Leveraging Gemini for business English course development

During the last term, I was working with business English learners at a couple universities, and as a part of that work, I developed a number of role play and discussion activities. To save time and energy on materials development, I decided to try to use Google’s Gemini to assist. And I wanted to take a minute to share some thoughts about the process and outcomes here.

What is Gemini?

First, let’s take a look at what Gemini is.

According to Gemini itself:

Gemini is a family of generative artificial intelligence models developed by Google, along with the name of its AI chatbot, which was previously known as Bard. These models are designed to process and generate various types of information, including text, images, audio, video, and code, within a unified framework. This multimodal capability allows it to handle diverse data inputs and outputs without needing separate systems for each.

When compared to other AI chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Gemini distinguishes itself through its deep integration with the Google ecosystem. This allows it to interact with applications like Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Drive, enabling tasks such as summarizing emails or drafting documents directly within these platforms. While ChatGPT is recognized for its strengths in creative writing and detailed responses, and also offers web search capabilities and integrations, Gemini leverages Google Search for current information and focuses on its ability to perform complex reasoning, process files, and generate various content forms, including video with sound. Advanced versions of Gemini also feature a larger context window, allowing for more extensive and sustained conversations. Both platforms are continually updated, and their effectiveness can vary depending on the specific task and model version. 

For business English course materials development, Gemini’s capacity for quickly generating, summarizing, and refining text, alongside its integration with Google Workspace for document creation and email drafting, can be valuable for producing varied and pertinent learning content.

My context and needs

Next, a bit about my needs as a business English instructor. I started teaching with a new university last semester, and the course, while offered previously, didn’t have any materials or even really a syllabus to use to prepare. With a couple of weeks until the start of the course and a minimal course outline, I was tasked with getting the course up and running. And I wasn’t being paid for prep time.

In addition to calling upon my experience in other business English classrooms, I enlisted the help of Gemini to save a bit of time and energy because I had so little time leading up to the start of the course.

Drafting learning outcomes

I’ve written before about other tools to help generate learning outcomes for Business English courses, but I decided to give Gemini a try this semester. I started by asking Gemini to draft a few learning outcomes for my course: Could you please draft a list of 5-10 learning outcomes for a Business English course?

I wanted to use the outline the university provided and specific learning outcomes to guide my materials development. And Gemini helped me get the ball rolling with specific learning outcomes that might suit my course. Gemini generated the following list of learning outcomes:

Core Language Skills

1. Communicate effectively in a variety of business contexts (meetings, presentations, negotiations, etc.) with clarity, fluency, and appropriate language register.
2. Write clear and concise business documents such as emails, reports, proposals, and letters, adhering to appropriate formats and styles.
3. Expand vocabulary related to business, economics, finance, and other relevant fields.
4. Improve grammar accuracy in spoken and written business English.

Business Communication Skills

5. Participate effectively in meetings, conferences, and negotiations, demonstrating active listening and contribution skills.
6. Deliver clear and persuasive presentations to diverse audiences, adapting content and style accordingly.
7. Build and maintain professional relationships through effective interpersonal communication and intercultural awareness.

Business Knowledge and Skills

8. Understand key business concepts and terminology across different industries and functions.
9. Analyze business information and communicate findings clearly and concisely.
10. Demonstrate intercultural competence and adapt communication styles to different business cultures.

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I created a course schedule based on relevant business English themes, and I went back to Gemini to help me create a description with these outcomes based on the course topics and schedule. With a few changes, I used the following outcomes in my course syllabus:

Gemini was a useful tool for generating these initial drafts of learning outcomes as I was planning my course. While I could have drafted these on my own, it would have taken a lot more time to flesh them out. I think the time I spent using Gemini to develop these outcomes didn’t exceed 10 or 15 minutes even after making revisions.

Developing materials for class

In addition to using Gemini to help put my syllabus together, I also found it useful for materials development. Specifically, I wanted to integrate a number of role plays in my course to give learners ample opportunities to use the strategies and language we discussed in low-stakes situations. Again, I can create role play activities on my own, but it takes a considerable amount of time to do it well. 

Working on multicultural teams activity

One of our units included discussions related to intercultural communication and potential challenges that might arise in diverse workplaces. In order to explore this topic more deeply, I asked Gemini to create scenarios that highlight possible conflicts or challenges one might face in the multicultural workplace. I used the following prompt: “Could you generate a few scenarios that highlight the challenges and benefits of working on multicultural teams? The scenarios should include people from different cultural and language backgrounds. The audience for these scenarios are C1 Business English university students.”

I chose one of the scenarios generated by Gemini and developed some discussion questions to go along with it. The purpose was to get students talking about the scenario and considering different ways of dealing with conflict or challenges in the workplace. Learners were also asked to generate specific language they could use to communicate in this type of situation. Finally, they were asked to create a conversation (role play) using the scenario and language they put together.

I thought this activity was a nice way of exploring practical language and applications of language in this specific situation. Again, the activity was meant to be a low-stakes situation for learners to try things out, practice, and explore without being afraid of making mistakes.

I could have developed a scenario on my own, but again, I saved a ton of time using Gemini to help generate multiple scenario options in a few seconds. I was able to take the scenario and hit the ground running with the rest of the activity.

Interview role play activity

Another of our units focused on the job search, applying for jobs, and preparing for interviews. As a part of this unit, I wanted to incorporate an interview role play so learners could use some of the interview tips and strategies we talked about in class.

To develop this role play, I used the following prompt in Gemini: “Could you generate a role play activity focusing on job interviews? The activity should be appropriate for C1 Business English students. It should include example interview questions that might be in an actual job interview. It should also ask the job seeker to use the STAR method of responding to questions (situation, task, action, result).”

Gemini generated a nice role play activity that fit my request, but it was for a senior position. This wasn’t totally relevant for my learners. So, I asked Gemini to update the role play to be for an internship position instead. With a little reformatting, I was able to use this revised role play with learners. I was able to create a usable role play for my learners in less than 30 minutes with the use of Gemini. 

Benefits, challenges, and considerations

Okay, so I found Gemini to be useful for my teaching context last semester, but I don’t want this post to just be an advertisement for Gemini. As with any tech, Gemini is a tool. And any tool has pros and cons, affordances and challenges.

I think my examples in this post demonstrate how Gemini helped me save time in my materials development and planning. Ultimately, this is the primary benefit of this tool. I was able to create more materials in way less time.

In contrast, a challenge that I faced when using Gemini was that the language and examples generated for different activities often had similarities. For example, I asked Gemini to generate a number of role plays dealing with specific situations that might arise in the workplace, and more often than not, the characters in these role plays were almost the same. In my working on multicultural teams activity, you can see the characters are sort of stereotypes of people from the countries used. These same countries and stereotypes came up over and over when generating characters for multicultural role plays.

This sort of challenge can be overcome, I think, with an emphasis on revision and proofreading. This is sort of my main takeaway from using Gemini this semester. Gemini can generate a lot of content really quickly, but I always need to proofread and revise to suit my context and specific needs.

Materials

• Working on multicultural teams activity
• Interview role play activity