Presentation Using Multimodality and ChatGPT to Increase Student Motivation in a First-Year University EFL Composition Class more

In the age of AI, student motivation to write original essays is of paramount importance. In this study, multimodality and ChatGPT were used to motivate students to write their own original essays. This presentation will show the results of a study conducted with 48 first-year English majors at a Japanese foreign language university during the first semester of the 2024-25 school year. At the beginning of the semester, students were tasked with doing an audio recording of their pre-writing tasks for their first essay and then surveyed on their motivation to write essays. For the second essay, students were taught how to use ChatGPT as a writing assistant. At the end of the semester, students were surveyed on their use of AI and their overall motivation. Results showed that students enjoyed the pre-writing tasks using multimodality. In addition, student motivation to write their own original essays increased. However, results also showed that some of the essays turned in were far from original. Although multimodality and ChatGPT can be used as motivators in the Freshman EFL composition classroom, more understanding is needed to get students to rely less on AI and focus more on their own original work.