Self-Audit Your Skills Like a Ninja: An Approach to Stimulate Critical Use of Digital Tools

Abstract: Student motivation often plateaus at upper intermediate level. Digital tools which are available easily online, allow students to get feedback on various quantitative aspects of their performance and set achievable, quantifiable goals. This article describes how a class of upper intermediate and advanced ESL students exploited various apps or sites to measure aspects of their performance such as reading level, reading speed, vocabulary size, spoken fluency and pronunciation. They were required to keep handwritten logs of what they discovered about their performance and submit handwritten reflections on the activity. It is suggested that this activity may help to raise students’ awareness, of both their own level, and how various language-learning sites and apps are designed. This can be termed a “ninja approach” to online learning, in which the learner decides what they want to find out, selects the app and grabs the output with a screenshot, as far as possible avoiding tracking or logging in. The sites range from the newest AI-assisted speech coach to simple data-base-driven vocabulary size measures. In the context of increasing AI-mediated control over various aspects of language learning, this combined analogue/digital, student-centered approach seeks to hand agency back to students.