Teaching ESL. It’s a topic I’ve been asked about more and more in the past couple years. We’ve specifically seen an increase in the number of Ukranian-speaking students since Russia declared war on Ukraine in 2022. But by no means are we limited to having new classroom needs in Ukranian. Immigration is an important part of Canadian culture, and we aim to embrace children who are new to Canada. We want them to feel welcomed in our classrooms and included.
Well, here’s a new idea. What if we could pre-record ourselves speaking in a different language by using an AI avatar? Check out the video below where I speak Ukranian and Chinese – both languages that I do not know even one word of.
It’s a brave new world, and as teachers, our best skill is imagination. We are incredible at coming up with new ideas for our classrooms. Now we can unleash our imaginations on artificial intelligence tools, coming up with innovative ideas to expand and extend inclusion. As of today, this includes multilingual instruction!
To get your own digital avatar that speaks many languages, please visit www.heygen.innoverse.ca and you can get started creating right away!