Tag Archives: AI

Cool Speaking Cards, Indirect Questions, a Spinning Wheel and Speed Chatting: One Lesson, Endless Engagement

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Remember those awful photocopies? You know the ones. A photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, with a blurry black-and-white image that was somehow supposed to inspire deep conversation in class? Yeah… same. And honestly? The students’ faces said everything before the activity had even started

Lately, I’ve completely transformed the way I approach speaking activities, and AI has become a huge part of that process. But probably not in the way people imagine. It’s not about clicking a button and magically producing the perfect lesson. I wish! It still takes creativity, tweaking, experimenting, and sometimes a lot of failed prompts along the way. But the process itself? It’s fun.

GENERATING THE QUESTIONS

I could explain but I’d rather you watch the video and see for yourself how easy it is to generate some cool cards. And for “free”.

You will find the prompt I used to generate the cards, in the first comment of the video. And please, leave a comment , I love hearing from you!
AND THE GRAMMAR: INDIRECT QUESTIONS

Once we have our conversation questions, I like to use them to revise indirect questions — it’s the perfect excuse. The questions are already there, they already have context, so why not squeeze a bit of grammar out of them too?

To make the revision more engaging, I built a little website — also with Gemini — where students can practise the structure interactively. First we revisit the rules, then we activate.

Spin the Wheel. Then Speed Chat.

After the grammar input, we present the first question and… spin the wheel — built with AI, loaded with examples of indirect questions.

  1. Show the card with the question they need to answer
  2. Spin the wheel

Example: I was wondering … (do you believe that online shopping will completely  replace…?) if you believe that online shopping…

And to wrap it all up? Speed chatting. Signal sounds, they rotate, new partner, new indirect question, new conversation question. Dynamic, social, and it always gets a smile out of them.

What more can you ask from one single activity? Give it a go and let me know. 👇shopping

Teaching How to Write a Report. Create your own Worksheets and Make it more Palatable for your Students

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It’s Sunday evening, I’m prepping for the week, and I open my B2.1 students’ textbook to the report writing unit. Five seconds in, I want to close the book, pour myself a glass of wine, and pretend it doesn’t exist.

You know the kind of page I mean. Dense. Overwhelming. A chart nobody asked for. Vocabulary that even I have to look up. My students wouldn’t read it — they’d survive it. Barely. And I’d spend the entire lesson firefighting confusion instead of actually teaching anything useful.

So I did what any self-respecting language teacher does: I refused to accept it and went rogue.

Step 1: I Went Textbook Shopping

Before I even thought about creating anything, I did a little research mission. I pulled out a few different textbooks — because no single textbook has all the answers— and I started gathering:

  • The core structure of a report
  • Realistic vocabulary my students can actually use without sounding like a lawyer
  • Task types that make sense for where my students are right now

Step 2: Hello, Gemini and Hello ChatGPT

1. Generating the Text

Once I had my notes, I headed over to Gemini and copy/pasted my notes and asked it to generate clean,  level-appropriate content. Exactly the kind of thing I wished was in the textbook in the first place.

2- Generating the worksheets

So now i have the text; but, in the era of AI, why give them a boring document when you can give them a beautifully structured worksheet? Because — even well-written content, if it looks like a photocopied page from 1998, is going to kill the vibe before we even start.

So I took my Gemini-generated content and went straight to ChatGPT — a if you haven’t tried the new image generation model in ChatGPT yet, close this tab and go do that first. I’ll wait.  It is genuinely the best option out there when your worksheet involves formatted text, tables, or any kind of visual structure.

I want you to create a worksheet with  the content pasted under these lines. Include all the information pasted. Title “Writing a report _ B2 www.cristinacabal.com” . Use images related to the content to make it more visually appealing. Clean design.

And the result? A worksheet my students actually picked up and looked at. With curiosity. Not dread.

To get the worksheets, Right click on the image and Save as…

It has everything they need:

  • A model text at the right level
  • Guided vocabulary in context
  • A clear framework they can replicate
  • A writing task that feels achievable

 

Step 3: And why not an interactive website for those who prefer interactive content?

Because apparently a gorgeous worksheet wasn’t enough for me, I also went ahead and built an interactive website to go with it with a Drag and Drop exercise

Step 4. They Know the Theory. Now They Need to Write.

