Over the past six months or so, I have been to three conference talks or webinars about the role of AI in teaching. All three talks have been pretty similar; the presenter has asked if AI will replace teachers. Spoiler alert, the answer is always no. They look at some of the pitfalls of using AI, and then they suggest some AI tools that could be used in the classroom. As good as these talks were, I feel that they have missed a vital point. The biggest challenge facing teachers is not how to use AI ourselves but how to ensure our students are using AI effectively. Let’s face it, students will use AI because they’ve worked out it can write their essays, fill in their gaps, do their research and answer their reading comprehension questions. In other words, artificial intelligence can do all of their cognitive processing. Students are saving time, energy and effort, but they also risk forgoing their learning. As teachers we could ban it, give them zero for work produced with AI, and send a note home to their parents. but surely this just increases our blood pressure, and it encourages students to find ways to disguise their AI use. It doesn’t solve the problem and doesn’t prepare them for the future. The question we need to be asking is how can we teach the students to use AI effectively while still maintaining a degree of cognitive processing? I am no expert on AI, I use it occasionally, but I have been thinking about how to help my students use it maturely. Here are a few practical ideas that I have used to help train my students to use AI while still learning English.
Gap-fill activities
My students have worked out that they can take a photo of the gap-fill activity, and their chosen AI tool will complete it for them. (I have warned them about the copyright implications of this, but my students do not seem to have this at the top of their priority list.) If this is their approach, I want to show them how they can ‘cheat’ yet still learn.
In class, I give the students a gap-fill and then give them the answers immediately. I instruct them that I want them to tell me why the answers are correct without using their phones. Once they are finished, I tell them, or elicit, why we did the activity. The rationale behind this activity is that if students use AI to complete a gap-fill then they need to still look at that completed piece of work and be able to discuss why their answers are correct. AI can be wrong, so if they are using AI, they need to be able to fact check it.
If I set these gap-fill activities as homework, in the next class, I will ask who did it without the help of AI and who did it with the help of an AI tool. Those who didn’t use technology then give the answers, those who did use an AI tool will say if the answers are right or wrong and then try to give the reason. I am giving students agency. I am allowing them a decision on how they go about their learning while also reminding them their decisions have consequences.
Research
I love getting my students to do their own research about people or places or things. These AI tools are an amazing way to find out information very quickly. But how useful is the information that the students have found? What I find is the students research a topic and then write whatever they find verbatim, and when you ask them about the meaning, they look at you blankly.
This means we need to train them in how to collect and process the information that the AI tool has provided for them.
The Buena Vista Social Club was a wildly successful musical project organised in 1996 to revive the forgotten sounds of pre-revolutionary Cuba. It brought together a group of legendary, ageing Cuban musicians—many of whom had been coaxed out of retirement or obscurity—to record a self-titled album that became an unexpected global phenomenon. The album won a Grammy, sold millions of copies worldwide. The project is widely credited with rescuing traditional Cuban music from being forgotten by history.
– created by Gemini (2026)
Meaning
Ask the students to note any words, phrases or concepts they don’t understand and ask their AI tool to explain them, for example: coaxed, obscurity, phenomenon.
Check
Ask the students to note the facts and ask the tool for more evidence. For example, when did they win a Grammy? What Grammy? How many copies did it sell?
Inquire
Initial AI results are often bland, general statements. From the example we see the phrases ‘organised in 1996’, ‘a group of musicians’.
Ask the students to analyse the text for blandness and then ask their tool for more information. Who organised it? Who were the musicians?
Mediate
Take the text away and ask the students to rewrite the information in their own words, including the extra information that they found. Alternatively, they could translate it into their own language.
Hopefully, by showing students this step-by-step process, we are equipping them with the tools to use AI as an effective source of information, encouraging them to interact with the results, not just accept them blindly.
Writing
It really is very frustrating when you are marking a piece of work and it is obvious the student has created it with AI. It is even more frustrating when you fail to spot it. But is part of that frustration with ourselves because we have failed to show students how to use the tools available to them effectively? I’ve heard it suggested that students could use AI to write their first draft and then use that draft to write their own version. This certainly has its merits, but I feel this is the wrong way round. I think it is much better to encourage them to put their own words through an AI tool for spelling and grammar advice. Here is a way to show students how to do this so there is more of themselves in the text.
Before class, put a piece of student’s work through an AI tool to get a ‘clean’ version of it.
In class, display the original on the screen. Ask the students if they can see any mistakes and discuss them. Now display or hand out the original and the ‘clean’ version side by side. The students should go through and highlight the changes in the edited version. Then, they should discuss why each change has been made and if they want to keep it or revert back to the original.
Now when students do their own writing, you can tell them they can use an AI tool, but they must hand in both the original and the ‘clean’ version and justify their changes.
Vivas
I am not sure that students’ work will ever be wholly their own work anymore. This means that in the future we might need to not be asking, ‘Did you do this yourself?’ but instead try to find out if they were engaged in the process enough for it to have been a valuable learning experience. In other words, has there been enough cognitive processing? One way to do this is by getting students to defend their work like candidates have to do after submitting their PhD. But even typing that has me questioning: ‘Where are we going to find the time?’ Here are some alternatives to a teacher-led chat.
Written viva
When marking, write three questions about the text at the bottom. In the next class, tell the students they have 10 minutes to write their answers (no phones). They then hand the essay back to you to evaluate their responses or discuss their questions with a partner (see below).
Self viva
Just before the students hand in their work, you give them three minutes to write an abstract of their text (again, no phones). When marking, you can use the abstract to see if the students have really understood the concepts.
Pair viva
Students read each other’s work and analyse it using the MCI part of the MCIM pattern outlined above. They then have to ask their partner questions about the text and the partner should answer in their own words. Or the reader could try to explain the text back to the original author who has to tell them if they have understood it correctly.
Ask students
I am always honest with my students about my own AI use. On the rare occasions I use AI when planning a lesson, I tell my students that the text I am using or the gap-fill they are working on has been created using AI. So, my final idea is that we could ask students how much or how little AI they want to use in their learning process and ask them to consider how this will affect their learning. Ask them to list the pros and cons of using AI and then ask them to come up with guidelines for using AI in class and while doing homework. This shows the students that you trust them and are giving them the responsibility for their own learning.
Conclusion
I know these ideas aren’t perfect, but we are showing students that learning is not just copying and we expect some cognitive processing and engagement with the work they are producing. We are also demonstrating that AI is part of the process and we all need to learn how to use it effectively. If we integrate these AI awareness techniques into our teaching, then they will not only be learning English but will be learning how to use AI to facilitate their learning process.
