You only need to look at the tens of millions of subscribers to wellness apps like Strava and Sleep Cycle, tracking step counts and hours of shut-eye, to know that when it comes to achieving our goals, we want the data. Language learning is no exception.
For the first time in language learning, AI can be used to gather data on students’ speech in real time. Until recently, it was only possible to analyze people’s language from self-study activities, but there was a black box around organic, conversational speaking. Now, AI can give us these insights – as long as you have access to the right data.
And that’s where EF Education First is unique, delivering more than 5,000 hours of online classes every day. When it’s hooked up to a data set of this scale, AI can identify students’ strengths and areas for improvement, measure who’s talking the most and who’s hanging back in group lessons, and flag ‘critical learning incidents’ – “the ‘a-ha!’ moments where a student suddenly understands something,” explains Dr David Bish, Head of Academic Affairs at EF Corporate Learning, EF Education First’s B2B arm.