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About two years ago I wrote a post titled I Think This Study Shows The Best Way To Use AI To Help ELLs Develop Writing Skills.
In that study, the researchers showed that having students use a writing tool that periodically gave English Language Learners a few choices of words to use helped them become better writers.
Basically, it was a controlled Google “Smart Compose” or Apple autocomplete.
That made a lot of sense to me. Unfortunately, Word Tune was the only tool out there that was similar (the researchers had built their own) and it was too expensive for most teachers to use.
Yesterday, on a whim, I tried to see if I could create such a tool through “vibe coding” – basically, using AI to create it for me (since I know absolutely nothing about programming).
First, I tried Google’s Gemini, which had a promising start. In fact, it told me it could even connect a Google Sheet to it so that a teacher could see who used it, what they wrote, and which words they had actually chosen. But, then its instructions got too complex and convoluted. It ended up recommending that I take my idea to ChatGPT.
ChatGPT then basically threw up its hands (if it had them) and said it couldn’t do it.
Finally, I went to Claude.
After many exchanges, we created the “Write In English” tool, which is free and accessible to everyone and anyone.
In theory, after every few words you type into it, it’s supposed to show you three words to consider choosing as the next one (though you don’t have to accept its suggestions). The words it uses are supposed to be the 1000 most used English words, and its supposed to able to choose the three words by mimicking the literacy of a Beginning ELL. In addition, each of those three words has a short explanation of it. It’s also supposed to tell you if misspelled a word, and how to spell it correctly (though seems to incorrectly flag some words). It can offer topics, and many sentence starters. It will also read aloud what is written. It’s designed for Beginning English Language Learners.
It’s clunky and doesn’t do everything it’s supposed to do. In fact, I don’t even think it works well enough that I’d use it in my own classroom.
However, in a year or two, I bet AI coding will reach a point where any teacher could easily create something far more sophisticated.
Doing this took several hours – far longer than I had expected. “Vibe coding” is not as simple as it’s supposed to be.
You might also be interested in I’ve Created Five Free Chatbots For Teachers & Others, And Some Have Become Quite Popular – Here Links To All Of Them.
I’m adding this info to THE BEST POSTS ABOUT USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITH ELLS .