Session 1: Your first useful hour with AI

You leave with: one real message you’d actually send, and a 4-part prompt you can reuse tomorrow.

Open the slides from class

What a chatbot is

It predicts the next words from a huge amount of text it has read. It doesn’t look things up unless the tool says it is searching. It doesn’t know your business. It can be wrong and sound completely sure.

Good at: first drafts, rewording, translating, summarising, turning a mess into a list.

Bad at: facts it can’t check, today’s prices, local Aruba details, maths in long chains, and anything legal or medical.

ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all have a free tier, and they are more alike than different. Pick one and get good at it.

The 4 parts of a strong prompt

1. Who you are.
2. Who it’s for.
3. What you want.
4. How it should sound and look: length, tone, language, format.

Then don’t take the first answer. Reply “shorter”, “warmer”, “less formal”, “as a WhatsApp message” or “now in Papiamento”. The second or third version is usually the one you send.

Exercise 1: The message you owe

Pick a real message you’ve been putting off: a supplier who is late, a customer who hasn’t paid, a landlord, a polite no. No real one? Use the backup card in Handout A.

1. Type it the lazy way first (“write email to supplier late”) and keep the answer.
2. Write it again with the 4 parts. Fill in the blanks on Handout A.
3. Put the two answers side by side. Which one would you send?
4. Ask for one change: shorter, warmer, or as a WhatsApp message.

Leave out real names and phone numbers. Use “the customer” or a first name only.

Exercise 2: Three languages

Use Handout B.

1. Ask for the notice in English, Spanish and Papiamento in one message.
2. Swap with the person next to you. Native speakers check the Papiamento and the Spanish and circle anything wrong or unnatural.
3. Tell the AI what was wrong and ask it to fix it. Did the fix work?

Its English and Spanish are good. Its Papiamento is weaker: spelling drifts between Aruban and Curaçao forms, and some phrasing sounds translated. Always have a person check it.

Handout A: The 4 parts

I am ____________________ (who you are, what business)
This is for ____________________ (who will read it)
I want ____________________ (what it should do: ask, apologise, remind, say no)
Make it ____________________ (length, tone, language, email or WhatsApp)

Backup card if you have no real message:

I run a small snack bar in Noord. My bread supplier has been late 3 times this month, and yesterday the delivery came at 11:00 instead of 7:00. I want to stay friends with them but I need deliveries before 7:30 or I will look for someone else.

Handout B: Holiday notice (made-up business)

Pastechi Corner will be closed on the public holiday this Monday. We open again Tuesday at 6:30 as usual. Orders for Tuesday morning can be placed on WhatsApp until Sunday 8 pm. Thank you and enjoy the long weekend!

This week

Use it for 3 real tasks. For each one, note roughly how long it took and one thing it got wrong. Bring the notes to session 2.