Ann Radefeld, OFLA Technology Integration Chair
French Teacher, Shaker Heights City School District

As a World Language educator, differentiated instruction is nothing new.  For my entire career, I have had students at varying proficiency levels sitting in front of me every day.  I have always tried my best to differentiate, offering choice to my students and providing them with scaffolds, helping each student to achieve their full potential.  This hasn’t always been easy, but I have tried my best.

Now enter the 2023-2024 school year.  It was mid-fall and I was searching for something that would help the varying levels of students in my classroom.  This year, I feel that the proficiency levels are varying more than they ever have in my 20 years of teaching.  I had been reading about the benefit of using AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the classroom.  

As I was perusing the internet to see what I could find, I found an article from one of my favorite EdTech bloggers, Matt Miller, who, coincidentally, started his career as a High School Spanish teacher.  The article “5 ways I’ll use AI when I go back to the classroom”.  What?  Matt Miller was going back to the classroom!  I had to read this!

My attention was drawn to #4 on his list: “Create leveled readings with Diffit” and the image that followed:

Matt wrote under this image:

“At the beginning of this post, I shared the importance of comprehensive input — reading and listening material that students can comprehend, that’s on their level.

In my first 11 years teaching, I used to create this on my own. I would write a document from scratch, trying to invent something that was creative and fun that also used the right vocabulary words and grammar structures. My textbooks and other teaching materials just never had things that I really, really liked.”

This resonated with me.  I felt the same thing.  Each year, I tried so hard to find material that was comprehensible for each and every one of my students.  Now, I would try Diffit.

I started by creating a free account on the Diffit website.  I was told that I would get a free premium trial until January 1, 2024.  This free trial has now been extended to March 1, 2024 thanks to Diffit trying to create affordable teacher premium plans, instead of the school-based subscriptions.  Diffit claims to be able to create “just right” resources for literally anything.  

Of course, my goal was to try something difficult.  Could I stump this AI tool on my first try?  I entered “Saad Lamjarred”, who is a Moroccan singer.  I chose 5th grade level and French.  This is what was generated.

This adapted reading passage was fantastic although I am not sure if it would be ideal for some of my 6th graders.  What I can tell you is that it gave me a base text without having to search the internet for multiple resources that I would then have to translate myself.  Here, I was able to change some words, and leave out some text, to make it something comprehensible and appropriate for my students.

As I scrolled through the AI generated activities, I saw a summary, key vocabulary words, multiple choice questions, open-ended questions and discussion questions.  This was much more than I could do on my own.  

Once I saw what Diffit could do, my mind started spinning.  I have numerous students who are interested in basketball.  What would Diffit generate for me about the basketball player, Victor Wembanyama?  Click here to see the Google Doc it generated.  I also thought about my students who are obsessed with YouTube.  I googled “French YouTubers for Middle Schoolers” and found someone called Squeezie who had organized an F4 racing event featuring 22 other streamers.  The article seemed interesting, but too difficult.  So, I pasted the entire article into Diffit and this was generated.  Diffit will post to Google Classroom, create a Google Form, generate graphic organizers and more!

Now, I am thinking about what is next.  If I can just put a student’s interest into Diffit, and get nearly comprehensible resources, I could potentially create individualized instruction for each student.  Right now, the thought of that is overwhelming, but with Diffit, I think it is actually possible.