Talking Academic Communication

I work on a range of modules, some of which I would not describe as areas of particular expertise and which therefore demand more of my time. One of these is 'Pronunciation'. So, when I was asked to redesign a multiple choice activity which required the students to identify the correct item from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) I immediately wondered if ChatGPT would be able to help. It wasn't just a case of having the right answer. I also needed to supply credible distractors in each question for the activity to be of any value and for the students to find it useful. So I began as follows: Me: Can you write in phonetic script? ChatGPT: Yes, I can write in phonetic script using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Would you like me to demonstrate? With this encouraging response I continued in trying, with the help of ChatGPT, to produce the activity. I soon discovered it wasn't producing what I wanted. Quite apart from a large number of errors, there was...

Introduction So, ChatGPT and other AI apps are ensuring that the traditional essay is being well and truly consigned to the bin. We can try and shore it up with other technology to counter AI or by banning it, but it isn't going away and is only going to get more sophisticated. Anyone going down this route will likely be one step behind and will not be helping their students prepare for the reality of future work. So, those designing assessment using anything resembling an essay in the future, will need to take AI into account or accept that what they are reading may not have been written by a student, ghostwriter or anyone else for that matter. One alternative to the essay, and which has seen increased use over recent years, is the oral presentation (Iberri-Shea, 2013). When a student delivers an oral presentation extemporaneously, the assessor can be confident of the level of understanding possessed by the students. Where the assessor might be in doubt, then this can be the focus...

There is an exercise that I have been using with students for over 15 years. It's a very simple exercise designed to show students why, when they are conducting desk-based research, they need to ask the same questions of different sources in order to gain a broad picture of the topic and to then be able to develop a critical discussion of the evidence available. The session is part of a series which introduces students to academic writing. So, to keep things as simple as possible, I give the students two or sometimes three articles on the topic of the importance of reference list accuracy. The students are divided into pairs or threes with each individual asked to answer a set of identical questions for one of the articles. The students then compare what they have found and hopefully discover that while some of the answers are the same, there are differences. They then set about constructing a short response to an essay title I give them, based on their amalgamated answers to the q...