8 Ways to Use AI as Your Personal Teaching Assistant

English teachers once handled every teaching task manually, from prepping lessons and making resources to creating assessments, grading, and providing feedback. Chatbots, virtual assistants, and other artificial intelligence applications now absorb much of that workload. ESL educators use AI to boost productivity, streamline processes, and personalize students’ experiences. This article explains how you can use AI as your personal teaching assistant and shows practical ways to bring it into your classroom.

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1. Personalize learning using AI-driven analytics

Most online learning platforms now run on AI-generated analytics that respond to each English student’s specific needs. Automated analysis of each learner’s performance makes assessing students and building customized courses far more efficient than before.

AI applications analyze those patterns for you instead of leaving you to review student grades and assessment results by hand, and they generate the information you need to identify each student’s specific strengths and the areas to target for improvement.

Bridge Corporate Language Training, for instance, uses AI-driven analytics to assess new students’ English levels. The Academic Director of Bridge Corporate Language Training explained the approach: “Now, we are using some placement tests that incorporate artificial intelligence. Their responses are adaptive, meaning if a student answers correctly, the next question is going to be a little bit harder.

If the student struggles, the next question is going to be easier. So, the software detects the student’s answers and is able to determine a set of questions that gauge the level of the student more effectively.”

They also explained how AI supports English language assessments: “First, the test answers are compared to a large corpus linguistics and a large database of users that have answered in a certain way in high-stakes exams and got a certain result. Compared against those answers, the AI tests can quickly determine the level of the student. This is the case for many of the placement tests that are being used these days.”

However, analytics help only when you act on them. Set aside a few minutes at the beginning or end of each week to read the platform’s report and pick one target topic to cover, rather than reviewing the data after the course ends. Keep in mind that these tools measure what learners can score. A student’s willingness to speak, tolerance for error, and motivation are not tracked, so take notes to fill that gap.

2. Use AI tools to automate clerical tasks like grading, feedback, and communications

Administrative tasks take up a large part of teachers’ daily schedules: checking papers, grading assignments, and giving individual feedback. Many AI-assisted platforms now automate those tasks in several ways:

• Grading assistant tools like Fobizz and Gradescope use AI algorithms to evaluate students’ answers and generate grades and detailed feedback based on the criteria you set. These platforms also let teachers upload files or images of student answers – even handwritten work – for the AI tool to analyze.
• Apps like EssayGrader and Smodin help you check essays or long texts, especially if you work with many students. These apps identify error types such as grammar and spelling, and they give detailed, objective writing suggestions. They can also detect AI-written content, which helps you identify potential plagiarism faster.

Automated grading works best when you treat the output as a first draft. Teachers should read the comments, adjust the tone, and correct anything the tool scored against the wrong criterion before returning the paper to the learner. Check the school’s policy before you upload student work, since many institutions now require teachers to remove names and identifying details first.

Looking for ways to improve your ESL students’ reading skills? Learn about eight ways to use AI to teach ESL reading.

3. Use AI to generate activity ideas and create or enhance lesson plans

Teachers can spend less time searching the internet for engaging class activities and lesson plan ideas, and instead give AI assistants prompts to create lesson plans and activity ideas. You can also generate ideas that enhance current lesson plans with additional resources and activities.

Brazilian EFL teacher Matheus Nazario, for instance, has used AI tools for several years while running his own online teaching business. “I’ve used some AI apps for slide preparation, and AI tools such as Twee and Education Copilot for organizing tasks and lesson plans,” he shared. “They have helped me to see things differently, gather different ideas and suggestions, and make some tasks simpler or better tailored.”

AI-supported tools also help you personalize courses. You can use them to generate more content suggestions and to structure lesson plans around each student’s needs and interests.

Class idea generators

AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini generate lesson plan ideas quickly, whether you need vocabulary, grammar, or a topic to bring to class. You can type, for instance, “What are some games for teaching [grammar topic] to [age group] students?” and the chatbot returns a list of activity ideas for your class.

