Questões de Inglês - Aspectos linguísticos | Linguistic aspects para Concurso

     There is nothing new about the concept and creation of ‘artificial intelligence art’ or ‘generative art’. However, discussion of its legal and ethical or societal implications (both intended and unintended) hit the headlines last week.

     Boris Eldagsen refused his Sony World Photography Award 2023 prize in the creative open category on the basis that his entry was the product of artificial intelligence. Mr Eldagsen himself has sparked the latest debate by claiming that “AI is not photography” and that the rationale for entering the Awards with the work in question was “…to find out if the competitions are prepared for AI images to enter. They are not”.

     The reaction of the World Photography Organisation (running the Sony Awards) has been to acknowledge the need for an element of human involvement, which is the crux of the debate: “While elements of AI practices are relevant in artistic contexts of image-making, the Awards always have been and will continue to be a platform for championing the excellence and skill of photographers and artists working in this medium”.

     […]

     The conventional (and long assumed) approach has been to recognise the importance of the human hand to an artwork. The question then is: to what extent is the human creator or inputter the ‘artist’ as opposed to the generative system or is the system merely representing the human creator or inputter’s artistic idea? Flowing from that question is what that might then mean in terms of the ownership and value of such works. The debate looks set to continue in this particular context of imagery creation and reproduction coinciding with the increasing availability and use of consumer-grade AI image generation programmes, and the natural inclination of artists to continue to create.

Adapted from https://www.rosenblatt-law.co.uk/insight/generative-art-whats-real/

It is not uncommon for English language lessons to favour communication over accuracy: real life is nothing like a classroom! In real-life situations, when you make a mistake in the language you are learning, context provides ample information as to what the intended message is. In fact, most of the time, impeccable accuracy is not needed at all! “Don’t worry about making mistakes,” I used to tell my English language students. “Communicating is the most important thing!”

While making mistakes when trying to master a language might seem counter-intuitive, letting learners freely communicate and negotiate meaning is key to success. A learner who communicates a lot while making a few mistakes is much more likely to develop confidence for dealing with real-life situations than a learner who communicates very little because they’re afraid of making any. In communicative language teaching, for example, the teacher is tasked with both encouraging the learner to express themselves and with providing corrective feedback in a way that is not obstructive to communication. 

This means that if a learner says, “I go swimming last night,” it is much more effective to respond with, “Oh, that’s nice, you went swimming. What did you do after?” rather than, “No! You went swimming! Use past simple for past events!” – the former encourages the learner to continue their narrative while the latter is much more likely to make the learner stop in their tracks, re-evaluate the context, and think twice before expressing themselves again in the future, for the fear of making a mistake again. Teachers need to be careful not to parrot back everything the students say in this manner, of course, but the technique can be an effective method of acknowledging the content of a student’s response, while also providing feedback on accuracy.

The importance of the freedom to make mistakes in language learning is also supported by research in psychology, which suggests that learners who try a task without having mastered it completely experience improved retention of new information. A similar experiment in the context of language learning also indicates that the process of making mistakes activates a greater network of related knowledge in the brain, which leads to superior learning outcomes.

It is believed that the key to help learners feel relaxed and ready for communicating freely in the classroom is authenticity. This means that there should be both a real communicative need for a learner to speak and the authentic reaction from those around to what the learner has said.

Here are a few ways of how such authentic communicative interactions can be practiced in the classroom: 

• surround learners with the English language – encourage them to speak to you and each other in English;

• don’t worry about diverging from topics that are not strictly covered in your lesson plan;

• model communication by telling your students stories and anecdotes about your own life and encourage them to do the same;

• let your learners have fun with English – give them colloquial expressions to try and ask them to share some expressions

; • do not overcorrect – make a note of errors and cover it in subsequent lessons;

• avoid the temptation to turn what was intended as speaking practice into a full-on grammar lesson.

While easier said than done, especially when the outcome of an exam is at stake, it is worth remembering that people that our learners might come to interact with outside of the classroom are driven by the natural desire to understand the people they communicate with. This is especially powerful when practiced in the context of a classroom. They set the learners up for success in real-life communication. In other words, when communication is the goal, mistakes are secondary, and that’s real life, isn’t it?

Adapted from: https://wwwcambridgeenglish.org/blog/mistakes-help-you-learnfreedom-to-fail-in-games-and-language-learning/