Enhancing ESL Writing Classrooms through Modelling Approach and Artificial Intelligence: Part 1

The modelling approach in language teaching is a strategy where the teacher demonstrates the target language or a specific language skill for the students. This demonstration serves as a clear example for students to observe and then emulate.  It involves the teacher explicitly showing how to perform a task, use a grammatical structure, pronounce a word, or organize a piece of writing.  By providing a concrete model, teachers offer a visual and auditory guide that students can refer to as they develop their own language skills. This approach helps learners understand expectations and provides a scaffold for their own language production. 

Matiso (2024) highlights that modelling, which is the foundation for scaffolding, is a teaching strategy where a teacher explicitly shows the students how to complete an activity or assignment before they begin a task. Modelling involves teachers’ demonstrations of how learning activities should be executed. No doubt, applying the modelling approach in language teaching offers several key benefits:

1. Provides a clear target: By seeing and hearing a correct example, students gain a clear understanding of what they are expected to produce, reducing ambiguity and uncertainty.  

2. Builds confidence: Observing a successful demonstration can make a task seem more achievable, thereby increasing students' confidence to attempt it themselves.

3. Offers scaffolding: Modelling acts as a support structure, especially for learners who benefit from visual and auditory input before independent practice.  

4. Highlights key features: Teachers can emphasise specific aspects of language, such as pronunciation, sentence structures, or cohesive devices, during the modelling process, drawing students' attention to crucial elements.

5. Facilitates imitation and practice: The model provides a basis for students to imitate and practice, which are essential steps in language acquisition.

6. Reduces cognitive load: By providing a clear example, modelling can reduce the mental effort required for students to understand and plan their own language production.  

7. Caters to diverse learning styles: Visual and auditory learners, in particular, benefit significantly from seeing and hearing the language in use.  

In light of the foregoing discussion, the subsequent sharing will focus on the potential for integrating the modelling approach and artificial intelligence tools within the context of teaching writing for the SPM 1119/2 examination. The Part 2 essay question from SPM 2023 will serve as the point of reference.

Teacher’s AI tool prompt for TASK 1:

Using only seven sentences which carry straightforward ideas, describe an interesting advertisement on television about Kentucky Fried Chicken. Begin the description with, "Recently, I saw an advertisement on KFC. It is ..."

ChatGPT

Copilot

Gemini AI

Drawing upon the responses from ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini AI, teachers can implement the following teaching and learning activities:

1. Revisiting Basic Concepts: Revision on straightforward ideas; students identify sentences within a text that clearly convey straightforward ideas.

2. Sentence-Level Analysis: Students analyse pre-selected sentences containing straightforward ideas, focusing on word count (sentence length) and the nature of the information and details provided.

3. Sentence Construction Practice: Students apply the analysed sentence structures to generate their own sentences expressing straightforward ideas. This foundational activity is essential for enhancing writing skills. Differentiation can be achieved by having students work individually, in pairs, or in small groups based on their proficiency levels.

In essence, It is hoped that by using model sentences, students will learn to understand and construct sentences that express straightforward ideas effectively. As a result, this will help build their confidence in writing and improve their Communicative Achievement score

This marks the conclusion of this write-up. The next instalment will delve into TASK 2 and TASK 3 of the Part 2 essay question (SPM 2023), and will further examine the integration of AI tools with the modelling approach for various aspects of writing instruction.

Reference

Matiso, N.H. (2024). Modelling as an Instructional Strategy in Multilingual Classrooms. In Yang, M. (2024). Multilingualism in Its Multiple Dimensions, Retrieved from https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/1175449