Chatbots can also supply additional topic ideas and class discussion questions for conversation classes or speaking activities. You can ask the chatbot, for example, “What questions can I ask adult professionals about cultural differences in the workplace?”

In a time crunch? Read about last-minute lesson plans that can be adapted for any class.

Lesson plan creators

Text generators like the Magic Write option on Canva work alongside the AI-powered chatbots. They produce lesson plan content or improve the lesson plans you already have. That content can include lesson objectives, materials, assessment techniques, and anything else you request in your prompt.

Magic Write, for instance, works from a simple typed prompt (e.g., “Generate a lesson plan about giving business presentations for adult English learners”). The lesson plan text then appears in the same document, and you can modify it as you see fit.

Some apps handle lesson prep in a more straightforward way. Tools like lessonplans.ai and Curipod, for instance, offer AI-assisted lesson planning as their core function. The AI algorithm analyzes the level of the target students, course requirements, and learning objectives, then generates a document containing the details of your lesson plan.

The quality of an AI lesson plan depends on the quality of your prompt, so save the prompts that produce good results and reuse them with small edits. Most generated plans also arrive without staging, timing, or anticipated problems. Your training fills those gaps, and the plan becomes usable once you sequence the activities for a specific group of students.

• Pro Tip: Include the grade or age group of your students in every prompt. You can also add the skills you’d like to focus on or the target language (e.g., “Create a lesson plan that includes reading comprehension exercises for practicing adjectives”).

4. Use AI to create supplementary lesson resources and assessments

AI can also serve as your personal teaching assistant for supplementary materials. You can put together handouts, tailor games, make interactive exams or quizzes, and build other resources that support your students’ learning. AI saves you the time you would otherwise spend making class resources from scratch, and it can also make your materials more engaging.

• Many AI-supported platforms now generate several types of content in one place. Education Copilot, for instance, offers a wide variety of options for presenting materials (e.g., handouts, flashcards, vocabulary lists), gamifying your lessons (e.g., Bingo, jigsaw puzzles), and encouraging interactivity in class (e.g., debates, projects).
• Quiz generators like Wayground and Kahoot!, which work with AI, help you build and gamify assessment tools more easily. You can share the quiz with your students through a link to the game, and you can play it live or assign it as homework.

Make learning fun for your adult students with 15 easy ESL games for adults.

Media creators

Video, podcast, and content creation software now runs on generative AI, so you no longer need technical expertise to produce high-quality multimedia materials or assessment tools for your classes. These applications let English teachers produce engaging lesson resources and personalized digital content.

Nazario, for instance, has used AI tools for “creating a personalized video with my photo and making it move so that learners think that it’s me or a characterized version of me.”

• Video creation and editing apps like Content Samurai/Vidnami and Lumen5 build videos with ease from elements such as images, voice tracks, music, and your own video script.
• Other advanced video creators, like Synthesia and Colossyan, assemble a video with an AI-generated video avatar and a personalized script.
• Platforms like Canva and ChatGPT include AI image generator functions that give you more creative options. You feed the tool a text prompt (e.g., “A robot roaming through the city”), and it creates the image you described.

Generated resources still need your review before they reach a class. AI tools invent facts and produce examples that do not match your students’ context. Read every handout, quiz, and image once as a student would, and cut anything you cannot verify.

Read about the best digital tools for teaching English online.

5. Introduce your students to AI tools for extended learning and language practice

Many EFL learners worry about the lack of opportunities to practice English outside their classes. Students search for ways to practice specific skills, such as improving pronunciation, learning native English phrases, and understanding different accents.

You can help them find extended learning opportunities, and you can recommend AI apps that complement their English lessons:

• Language learning apps like ELSA Speak and FLOW Speak use AI to model the pronunciation of English words and phrases, assess a user’s pronunciation of various phonetic sounds, and mimic native English conversations. These platforms also offer interactive features – students track their daily progress, join challenges, or practice expressions in virtual dialogues with the chatbot.
• AI-powered language learning tutors like Memrise and TalkPal provide more conversation practice through AI-generated conversations or roleplays based on various real-life scenarios, so students learn the practical use of English.

