The Big Lie: Language Teaching is Easily Automated
Health and Well Being Lesson Makeover
Part 1 is deep research into whether language teaching can truly be automated. Over the past few years of using AI, I’ve noticed several of its pitfalls. For example, its tendency to recreate outdated language teaching exercises from 10 or 20 years ago, its inability to be genuinely creative, its failure to create effective multi-modal exercises, and so on. So I decided to conduct deep research using Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini. This confirmed my intuition that the idea that educators will lose their jobs to AI is unfounded. The research process, the findings generated, and the podcast-style summary are available for subscribers.
Part 2 consists of an updated and improved version of The Health and Well-Being Lesson from last year. This engaging and relatable lesson is suitable for high elementary students and is adaptable upwards. It features a more complete set of refined exercises and includes new, more natural audio. Also, I’m gradually moving from listening/speaking-focused activities to including exercises for all four skills. The full contents can be downloaded in the PDF.
Below are some samples from The Health and Well Being Lesson.
Sleep and Mood Tracking Role Play
Health and wellness tracking has become a normal part of life in the 2020s, with millions of people monitoring their sleep patterns, mood changes, and stress levels through apps and wearables. This shift toward data-driven self-care makes sleep and mood tracking an incredibly relatable topic for today’s students, who likely track something themselves or know people who do.
Classroom Discussion Introduction
Check your phone - you probably have a fitness app. This listening explores how people actually feel about tracking their health with technology. Three speakers, three completely different approaches to staying healthy in 2025.
Modals: Digital Wellness Tracking
This worksheet uses the relatable context of digital wellness tracking to practice these modals naturally. The familiar topic of wellness technology becomes a vehicle for understanding these crucial grammar structures.