magic phrase is 'Wait for my response'. Without it, the AI will hallucinate the entire dialogue by itself. Use this for homework practice!

Prompt:

"I need to teach the grammar structure: [INSERT TOPIC, e.g., 'Used to' vs 'Be used to']. Create 3 Concept Checking Questions (CCQs) to verify students understand the meaning.

• The questions must be simple (Yes/No or binary choice).

• Do NOT use the target grammar structure in the questions.

• Include the correct answers."

💡 Andrej's Pro Tip: Asking "Do you understand?" is useless. CCQs are the only way to know if they actually got it. Let AI do the hard logic work for you.

Prompt:

"Write a short, engaging story (max 150 words) suitable for [INSERT LEVEL, e.g., A2] students. You MUST include the following vocabulary words naturally in the text: [INSERT WORDS, e.g., pollution, recycle, bottle, waste]. Bold the target words in the story. After the story, create 3 reading comprehension questions."

💡 Andrej's Pro Tip: Brains remember stories, not dictionaries. Use this to introduce a new topic or to revise words from the previous lesson.

Prompt:

"I am teaching a lesson on the topic of [INSERT TOPIC, e.g., Artificial Intelligence]. Generate 5 controversial or provocative statements (not questions) about this topic suitable for [INSERT LEVEL] teenagers. The statements should encourage strong 'Agree' or 'Disagree' opinions to spark a debate."

💡 Andrej's Pro Tip: Statements work better than questions. "AI will steal your job" (Statement) creates more friction and discussion than "Will AI steal jobs?" (Question).

Prompt:

"Act as an encouraging EFL teacher. I will paste a student's short essay below. Please provide feedback using the 'Sandwich' method:

1. Positive: What did they do well?

2. Constructive: Point out 2 major recurring errors (grammar/vocab) and explain how to fix them.

3. Closing: A motivating sentence.

Student Text: [PASTE TEXT HERE]"

💡 Andrej's Pro Tip: Don't let AI rewrite the whole essay. The student won't learn anything. This prompt forces the AI to focus on specific, actionable improvements.

Prompt:

"I am creating a multiple-choice quiz for [INSERT LEVEL, e.g., B1] students. Create a question testing the word/concept: [INSERT WORD, e.g., 'Make' vs 'Do']. Provide 1 correct answer and 3 'distractors' (incorrect answers). Important: The distractors must be plausible common mistakes, not obvious nonsense. Explain why each distractor is wrong."

💡 Andrej's Pro Tip: Writing good bad answers is harder than writing good good answers. This prompt saves your brainpower for the actual teaching.

Prompt:

"Write a short paragraph (approx. 80 words) about [INSERT TOPIC, e.g., My daily routine]. Deliberately include exactly [INSERT NUMBER, e.g., 6] grammatical errors specific to [INSERT PROBLEM AREA, e.g., Present Simple 3rd person 's' and prepositions of time]. Keep the rest of the text correct. Below the text, provide an answer key list of the errors."

💡 Andrej's Pro Tip: Students love correcting 'the teacher'. It’s much more engaging than filling in gaps. Just make sure YOU have the answer key (which AI provides).

Prompt:

"I have students who struggle distinguishing between the sounds [INSERT SOUNDS, e.g., /v/ and /w/ OR 'th' and 's'].

1. Create a list of 5 minimal pairs (words that differ only by this sound).

2. Create a funny, difficult tongue twister sentence that uses these words heavily.

3. Provide a 'phonetic breakdown' tip for how to shape the mouth for each sound."

💡 Andrej's Pro Tip: Phonology can be dry. Tongue twisters make it a game. Great for a 5-minute warm-up at the start of the lesson.

Prompt:

"Take the following informal sentence: [INSERT SENTENCE, e.g., 'Sorry I'm late, bus was super slow, lol.']

1. Rewrite it to be Very Formal (suitable for a business email).

2. Rewrite it to be Neutral (suitable for a colleague).

3. Rewrite it to be Gen Z Slang (exaggerated). Explain the key vocabulary changes in each version."

💡 Andrej's Pro Tip: This is brilliant for showing that 'correct' English depends on context. The 'Gen Z' version usually makes teenagers laugh (and cringe).

💡 Why read it: UNESCO just updated their guidelines. They are pushing hard for "Human-Centered AI" and warning against the "colonization of data". Essential for school policy.

💡 Why read it: They address the "Assessment Crisis" – how to grade students when AI can write better essays than them. Their answer? Focus on process, not just the final product.

💡 Why read it: This is the "scare tactic" backed by hard science. A massive experiment showed that students using GPT-4 improved their scores by 48% during practice, but performed 17% WORSE on exams once the AI was removed.

• Teacher's Takeaway: If students use AI as a crutch (direct answers), they are learning less than if they didn't use it at all. We call this the "Mirage of False Mastery."

💡 Why read it: Direct evidence from EFL classrooms. Students who used ChatGPT produced better essays but showed zero knowledge retention and lower motivation. They offloaded the "thinking" (planning, monitoring) to the bot.

• Teacher's Takeaway: High scores on AI-assisted homework mean nothing. If the process isn't graded, the product is worthless.

• Teacher's Takeaway: STOP using AI detectors on your students. You are likely accusing innocent students just because their grammar is simple. Focus on the process, not the detector.

💡 Why read it: This explains why the chatbot hallucinates. AI isn't "smart" linearly. It can pass the Bar Exam (genius) but fail to count words in a sentence (idiot). This uneven capability is dangerous because it lulls us into trusting it.

• Teacher's Takeaway: Never assume that because AI did task A perfectly, it will do task B perfectly. Always verify.

💡 Why read it: Enough doom and gloom. How do we actually teach with it? This paper gives 7 concrete roles (e.g., AI as Mentor, AI as Simulator, AI as Student).

• Teacher's Takeaway: The best role for EFL? "AI as Student". Make the student teach the AI or correct the AI's mistakes. That forces deep cognitive processing.

💡 Why read it: Stop thinking AI is magic. It’s math. This interactive article uses beautiful visual metaphors (like a dog playing fetch) to explain how LLMs predict the next word using "vectors".

• Teacher's Takeaway: Once you see how it predicts words based on probability, you will finally understand why it lies (hallucinates) so confidently.

• Teacher's Takeaway: It confirms that the AI isn't "thinking" like a human; it is a sophisticated statistical engine shuffling numbers to guess the most likely continuation of your sentence.

• 🌟 Your Wins: A lesson plan or prompt that worked perfectly.

• 🤡 Your Fails: The funniest "hallucination" or mistake the AI made (we love these!).

• 💡 Your Tips: A cool tool we missed. Click the (+) button to upload screenshots, PDFs, or links.

https://readandimprove.englishlanguageitutoring.com​

Read and Improve ​

https://readandimprove.englishlanguageitutoring.com​

Gapfill Generator ​

www.random-idea-english.blogspot.com/2011/07/tools-gapfill-generator.html​

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Resources for developing Listening skills ​

www.breakingnewsenglish.com​

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Listenwise ​

www.Listenwise.com​

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The Better Learning blog - listening skills ​

www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2021/06/23/listening-sub-skills-and-tasks/​

Listening resources ​

www.breakingnewsenglish.com​

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For developing writing skills ​

Write & Improve www.writeandimprove.com​

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Posters for the classroom and activity booklets ​

https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/teaching-english/resources-for-teachers/​

www.cambridgeenglish.org/Images/597021-a2-key-for-schools-activities.pdf​