Knowing the structure is one thing. Producing it under exam conditions is a completely different story. Report writing doesn’t come naturally to B2 students — it needs practice. Lots of it. And they can’t do that without me in the room, monitoring, nudging, redirecting. What works for me is collaborative guided practice: students work together within a clear framework, which lowers the anxiety AND means I can actually see what’s happening before they write a single word. The activity below is exactly that. Does it guarantee a perfect report? No. But it gives them a fighting chanc

Note: Click here for a more user-friendly view of the webpage with the step-by-step  activity

 

How to Get the Transcript from an Audio or Video in Seconds and 6 Ideas to Use the Transcript

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Can we talk about the hours we’ve spent? You know exactly what I mean. Whether it’s that perfect YouTube video or an audio file sitting in a folder on your computer, you find the ideal clip but then realize you need the transcript to create a gap-fill, a listening comprehension, or just to highlight some “juicy” collocations. It used to take forever, but those days are over!

For years, I’ve been the one hitting play, pause, type… play, pause, type. It’s exhausting! But as I always say, if I can embrace the tech, you can too. Those days of manual labor are officially over because Gemini is about to become your new best friend..

How to Get That Transcript in Seconds

Here’s how to get the trasncript without breaking a sweat:

  • The Direct Link Method If it’s a YouTube video, it’s “easy peasy.” Just paste the URL directly into Gemini and ask: “Can you provide a full transcript for this video?”

  • The File Upload  If you have an MP3 or a video file on your computer, just click that little Plus Sign (+)  and then, the Upload icon. Upload your audio or video and tell Gemini: “Transcribe this audio for me, please.”

    TIP:  If the transcript comes back as one giant block of text, ask Gemini to: “Break this into paragraphs and add timestamps every [30 seconds].”

    Video: Step by Step

    To see exactly how this works, I’ve recorded a short video for you. Even though it’s in Spanish, you won’t have any problems following the steps—it’s very intuitive!

Making the Most of That Transcript

Getting the transcript is just the beginning, but  I am afraid turning it into a solid exercise takes a little more than just a “copy-paste.” If you want a listening comprehension exercise that isn’t totally predictable, you’ll need to put some work into your prompt. That’s where the real magic happens! But don’t worry, we’ll dive deep into those prompting secrets in a future post. Keep posted!

6 IDEAS TO WORK WITH JUST THE TRANSCRIPT.

If you think a transcript is just a boring piece of paper, think again! Once you have that text in your hands, you have a goldmine for active learning.Here are a few ways I love to use transcripts to keep things spicy in the classroom:

  • Grammar Focus: Remove all the prepositions, articles, or a specific verb tense (like the passive voice) and have students try to “restore” the text before listening to check.
  • Vocabulary Focus: White out 5–10 “juicy” words and have them guess the words based on the context.
  • Before they even see the whole transcript, give them just the first paragraph or even just the title. Ask them: “What’s going to happen next?”.
  • Try a Jigsaw: Cut the transcript into sections and give one to each group. They have to summarize their part and then work with the other groups to figure out the correct order of the story.
  • The “Summary Challenge”:  Give them 3 minutes to read the transcript and summarize it in exactly 20 words. No more, no less! It forces them to prioritize the most essential information.
  • The “Shadowing” Technique: This is brilliant for advanced grammar and flow. Have students listen to a small snippet of the audio while reading the transcript and try to mimic the speaker’s exact rhythm and intonation.

How to Generate a Speaking Board in Seconds.

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Oh, I am so excited to share this with you!Today, I’m going to show you how to create a personalized, professional-looking board game in literally one step using Gemini’s Nano Banana 2. Easy and Free.

Click to See Explanatory Video on Youtube (in Spanish)

Step 1: Let Gemini Build the Content

Go to  Gemini- which is Google’s primary AI assistant- and register for free. Then, ask Gemini to generate the questions you are going to use. For my B2 students working on “Sport” vocabulary, I need short, punchy questions that will actually fit inside a game square.

