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Every Thursday you receive tips and content to help you improve your English skills, 1 % at a time.

I will be taking a break from the 1% newsletter in August. See you again in September. Happy holidays!

This is second and final part of how to create and use an AI agent. Last week I showed you how to create an agent, this week we will see how you can use it.
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First, a short review of what exactly is an AI agent...

What is an AI agent?

For the purpose of improving your English, think of an AI agent as a teaching assistant, tutor, personal assistant, editor, brainstormer, critic...

An AI agent for learning English knows your goal (for example: get me ready to run my client call in English next Thursday), decides what to do each session, and adjusts its feedback based on what the learner actually does, rather than waiting to be asked a question. It can create vocabulary lists for you based on your real-life interactions, it can critique your emails/reports/proposals etc., it can edit them, and it can create personalised classes just for you.

The distinction matters because most "AI English tutors" aren't agents at all. They're chatbots with a friendly prompt: you type, they correct, you type again. Useful, but the learner is doing all the driving. An agent takes over the driving.

How to use your AI agent:

An AI agent is not just a search box. It is a tireless conversation partner that never gets bored, never judges you, and is available at midnight when you finally have time to practise. For a working professional learning English, that combination is rare and valuable. But there is one golden rule that decides whether the agent makes you better or simply makes your work faster: use it to practise, not to outsource. The moment the machine does the English for you, you stop learning.

First, tell it who it is:

Like I told you last week, before anything else, give your agent a role. A blank request produces a blank, average answer. A request that begins with an identity produces something sharper. Compare "Help me with my email" to this:

Prompt: You are an experienced British business-English coach. You never just change my writing, you underline mistakes and explain your corrections simply and always tell me the rule behind a mistake. Ready?

Now every reply is filtered through that role. You can keep this "coach" persona for a whole session, or even save it and reuse it every day. Think of it as hiring/designing your agent at the start of each conversation.

Practise speaking, not just writing:

Most learners are far more nervous about talking — in meetings, on calls, in presentations — than about writing. Yet speaking is where a private agent helps most, because no colleague is watching you make mistakes. Try these:

● Role-play a hard conversation before it happens. Ask the agent to play a difficult client, a demanding manager, or an interviewer, and tell it to stay in character and push back. Rehearse the meeting you fear.

● Run a warm-up. "Ask me five questions about my weekend and correct my spoken answers." Five minutes of this before a real call calms your nerves.

● Get intonation help. "Which word should I stress in this sentence to sound polite, not aggressive?"

Turn editing into a lesson:

Using the agent as an editor is one of the best-known ideas, but there is a right way and a wrong way. The wrong way is "Fix my email." It comes back perfect, and you learn nothing. The right way keeps you in the driver's seat:

Prompt: Underline my mistakes and explain the grammar rule behind each one, but do NOT rewrite the text. I will try again myself.

You correct your own work, guided by the agent. That extra effort is exactly where the learning lives. Once you have improved it, then you can ask, "Is my new version better? What is still slightly unnatural?"

Master tone and register:

Grammar is only a part of learning English. Another significant part is register (or tone), sounding neither too direct nor too rigid for the situation. This is hard to learn from a textbook, but easy to explore with an agent:

● "Is this message too direct for a first email to a senior client?"

● "Give me three versions- casual, neutral, and formal- and tell me what changed between them."

● "Give me five polite ways to disagree in a meeting."

Over time you build a feeling for how to connect with people in English that most courses never teach.

Build vocabulary lists that you actually need and can remember:

Forget long word lists. Use the agent as a living dictionary connected to your job. Ask it for the difference between postpone, delay, and push back. Ask it to use leverage in three sentences from your industry. Paste a jargon-filled clause (lots of technical language) from a real contract and say, "Explain this in simple English." Words learned in your own context are the ones you remember.

An idea generator:

When you do include AI in idea generation, you should expect that most of its ideas will be mediocre. But that’s okay, that’s where you, as a human, come into the equation. You are looking for ideas that spark inspiration and recombination, and having a long list of generated possibilities can be an easier place to start for people who are not great at coming up with ideas on their own.

