Nunghatai Rangponsumrit, Ítaca Palmer
The advance and integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and many others in the field of education has opened up new opportunities for autonomous and personalised learning. However, this technological context also poses fundamental challenges including the need to develop critical reading and critical thinking skills in students. This article explores the relationship between critical reading, autonomous learning and the use of AI, and presents a study with twenty-five Thai B2 learners of Spanish as a foreign language (ELE). The aim is to analyse how the use of AI tools, mainly ChatGPT, can support autonomous learning of ELE. Students designed and followed personalised AI-supported study plans and reflected on their process through guided tasks. The results show that students developed greater metacognitive awareness and perceived an improvement in their language skills. In conclusion, it is recommended that the use of AI be accompanied by pedagogical mediation that fosters not only autonomy, but also a critical capacity to evaluate, select and question the information generated by these tools, so that their integration effectively contributes to the development of linguistic and cognitive competences.