Practicing text understanding with ChatGPT

Improving reading and text understanding skills is crucial, and I have discovered that ChatGPT can be an excellent assistant for this purpose.

How does it work?

To begin, I select a text source such as news articles, blogs, or short stories available online. It's recommended to start with shorter texts, such as a section of a news article or a blog post.

Next, I navigate to ChatGPT and input the following prompt:

I want you to act as a spoken Norwegian Bokmål teacher and mentor. I will promt
you a short text in Norwegian. I want you to ask me from three to five questions
about the text. Then I will promt you my answers. You must check the contextual
correctness of the answers, grammar mistakes, typos and factual errors. If my
answers have any mistake I need you to give me a correct version and explain my
mistakes.

By instructing ChatGPT to assume the role of a Norwegian Bokmål teacher, it can analyze the text and generate a set of questions for me to answer. I explicitly request that ChatGPT provides the correct version of the answer if my response contains any mistakes. Furthermore, I ask ChatGPT to explain any errors I may have made, helping me understand and learn from them.

Example

I made a public as an example of the flow. But in this article I will go through and explain what I did and how I benefit from it.

To illustrate the process, I have created a public ChatGPT chat (opens in a new tab) as an example. In this article, I will guide you through the steps and explain the benefits.

Original text

For this exercise, I used a section from an NRK article². NRK is an excellent source for practicing Norwegian reading, and I frequently utilize it.

Promting the text to ChatGPT and getting questions

After providing a section of the original text as the input, ChatGPT generates the following questions for me to answer:

Her er noen spørsmål om teksten:

1. Hvem sitter i fengselscellen på Kongsvinger?
2. Hvorfor soner Eirik Jensen 21 år?
3. Hvor fikk Eirik Jensen gitaren sin fra?
4. Hvilken bok har hjulpet Eirik Jensen med å lære å spille gitar?
5. Hvordan beskrives Lillebjørn Nilsens gitarbok?

Vennligst gi meg svarene dine, og jeg vil sjekke dem for korrekthet.

Answering the question and getting feedback

After thoroughly reading the text and making some notes, I submit my answers to ChatGPT:

Her er svarene mine,

1. Eirik Jensen sitter i fengselscellen på Kongsvinger.
2. Eirik Jensen soner tjueen år for korrupsjon og narkotikalovbrudd.
3. Eirik Jensen fikk gitaren sin fra en støttespiller.
4. Lillebjørns gitarbok har hjulpet Eirik Jensen med å lære å spille gitar.
5. Sondre Lerche sier at Lillebjørns gitarbok er rett og slett en nasjonalskatt.

Then ChatGPT provides me with detailed feedback and suggestions to improve my text understanding:

Bra forsøk! Her er mine tilbakemeldinger på svarene dine:

1. Riktig! Eirik Jensen sitter i fengselscellen på Kongsvinger.
2. Riktig! Eirik Jensen soner 21 år for korrupsjon og narkotikalovbrudd.
3. Nesten riktig. Teksten sier at Eirik Jensen fikk gitaren sin tilsendt av noen
   støttespillere. Så svaret ditt burde være: Eirik Jensen fikk gitaren sin
   tilsendt av noen støttespillere.
4. Riktig! Lillebjørns gitarbok har hjulpet Eirik Jensen med å lære å spille
   gitar.
5. Nesten riktig. I teksten blir det sagt at artisten Sondre Lerche sier
   at Lillebjørns gitarbok er rett og slett en nasjonalskatt. Så svaret ditt
   burde være: Artisten Sondre Lerche sier at Lillebjørns gitarbok er rett og
   slett en nasjonalskatt.

Bortsett fra det har du gjort en god jobb med å svare på spørsmålene. Husk å
være oppmerksom på små detaljer i teksten for å svare nøyaktig.

In the feedback provided, I can see that:

1. My first answer was correct.
2. My second answer was also correct.
3. For the third question, the text states that Eirik Jensen received his guitar from some supporters. So the correct version of my answer should be: "Eirik Jensen fikk gitaren sin tilsendt av noen støttespillere."
4. My answer to the fourth question was correct.
5. For the fifth question, the text mentions that the artist Sondre Lerche describes Lillebjørns gitarbok as a national treasure. Therefore, the correct version of my answer should be: "Artisten Sondre Lerche sier at Lillebjørns gitarbok er rett og slett en nasjonalskatt."

Overall, the feedback is detailed and empathetic, highlighting both my correct answers and areas where I can improve. It reminds me to pay attention to small details in the text to answer more accurately.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I find ChatGPT to be a powerful tool for understanding texts and practicing text comprehension skills. With its guidance, I can continue to enhance my abilities in this area.