So how do we do it?

Let’s imagine that we want to come up with 20 ideas for marketing slogans for a new cheese shop. The AI can generate those for us, but we will get even better quality if we remember the principle of telling AI who it is: You are an expert at marketing. When asked to generate slogan ideas you come up with ideas that are different from each other, clever, and interesting. You use clever wordplay. You try not to repeat themes or ideas. Come up with 20 ideas for marketing slogans for a new cheese shop, make them different from each other, and make them clever and creative.

Or you could say this: Make this like something from The New Yorker, make it like something from… write or create in different styles...

Let it interview you:

Sometimes you know your topic but have problems to organise it in English, for example: a product launch, a project update, a self-introduction. Instead of asking the agent to write it, ask it to interview you:

"Ask me one question at a time about my project until you have enough to help me structure a clear summary."

You supply the ideas and the English; the agent simply extracts them in order. This is practice disguised as help.

Beware of "The Button!"

Here is the trap. Every agent offers a tempting shortcut: type one line, press the button, and receive a finished email, report, or presentation. For a native speaker, that is a time-saver. For you, it is a hidden cost — because you read good English but never produce it. Reading always runs ahead of writing and speaking, so the button gives you false fluency: you feel capable, then freeze in a real meeting where there is no button to press.

So use the button for ideas, not for finished drafts. Ask for twenty angles, a list of options, a rough outline — raw material you then shape in your own words. The rule of thumb:

Remember: Let the agent coach your draft, not create it. Write it yourself first — badly is fine — and only then bring it in for feedback.

A simple weekly routine:

You do not need a complicated plan. Try this:

● Monday — role-play one conversation you have coming up this week.

● Wednesday — write one real email yourself, then ask the agent to explain (not fix) your mistakes.

● Friday — review the week: "What are my three most repeated errors, and give me five practice sentences for each."

Fifteen focused minutes, three times a week, with a partner who is patient, private, and always available. Keep it on the right side of the golden rule: practise, don't outsource, and the agent stops being a shortcut and becomes the most reliable English coach you have ever had.

Try it!

You just need to start...

TIPS

1. Always tell your agent WHO it is!
2. Use it to practise your speaking, not just your writing!
3. Use it as an editor, not an automatic corrector.
4. Use it to improve the vocabulary you need.
5. Use it to generate ideas.
6. Use it to interview you, or as a brainstormer, or critic etc.
7. Never use a button that says: Write with AI!
8. Make a practise routine with your AI agent...

CONTENT

1. Here is a detailed guide you can download with more detailed information and examples to help you use your own AI agent for learning and practising your English...

​How to Use Your English Practice Agent.pdf​

2. Book a free call with me to find out in more detail how you can set up and use your AI agent for learning English. I can also set it up and control it for you...
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​https://calendly.com/ben--palmer/30-minute-calls​

3. Try the Fluent In 50 Days course to really make progress with your confidence in English, and your professional career!

€97.00 Fluent In 50 Days Starter Plan Receive daily material and tips to improve your English communication skills. The course begins on the Monday after you... Read more I want to improve my English!

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A CHALLENGE

Review the guides from last week and this and follow the instructions to use your own AI agent.

You just need to start...

AN INSPIRING QUOTE

"Evaluation is creation: hear it, you creators! Evaluating is itself the most valuable treasure of all that we value. It is only through evaluation that value exists: and without evaluation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, you creators!" Friedrich Nietzsche

It's vital to evaluate how you use AI and the output it gives you. Don't always think it will be 100% accurate. Evaluation creates value, so keep what you like and remove what you don't or is wrong, but never just accept what the AI tells you!

If you want to improve your communication in English, book a free call to see how we can help you:

​https://calendly.com/ben--palmer/30-minute-calls​

If you want to learn English, you can read the How to (finally) learn English book:

​https://lighthousetraininggroup.com/books/​

Out on Amazon!

Find out more about us at https://lighthousetraininggroup.com/​

Ben

PS: Keep progressing!