Write with Michelle

”今天一堆涉外同事全用上ChatGPT寫郵件了,過於方便，英語白學了。“ AI寫作機械人ChatGPT面世後，有中國人在 Twitter這樣說 . 的確，因ChatGPT可以理解中文指示，使用者哪怕一句英語也不會，也能靠ChatGPT, 幾秒鐘内寫出絕對流暢和幾乎沒grammatical mistakes的文字。 但AI 寫作機械人的到來，不一定代表英語白學了。肯定的是，當誰都能產出沒文法錯誤的書寫英語，perfect grammar不再是衡量英文是否優秀的主要標準。AI的强項是邏輯推理，在post-Chatgpt 年代，想寫出衆的school essays or business English, 就要打破純推理的框框，運用橫向思維（lateral thinking）和跨領域知識，自己的書寫英語才能在多如牛毛的pefectly grammatcial的英文文章中脫穎而出。 去年底我寵物成功移民到加拿大後，我給我的 pet travel agent寫了一封感謝信。適逢ChatGPT也差不多同時被推出，出於好奇，我也請ChatGPT寫感謝信。Th

“將來我如何才不被 AI 淘汰？”一個只有12嵗的學生最近問我。 我就跟她說了一個AI專家Maurice Conti 招人的故事： “A few weeks ago we contacted this crazy musician/artist /hacker type and asked him to build a prototype — a VR thing. We were almost too corporate for him. But we talked him into it by showing him we’re not just corporate types, we have plenty of eccentric brilliant weirdos doing really groundbreaking stuff. So he came in and after four, five days he built this truly awesome prototype that incorporated some of

最近有個在香港就讀名校的中一學生跟我說：”我突然發覺我同學的英文寫作水平突飛猛進，原來他們都在用ChatGPT!” 我聽到後責怪自己，這個學生我也教了一年多，我居然還沒好好培養他的品味！我完全不認為ChatGPT寫的英文厲害。雖然ChatGPT文法無誤，一些基本的literary techniques (such as alliteration)也會，但style 和 originality 方面非常欠缺。不信比較一下下面兩個dentist reviews。 第一個是我寫的, it was based on recent experience; 第二個是ChatGPT 寫的。 My version The last time I got a tooth extracted, the experience was especially harrowing because as I sat in the dentist's chair wondering why it was taking so long for him to remove the

我經常推薦已經在外國讀書的香港學生看名為“EO” (Entrepreneurship Opportunities) 的 Youtube channel 。該頻道經常採訪一些在tech sector成功創業的擁有亞洲面孔人士，他們不單有視野有智謀有技術，他們的English communication skills也非常棒。我希望學生通過他們體會到，在外國，好的 communication skills 對career 有錦上添花的作用。 我這裡指的 communication skills, 超越了不少香港人對 communication skills 的理解（英文沒口音，說話流暢等）。在西方職場，communication skills 更包括 express complicated things in a simple way。例如，EO 的受訪者會用各種比喻來解釋他們的行業和業務: Carnegie Mellon professor Po-Shen Loh 把他的網上教學平台比喻為 classes that look “as good as

前陣子一個學生給了我這個題目：“Pretend you live in a castle. Where is it, what does it look like, and who lives there?” 我知道大部分學生都會寫castle如何宏偉皇室生活如何愜意之類的文章。的確，我把題目給ChatGPT，它也採取同樣的approach。下面是是ChatGPT和我的文章的對比，如果你是考官，哪個版本更能讓你眼前一亮？ Pretend you live in a castle. Where is it, what does it look like, and who lives there? ChatGPT’s version Nestled in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains, Silverwind Keep stands majestically on a mist-shrouded peak. Its towering spires reach towards the sky, while a

有個移民到英國的香港學生，說他老師看完他的作文後，以為他是用ChatGPT寫的。在我看來，原因之一可能是他在香港讀書時，被教的那一套是根據固定公式寫文章，而這種寫作風格，正是ChatGPT最善於的，所以他去外國後，被老師誤解。 那該如何跑贏ChatGPT？方法其實很多，以下面這段關於 Tudor Dynasty 文字為例，原文平鋪直敘地把這段歷史總結一遍，我的rewrite選擇先把焦點放在Tudor朝代的其中一位最聞名人物Anne Bolelyn，然後用“藤㨢瓜瓜㨢藤”的方法，把跟她相關的人物和事件逐一敘述，這樣就能避免 sound like ChatGPT。 原文 The Tudor Era (1485–1603) is one of the most interesting chapters in English history. Though relatively brief, this period was packed with dramatic change, defined by the reigns of five monarch

隨着越來越多學生偷懶，做功課時偷偷用AI，也有越來越多老師用AI detectors去判斷學生的文章是否用AI寫的。但Stanford大學學者調研後發現, AI detectors 經常把英語非第一語言的學生的文章，誤斷為 AI 寫的。我個人認為這可能是因這類學生，接受的英文教育大都只聚焦在 Grammar是否正確，和學生寫作時是否緊跟老師所教的框架，而這種教學方式培養出來的死板寫作風格，正是AI最容易掌握的。 那移民到外國的香港學生，如何避免被冤枉用了AI？學生可以多用想像力，多用恰當的比喻去把敘述的事寫得更生動。另外，把句子寫成長短不一，帶有節奏，也能避免sound like ChatGPT. 下面學生寫的段落，ZeroGPT(常用的AI detector之一 ) 說是100% AI寫的，至於我的rewrite， 用了上述技巧，ZeroGPT說是100% human written. Student The government started building the Thames Tideway Tunnel in 2016. It is

