I used to scour the internet to find example sentences that used the vocabulary I was teaching. Usually dictionary websites have just 1-2 sentences with the target word, and another site called use-in-a-sentence.com is good, but it all took too much time. One of the most productive uses of AI I’ve found is for quickly producing unlimited example sentences with target forms (vocab, grammar, transition words, etc.)
The activity lets students use ChatGPT to get many sentences with the target word, allowing them to notice the collocations that come up. Once they’ve done this, they write their own sentence using the knowledge of collocations that they’ve gained by seeing many examples.
This activity can be a quick warm up for a lesson (5 minutes or so), or can be a whole lesson if multiple words are assigned.
Directions to tell students:
- Go to chatgpt.com​
- Tell ChatGPT to give you 5 sentences with the word.​
- Read the sentences. Notice how the word is used. What kinds of words can come before the word? What about after the word?​ You can have students record what words come before and after the target word in a chart. Have them find frequently occurring collocations. What preposition usually comes after the word? What are common objects of this verb? And so on.
- Write your own sentence using the word.​
Example of this task in action:
Word:
proficiency
Example sentences produced by ChatGPT:
- Her proficiency in multiple languages made her an ideal candidate for the international project.
- The company values employees who demonstrate proficiency in both technical and soft skills.
- It takes years of practice to achieve proficiency in playing a musical instrument.
- The job requires a high level of proficiency in data analysis and problem-solving.
- He impressed the interviewers with his proficiency in coding complex algorithms.
Collocation chart that student filled out:
| demonstrate achieve a high level of his / her | proficiency | in | multiple languages technical and soft skills playing an instrument data analysis coding |
Sentence produced by student:
I want to improve my proficiency in English. I also want to get proficiency in Japanese.
Below is another example of a “collocation chart” you could have students make. In this case, the target word was “subside”.
