ELT in Brazil

Today I taught two lessons to two different groups of students using a very similar lesson plan.

I’ve been experimenting with TBL and DOGME for some time now. My students and I are quite satisfied with the results – both in terms of language learning and personal/professional enjoyment during the lessons.

The first class was taught to a pair of students who work together at Whirlpool, an appliance manufacturer here in Brazil. These students are studying English with a focus on using the language in business contexts.

For this class, I asked ChatGPT to create four profiles of CEO candidates for their company. This is the prompt I used:

Hey chat! Write 4 short (100 words) profiles for 4 CEO candidates for Whirlpool, an appliances company. It is important that these profiles include positive, negative and neutral characteristics. I’m an English teacher and I’ll use these in an activity in which my students will read and decide on the best candidate.

The AI created the profiles and I put them in a Google slide (see below and click here to access)

We began the lesson by talking about their day at work and what characteristics they find essential for a CEO. We had a light conversation about it, worked on some emergent language, and then I presented the task.

“Here are four candidates for CEO at the company. Read their profiles and take notes on the pros and cons of each. You should review each candidate in pairs and decide on the best candidate.”

Students took their time to read and take notes, discussed the possibilities, and reached a consensus at the end.

To wrap up the lesson, we worked on some emergent language, I gave them some feedback and asked them to write an email to HR (myself) supporting one of the candidates.

The same lesson was taught to another pair of students. This second class was taught to a pair of bilingual teachers in Brazil. Both want to develop their English with a focus on the school context.

This is the prompt I sent ChatGPT:

Thank you! Now I need another one. However, instead of a CEO for Whirpool, I’d like you to create profiles for candidates for a bilingual school director. (100 words)

It is important that these profiles include positive, negative and neutral characteristics and that all candidates be fluent in Portuguese.

I’m an English teacher and I’ll use these in an activity in which my students will read and decide on the best candidate.

I used the output in the same way I did in the first lesson, creating the slides you can see here. The lesson plan was the same, only with the obvious adaptations here and there.

Would you use this with your students? How can I improve this lesson?