How to Use AI for Educational Establishments?

As artificial intelligence continues to make its way into our lives, one might wonder if it is necessary, or even possible, to use it in educational establishments. Can AI-powered tools help teachers, faculty or those in charge of technological innovations at schools and universities? How can we properly use artificial intelligence in an educational context? This article will tackle how AI improves foreign language learning in schools. 

Why Integrate AI Into Language Programs?

When someone says artificial intelligence, we often think of chatbots that answer any prompt we ask them. However, it is also integrated into many aspects of our daily lives, such as Internet searching, email writing and online customer service. Is it time to integrate it into language learning programs at schools? Here is how AI enhances teaching methods: 

• A personalized learning path

• Real-time feedback

• Progress tracking

• Greater accessibility

Meets Various Students’ Needs

As we all know, every student is different when it comes to learning a foreign language, simply because everyone has a different language level, pace and learning method. While teachers are technically able to tailor their courses to each learner, it would be far easier to find ways to speed up this process! Thanks to AI, language teachers can create lesson plans according to each student and their needs (career-specific vocabulary, personal goals, etc.), and create courses fit for all learning styles.

Modernizes Teaching Methods

This is not about modernizing things at every turn, but thinking about the benefits of updating aspects of the education system, for the betterment of learners. Besides, they are already frequently using new AI tools and spending a lot of their time online: why not then use it to get on their level and reignite their motivation? Innovating methods, customized lessons, quick feedback… Students can now use artificial intelligence to complement their language courses with the help of a teacher.

Those in charge of the linguistics departments of educational establishments must keep up with technological advancements and help themselves to useful AI services, such as personalized language learning.

Attracts and Retains Students Using Innovative Approaches

No matter the students’ ages, and whether they are in school, university or participating in employee training, learning a foreign language must be fun, relevant and motivating. Teachers are always looking for new ways to increase the educational value of their teaching methods and improve their students’ engagement. Artificial intelligence makes this possible! It generates fill-in-the-blank exercises based on their interests, creates role-playing exercises that include vocabulary specific to their jobs and offers up more complicated word lists to memorize, based on what is best for them.

Benefits of AI for Language Schools

Without a doubt, AI can make itself useful in language schools and improve their current teaching methods, all while maintaining the intellectual integrity and professional autonomy of all teachers. Here is what language learning looks like when AI is at its service:

Personalized Language Learning Journey

Keep the student focused and motivated by offering them personalized lessons and exercises! With the help of AI, teachers no longer need to master every possible subject, or spend long hours researching the Inca Empire, baseball or synchronized swimming, to offer unique courses. Artificial intelligence makes it easier to create fully customized lesson plans for all.

Does one student learn better when practicing through role-playing exercises? Artificial intelligence can build a curriculum centred around helpful simulations. Does another need to improve their language level in only three months? AI is able to fast-track learning without diminishing the quality of each course.

Improved Engagement With the Help of Fun and Interactive Exercises

No one wants to learn a new language by always doing the same repetitive exercises found in textbooks. Today, teachers can benefit from AI and its infinite knowledge base to generate entertaining, relevant and interactive exercises. Better yet, it is even possible to generate classic written exercises (multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, etc.) as well as listening comprehension and oral expression exercises (comprehension of an audio file, voice recording, etc.).

Automated Correction and Feedback in Real Time

Is assigning homework to students for their next class, and spending that class time correcting it, really the most efficient method? Language teachers should be conversing with their students as much as possible so they may develop their oral expression skills. To remedy this, why not turn to AI for precise corrections of assigned work or student-generated exercises? In doing so, if they still struggle with certain concepts or require further explanation, they can turn to their teachers for further assistance. 

Best to view AI and Sapere as virtual tutoring services on which students can rely between two teacher-led courses.

Track Progress Based on Data

How does one continue to offer interesting and relevant lessons, while tracking students’ progress both in and out of the classroom? Yet again, artificial intelligence acts as a precious tool allowing educators to follow up on the student’s engagement and improvements. It alerts them to areas where the student is struggling by identifying which lessons are more challenging and which grammar rules they frequently get wrong. Teachers can then create their next course plan with that in mind. By accompanying them, AI allows them to help learners in their comprehension of difficult subjects.

Assisted Accessibility (Oral Communication, Translation, Adaptive Learning)

Finally, it goes without saying that every student has their own learning profile that makes them unique: maybe they struggle with their speaking skills, are beginners looking to progress quickly for the sake of their work or daily lives, or have learning disabilities such as dyslexia or ADHD.

Even if a teacher is not perfectly equipped to handle each particular case, artificial intelligence can help them by modifying pre-existing exercises or generating new ones that better suit everyone’s needs.