Prompt Example: “Generate 20 short conversation questions (max 10 words) about sport for B2 English  adult students.”
IMPORTANT: To make sure everything remains readable, we need to keep our questions short and sweet so they fit perfectly inside those game squares

Step 2: Creating the Board Game

We are going to use Gemini’s image generation tool (the famous Nano Banana) to build the entire board—questions and all—in one go.

  • In Gemini, go to Tools,
  • Select Create Image, and if you want the highest quality, don’t forget to
  • Select  Pro (you get 3 of these a day on the free plan!).

Prompt:

Create a printable board game with a winding path of [20] squares. (Board game race style) in English about Sports. Each of the squares will contain one of the questions generated above. Scrupulously respect the spelling of the questions without changing any letters. The questions cannot be repeated in the game. Include a ‘Start’ square at the beginning and a ‘Finish’ square at the end.  All squares are connected to each other in sequence. The squares are not numbered. Colorful design. Put each of these questions in a square and respect the spelling without changing any letters. Title it ‘SPORTS’ and under the title  ‘Created by www.cristinacabal.com‘. Everything must be in English.  [Hand-drawn sketch] style.”

Important: Sometimes, and especially if your questions are too long , there could be some minor spelling errors. Remember that we are using a machine here. If this is the case and you don’t  want to generate the speaking board again, there is something you can do to fix these errors. Go to Canva, upload the image, click on Edit and Grab text to modify it.

And now, the most important thing: HOW TO PLAY.

Put students in groups of three and handthem a standard small die and three individual counters. They roll the small die to navigate the board. When they land on a square, that student has to speak about the topic for exactly three minutes.

Enter “The Grammar Dictator”

Three minutes of fluency practice is fantastic, but I want to push their grammatical limits.  Wanna add to the fun? Use a giant foam dice  to dictate how they must answer the square they selected.

How? You simply assign a grammar rule to each number on the die and write it on the board

  • Roll a 3? They have to build their 3-minute argument  including the connector of contrast Despite

  • Roll a 4? They need to include  a perfect modal.

Lesson Plan: Technology. Using Gallery Walks to Bring B2 Tech Vocabulary to Life.

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This gallery walk feels like all the interaction we want in our classrooms — but in one dynamic activity. A strong mix of movement, discussion, and reflection runs throughout. And the atmosphere? Energetic, student-led, and genuinely engaging. Pair it with carefully designed posters and open-ended questions, and you get one of those lessons where students don’t just complete a task… they learn together as they move, talk, and reflect.

Yes, the unit in the textbook is about technology. And no — I don’t hate textbooks. I actually think they’re useful. They give structure. They give students that quiet moment to sit, process, reflect. And honestly? Sometimes we all need that calm, focused time.

But here’s the thing. Textbooks don’t move. My students do.

They need energy. They need interaction. They need to stand up, look at each other, disagree, laugh, negotiate meaning. And that’s where this activity comes in.

The Gallery Walk: Technology Reshaping Life

I designed a series of posters (inspired by the idea of how technology reshapes different areas of life) focusing on:

  • Entertainment
  • Travelling
  • Family Life
  • Work
  • Education
  • Shopping
  • Dating

Each poster shows a powerful “Before vs. Now” visual contrast. Old world. Digital world. Analog vs. hyper-connected.

What’s on Each Poster?

Every poster includes:

  1. A visual comparison (before and after technology)
  2. Useful vocabulary (so students feel supported, not lost)
  3. Thought-provoking discussion questions

PDF Download the posters

Technology reshaping Life de cristina.cabal

How the Gallery Walk Works
  • Students stand up. Maximum groups of 3. They choose a poster. They discuss the images. They read and use the vocabulary. They answer the questions.

And this time, I don’t control the timing. They decide when they’ve talked enough and move to another poster when they feel ready.

Why? Because some posters spark quick reactions. Others? Deep debate. Sometimes they disagree and stay longer. Sometimes they laugh and move on.

Where AI Comes In

Could I have created these posters without AI? Yes. Would it have taken me three times longer? Also yes.

AI helped me:

  • Generate tailored vocabulary lists
  • Create  discussion questions
  • Adapt complexity to my students’ level
  • Design cohesive visual contrasts

But here’s the key: AI didn’t replace a classic strategy. It enhanced it. Gallery walks have been around forever. They work. Movement + collaboration + visible thinking = engagement.

Now we just have better tools to build them.