Recommendations work better with structure attached. Tell students which app supports which goal, how many minutes a week you expect them to practice, and how you will check their progress. Note that several of these platforms set a minimum age and collect voice recordings, and parents deserve that information before their child signs up.

Learn about 10 tips for teaching conversational English like a pro.

6. Use AI tools to generate copy for a variety of tasks

AI also supports tasks that involve writing text for specific purposes, such as feedback and announcements sent by email or marketing and social media copy. Independent English teachers who run their own businesses handle teaching duties and business duties at the same time.

AI tools automate many of these processes and support copy generation across a range of functions. Some examples include:

• Speech-to-text apps like AudioPen and Letterly use AI to transcribe voice notes and convert them into clear, structured, summarized text. You can record formative feedback after a class activity, and the app converts the transcript into a logical, easy-to-read document that you send to your student or to a young learner’s parent afterward.
• Several AI teaching assistants like Eduaide.Ai also draft specific documents, such as class announcements, syllabus outlines, and student reports. These features free up plenty of your time and automate your routine tasks.

AI will read like AI until you edit it. Rewrite the openings, cut the phrases you would never say out loud, and keep a short document of your own sentences to paste in as a style reference. Parents, students, and prospective clients notice generic writing, and your voice is part of what they pay for when they choose you over a larger school.

7. Use AI to adapt authentic materials to your students’ level

Authentic materials give students real language, but they usually arrive at the wrong level. Adapting a news article, a job posting, or a podcast transcript for a B1 group could take hours of rewriting. AI text-leveling tools now handle the first draft of that work in seconds, which makes authentic content accessible for a variety of classes.

• Text levelers like Diffit and the CEFR tools in Twee rewrite a passage to a target level while holding the original meaning, then generate comprehension questions and a vocabulary list from the adapted version.
• Level checkers tell you where a text actually sits before you adapt it. Twee’s CEFR Level Checker breaks down vocabulary, grammar, and sentence complexity, which matters because AI tools routinely overestimate what A1 and A2 students can read.
• Mixed-proficiency classes gain the most from this. You can produce three versions of one text at three different levels, have the same discussion with the whole group, and give every student a text they can work with.

Always check the adapted version against the original before you use it. Simplification tasks sometimes remove the exact structure you planned to teach. Confirm that your target grammar is still there after the rewrite, and confirm that you have the rights to use the source text.

8. Teach your students to use AI responsibly

Your students already use AI. They write or translate homework and check their own grammar before you ever see their final submission. Banning it rarely changes that behavior. The best way to deal with it is to help learners use AI to their own benefit, and not to skip steps.

• Set rules for each assignment rather than one policy for the whole course you are offering. Students can use AI to brainstorm and check spelling, but they have to write the assignment without it. Naming the boundary removes most of the ambiguity that leads to misuse.
• Turn error correction into an activity. Give the class an AI-generated paragraph, ask learners to find the unnatural collocations and phrasings, and have them rewrite it in their own voice. This builds editing skills and shows students what AI writing sounds like.
• Teach prompting as a language skill. A student who can specify audience, purpose, and tone in English is practicing the register control you already assess in writing tasks.

Students trust AI output more than they should, especially when it looks fluent. Show them where the tools fail with lower-proficiency learners: idioms, register, and confident corrections to sentences that were already correct. A student who can spot these errors has learned a lot of English.

AI has changed how English teachers work, and the change is evident. Teachers can see where each student stands, save time, generate authentic lessons, and assess in minutes. However, none of this replaces the decisions about sequencing, pacing, and learners’ needs on a specific day. The tools produce material, but the teacher directs and decides what to create.

Start with one of these tips rather than all eight. Pick the part of your week that demands the most from you, whether in grading, materials prep, or lesson planning, and give AI two weeks on that single job before you add another.

Teachers who build the AI habit consistently are able to find the small problems and make adjustments. Choose the task, refine the prompt, review, and let the rest follow from there.

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