Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
This is NOT an instructional video. Rather, a recording of my first experiment with creative ways to practice English language conversation with ChatGPT. Clearly, in the first five minutes the AI used overly complex and formal language to discuss food, movies and travel. I'm having students experiment now with prompts (instructions) to improve this for beginners.
From about 4:50 the conversation became more fun and interesting (I felt), when we acted out a scene from the film Titanic. After that we did some improvisational role playing. I thought ChatGPT did well, (6:23) as cafe and airport staff, and was most successful as a partner when demonstrating their improvisational comedic abilities (9:47) as my cute and grumpy friend.
About Prompts: Before beginning the conversation I created a list with topics for exploration and directions for ChatGPT. I should have asked the AI to speak more slowly, simply and informally. For the Titanic movie scene I found the script online and shared the scene I wanted to do with the AI. During the scene role play I was reading from that script. My prompt for the Grumpy Friend Role Play was very simple: "Please act the part of my grumpy friend. Everything I say you will disagree with. But please be cute too."
About Editing: There was a delay on my desktop computer, which I edited out. The day before I had used a laptop and phone, where communication was much faster.
About Myself: My name is Christopher Chase. I've been teaching second language learners of English in Japan since 1993, at Seinan Gakuin and Kyushu University, in Fukuoka, Japan. I am co-author and illustrator of a conversational text "Natural Speaking" that was published in the 1990s, but is out of print now.
This is NOT an instructional video. Rather, a recording of my first experiment with creative ways to practice English language conversation with ChatGPT. Clearly, in the first five minutes the AI used overly complex and formal language to discuss food, movies and travel. I'm having students experiment now with prompts (instructions) to improve this for beginners.
From about 4:50 the conversation became more fun and interesting (I felt), when we acted out a scene from the film Titanic. After that we did some improvisational role playing. I thought ChatGPT did well, (6:23) as cafe and airport staff, and was most successful as a partner when demonstrating their improvisational comedic abilities (9:47) as my cute and grumpy friend.
About Prompts: Before beginning the conversation I created a list with topics for exploration and directions for ChatGPT. I should have asked the AI to speak more slowly, simply and informally. For the Titanic movie scene I found the script online and shared the scene I wanted to do with the AI. During the scene role play I was reading from that script. My prompt for the Grumpy Friend Role Play was very simple: "Please act the part of my grumpy friend. Everything I say you will disagree with. But please be cute too."
About Editing: There was a delay on my desktop computer, which I edited out. The day before I had used a laptop and phone, where communication was much faster.
About Myself: My name is Christopher Chase. I've been teaching second language learners of English in Japan since 1993, at Seinan Gakuin and Kyushu University, in Fukuoka, Japan. I am co-author and illustrator of a conversational text "Natural Speaking" that was published in the 1990s, but is out of print now.
