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Vital words for understanding
Overthinking – Thinking too much about something, often in a negative way.
Fluency – The ability to speak a language smoothly and naturally.
Role-play – Acting out a situation to practice language or skills.
Synonyms – Words that have the same or similar meaning.
Antonyms – Words that have opposite meanings.
Nuance – A small difference in meaning, expression, or sound.
Implicit learning – Learning naturally through exposure, like picking up phrases from conversation.
Minimal pairs – Two words that differ by only one sound (e.g., ship vs. sheep).
Comprehension – The ability to understand something, especially reading or listening.
Personalized – Designed for a specific person’s needs or interests.
Speech-to-text – A tool that converts spoken words into written text.
Neuroplasticity – The brain’s ability to change and learn new things.
Explicit learning – Learning with conscious effort, like studying grammar rules.
Pronunciation – The way a word is spoken.
I was not sure what to write about today until I had an idea – maybe a chatbot can help me feel better.
I am having one of the happiest, but also one of the most intense times. Some days there are things I cannot get out of my head and I keep overthinking.
So today, when I was thinking about the same stupid situation for the millionth time, I decided to try a chatbot. I prefer to use ChatGPT, I have the app in all my devices. I had already tried this feature a year ago to get my piano basics down. Since then I have heard that it can also help you on the mental side of things. It can help you with everything from emotional support to learning English. I think that’s what we’re most interested in. Let’s take a closer look.
First of all, here are some tips on how to learn with a chatbot
It’s good conversation practice that you can do every day. It can definitely improve your fluency faster than weekly sessions with a person. You can also simulate real-life situations (like ordering food, small talk, or job interviews) and even role-play these situations. Easy to give instructions – and when I say easy, I still realize that giving clear instructions is one of the hardest things to do.
This chatbot can explain grammar rules, give you examples, synonyms, antonyms, even word nuances. You can also ask it to provide you with vocabulary lists for different types of English.
You can also work on your pronunciation. When you type a sentence and ask the chatbot for the correct pronunciation, you can see the sounds. A great thing I use with my clients is the speech–to–text tool. This is very useful for you to practice and check if the chatbot understands what you mean (for example, one thing you can try right away: ship vs. sheep). These are called minimal pairs (words that differ in a sound but mean different things).
It can even help you write. If you provide text, the chatbot can tell you where you make mistakes and help you correct them. You can even practice formal and informal writing.
Another great asset is reading – you can generate comprehension questions based on a text you provide, you can discuss books and articles. You can even debate on various topics.
It all comes down to one thing – instructions. Effective instructions.
Some advantages of learning English with a chatbot:
- It’s always available. Now you have no excuses, it only takes a second to open the app.
- The chatbot does not judge you, so you can feel more comfortable making mistakes. I have to say here that any decent teacher will not judge you either and will be more supportive of you making mistakes than just producing correct language.
- It can be very personalized, so you only learn the things you want to learn. It doesn’t push you anywhere else.
- Of course, one of the advantages is that it’s a lot cheaper than having an experienced teacher. I think it’s about $20 a month.
- And the revision can be more effective because you’re only revising what you’ve already done.
Now for some cons:
- A chatbot can’t really replace the social interaction that we as humans generally need.
- Speech practice is limited for now. If you don’t use voice input, there’s no conversation. So you miss out on real speaking practice.
- It’s really nice for pronunciation, but it can’t give you realistic feedback. I tried it by mispronouncing the word „neuroscience“ and the chatbot apologized and said it’s sorry and I should try again later. Let me know if it worked for you.
- You can get to the point, you are relying too much on the AI. It’s still a bot, and you’re missing out on real-world practice with other people.
- Communication generally involves body language. That’s something you can only get from other people.
There are some other things that just come to mind as I write. For example, I can see the positive impact on the neuroplasticity of our brains, because the more we engage with a language, the stronger our neural connections are. So daily conversations with chatbots would reinforce language patterns and vocabulary. Also, revision could be more effective because we could instruct the chatbot to follow our learning processes and design the best spatial repetition for us. Revision strengthens memory.
Hormones play a significant role in how we use technology, so why not use it to our advantage? We can use the bot to make our learning interactive, for example to solve problems. This releases dopamine, and quick feedback makes learning more rewarding. In short, we can get addicted to learning.
There is something called explicit and implicit learning. But I don’t think that’s an advantage of a chatbot. This is a principle I like to teach about:
- Implicit learning is learning like a child. When you chat with me (as a teacher) in full sentences, you automatically reinforce patterns – like when you hear I’ve been there many times, you start using it correctly without thinking about the rule. It’s unconscious learning done through conversation, not worrying about mistakes, and focusing on understanding meaning rather than grammar rules.
- Explicit learning is the adult way of learning. We ask for grammar explanations, study example sentences, analyze our mistakes, and keep our learning structured.
The best way, you ask? Do both.
I cannot help but think of one last thing here. For many, translation is a fact of life. It’s a cognitive load, which is how much information your brain can process at one time. Translation overloads our working memory and makes it harder to speak fluently. If you think in Czech, then translate into English, then speak, that’s three steps instead of one!
How to break this habit:
- Start by forming simple thoughts and using short, direct sentences.
- You can practice recognizing complete English expressions.
- Use chunks or phrases as units (let me think, it depends) so that you are not constructing each sentence from scratch.
- Think is pictures! That’s the best one. Instead of mentally translating, imagine, visualize (a dog for example).
Oops, this is longer than I thought. Let me know what you think in the comments section below, or if you have any questions, I’m here to answer them. Bottom line: I may be shooting myself in the foot, but I think using chatbots can be beneficial to your learning journey. So stop being afraid and just give it a try.