“Major Asia bank to cut 4,000 roles as AI replaces humans” “'AI Can Write The Code': Zuckerberg Says Meta's Midlevel Engineers – Earning Six Figures – May Soon Be Replaced” “IT Unemployment Rises to 5.7% as AI Hits Tech Jobs” “ChatGPT Already Outperforms a lot of Junior Lawyers” “AI cuts freelance writing demand by 30%: study” 隨着AI技術不斷進步，相信這樣的頭條會越來越多。作為writing coach的我，就更加有動力不斷提升我的寫作技巧、知識面和想像力，因我這樣做，可以給學生演示如何跟AI較量。當然，我不能保證我永遠不會被AI淘汰，但我會努力成為最後被AI取代的那个级别的作家和寫作導師。 下面有我最近給我牙醫寫的一篇

“AI is coming for your jobs. Heck it’s coming for my job too,” Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman warned on X earlier this week. He then went on to map out the way he thinks AI has changed the rules of the workplace: “what was once considered 'easy tasks' will no longer exist; what was considered 'hard tasks' will be the new easy, and what was considered 'impossible tasks' will be the new hard.” Kaufman’s view echoes my thoughts on AI. When ChatGPT arrived on the scene two years ago, a

上個月，The Atlantici記者Derek Thomspon 研究美國政府公布的勞動數據後，發覺一個驚人現象：過去40年，大學畢業生的就業情況從沒像2025年那麼糟糕。 Thomspon的結論是，這跟AI有關。 “As law firms leaned on AI for more paralegal work, and consulting firms realized that five 22-year-olds with ChatGPT could do the work of 20 recent grads, and tech firms turned over their software programming to a handful of superstars working with AI co-pilots, the entry level of America’s white-collar economy would contract.” 創業家Daniel Priestley 有兩個孩子。作為家長的他，認為在AI年代

最近我給我的牙醫寫了Google Review後，在好奇心的驅使下，我請ChatGPT評估AI能否寫出我的review。ChatGPT給我的回覆，既有助於我理解自己的強項，又能引導我未來寫作的方向。自從AI開始能代替人，無論做哪行，也要理解AI擅長什麼，不擅長什麼，我們致力於提升AI不擅長的技能，才能減低被AI淘汰的機率。 下面有我的Google Review, 和ChatGPT給我的評估。 My review I didn’t have to wait for my cosmetic treatment session to be over to know Dr Seddon had given me exactly what I wanted. Halfway into my four-hour procedure - by then Dr Seddon had already finished applying composite veneers to my upper teeth - I had to use the bathroom.

The other day, I asked ChatGPT what it thought about this issue: “Now that so many people in the workplace are using ChatGPT, what's the future of business correspondence? What can people do to make an impression?” After noting that due to widespread ChatGPT use among business employees, emails, proposals and reports are “starting to sound the same: competent, but robotic and forgettable,“ ChatGPT offered tips for standing out from the crowd. “Show personality without losing

Call me an unconventional English writing tutor, but over the years, I've discovered one crucial benchmark that can reliably predict whether students will go on to achieve high marks and retain what I’ve taught them. How much does laughter fill our sessions? I have a theory about why this happens. Students absorb new knowledge best when they’re having fun, when they’re not aware that they’re learning. To see this, just look at what materializes when the opposite happens, when

Since ChatGPT’s launch three years ago, we’ve all heard of the warning “those who don’t use AI will become irrelevant in the future workplace.” Yet, among school-aged kids at least, AI so far seems to have done more harm than good. An expanding collection of research has detailed how outsourcing writing and thinking to AI has wreaked havoc on students’ inquisitiveness, open-mindedness, and confidence in reasoning. The challenge, therefore, is to teach the use of AI in a way

Earlier this week, the YouTube channel Info-Tech Research Group interviewed Deloitte’s managing director and chief futurist Mike Bechtel, who recounted a conversation with a business owner that should alarm every white-collar worker about their career prospects in the AI era. When ChatGPT first came out in November 2022, Bechtel showed the business owner, who founded a hydraulics company, that AI could write verses in the style of Shakespeare convincing enough to trick Shake

Back when I was a senior school student in Hong Kong, this was how I was taught to write. Follow the five-paragraph format. The first paragraph should be your introduction, where you tell the reader what you’re going to write. The next three body paragraphs should each consist of a point you intend to make; start each paragraph with “Firstly,” “Secondly,” “Thirdly,” adding transitions like "Moreover" or “Furthermore” if you wish to elaborate further on your points. The last

Regarding Arnold Goodman, a top London lawyer well-liked for his kindness, though his sagging jowls gave him the look of a toad, the writer and silent film actress Lady Diana Cooper made a characteristically witty observation: ““He looks as if he is just about to turn into a fairy prince.” A few months ago, I was brainstorming how to write a thoughtful thank you letter to my dentist for giving me dental implants when Cooper’s remark suddenly came to mind (I had stumbled upon

Let me begin this week’s column with an aside. I just finished guiding this year's Oxbridge applicants through their UCAS personal statements, and the experience left me with a clearer sense of what students can do long before application time to boost their chances of getting into their dream universities. Consider entering one of the many writing competitions out there. Most are free and easy to enter (just write and press “send”). Students who already have an idea of their