Best AI Functions and Tools for Language Schools

Conversational Chatbots for Speaking Practice

Want to speak with a tutor at any hour, day or night, spontaneously and without having to book anything in advance? Chatbots are a fantastic tool that can make this happen! These conversational agents are indispensable for teachers who want to help their students improve their communication skills between classes. When it comes to practicing speech, ChatGPT is an effective learning companion, but its feedback will not be as precise as that of Elsa Speech Analyzer. This platform uses voice recognition to evaluate users’ pronunciation with accuracy! The student prompts the AI to record their conversation, which it analyzes to find areas of improvement, especially in pronunciation, intonation and accentuation. As it stands, however, this program only allows for learning English.

Automatic Customized Exercise Generation 

If there is a realm in which artificial intelligence allows language teachers to save time, it is in exercise creation. By prompting it to focus on a particular subject, adapt to a certain language level, include relevant vocabulary and generate a particular number of questions, the AI can create several relevant exercises. Thanks to this function, Sapere allows teachers to offer courses that are personalized from A to Z; from lessons to exercises! Multiple choice questions, quizzes, listening comprehension exercises, vocabulary lists presented through flashcards… anything is possible!

Customized Lexical Field for Learning Contextualized Vocabulary

Learning vocabulary used in everyday conversations is necessary, yet can be awfully boring. By creating vocabulary lists tailored to the specific needs of the learner, language teachers are ensuring that their students remain motivated in their studies. With Sapere, teachers simply provide context to the student’s life when generating vocabulary or upload relevant PDF documents from which it can extract keywords. Once the lexical field is created, the platform generates contextualized examples and exercises based on these words so they may learn the vocabulary pertinent to their personal and professional lives.

How Schools Can Integrate AI Into Their Language Training

Choose Solutions Compatible With Pre-existing Programs

Before integrating artificial intelligence in an educational establishment, it would be best to identify the particular needs of your teachers and students. Should you focus on its use to organize schedules and assist with online customer service, or to enhance learning materials?  What tasks do you want AI to help you with in the classroom? By asking yourself these questions, you can find a single tool that is right for you, rather than several semi-useful ones.

It would also be helpful to practice green computing while using artificial intelligence, meaning to use AI systems that utilize local data, thus emitting less greenhouse gasses. In fact, Sapere’s AI saves users’ prompts in its database so it may generate them more quickly when a question is posed again. To put it simply, the tool will not need to go searching in foreign servers to generate answers every time, as it will have already saved its response in its local drive. For example, if a student wants to look at the definition and synonyms for the word “architecture”, and another already has this word in their lexical field, Sapere will be able to recycle its response from its own knowledge base.

Put in Place Hybrid Platforms (Human + AI)

The best way to integrate artificial intelligence into a language course program is to prioritize hybrid platforms that leave room for the teachers to do their job. Sapere takes pride in this hybrid system, as it is the first AI platform for language learning that can be used alone or in tandem with a teacher. 

In practice, this means that a second language teacher is able to use Sapere before their classes to prepare personalized lessons, during class to generate role-playing exercises to work on oral expression with their students, and after class to keep track of everyone’s progress. On the other hand, students can use Sapere during class with their teacher, or in between two lessons to do their assigned homework or generate additional exercises.

Train Teachers in Using AI Tools

Evidently, we do not expect teachers to immediately know how to use AI-powered tools. Once the platform is chosen, there will be a transition period in which teachers will learn to take advantage of its services to enhance their learning material and make their lessons more interactive. As new AI functions are released, Sapere will put in place additional tutorials to further guide users.

The Future of AI in Language Learning

Heading Towards Augmented Multilingual Education?

We know this for certain, language learning will continue to veer towards the integration of artificial intelligence, whether it be for content generation, translation, automatic correction or conversational assistance. As these technological advancements continue to come out, educational establishments should keep themselves in the loop so they may integrate new functions into their programs as needed. We do not believe that all AI tools are useful for all students, nor that it is sufficient to teach a language on its own. However, since artificial intelligence enhances the value of teachers’ methods while helping them save time, it is worthwhile to stay up to date on its developments!

Artificial Intelligence and Language Immersion (VR + AI)

Among the countless AI-powered tools that are currently being developed and could soon be used in education, virtual reality or augmented reality is one that stands out when it comes to language learning. Will students make better progress in their speaking skills if they simulate a day in a foreign country, conversing with locals? Will it be possible to better retain vocabulary by standing face-to-face with the concepts they are studying?

Keeping in mind the price of said experience, we can assume that it will take some time before virtual reality reaches the classroom. However, it is worth keeping in mind for the future.

In conclusion, artificial intelligence can be a very interesting tool for educational establishments and language schools that are looking to enhance their curriculum, all while relieving teachers of some of the workload. Tracking students’ progress, generating personalized learning materials, the varied exercises, learners’ autonomous studying… The benefits of AI are undeniable! If you wish to learn more, contact us for a demonstration of our platform, Sapere.