Empowering EFL learning: leveraging ChatGPT for lesson planning and activity generation in the EFL classroom

Resumen

Artificial intelligence (AI) has recently surrounded today's world due to its tremendous development. As a result, there has been an interest in using it to enhance educational experiences, not least in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom, through the AI tool, the Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, henceforth, ChatGPT. Although the latter has been subject to a number of criticisms, the present paper explores one of its benefits: a ChatGPT-generated lesson plan and activities about a course on paragraph writing addressed to first-year EFL students and the opinion of 15 EFL writing teachers at the English Department of Tlemcen University, Algeria, on its quality. A questionnaire was used to achieve this purpose. The results revealed the participants's general appreciation of the produced materials but only as a supplementary pedagogical tool rather than the sole source of information. Further investigation on the topic should be carried out in the subject area for a broader perspective.