Study app 'Duolingo' Review

Technology has changed the way we study. Through technology, student collaboration is now used widely, tests are done online and teaching materials are also placed online which shifts the responsibility from tutors to students, making them more independent. Now students are more familiar with VLEs(Virtual Learning Environments) like online journals, ebooks, blogs, plagiarism checkers, word processors, online library services and etc. Likewise, digital tools can make life easier for students - reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in specific.

Above is the initial screen when you first open the app 'Duolingo'.

For this week's assignment, I would like to introduce a study app called 'Duolingo' and explain the basic features of this application and write my own review about it, scrutinizing the useful/negative aspects of Duolingo.

Basic Features of Duolingo

1. Offers language courses in 23 different languages.

Duolingo is a language-learning app that offers language courses in 23 different languages. Therefore, you can choose whatever language you would like to learn.

2. Mimics the structure of video games in order to engage users.

▲ The app shows the current level of what you are in right now, and how many more lessons you should take in order to get to the new level. It resembles a lot of games, where you need some steps to "Level up" your character to get to the ultimate, boss level.

▲ Badges in Duolingo represent achievements that are earned from completing specific objectives or challenges. Wildfire, Champion, Big Spender, Wizard on the screenshot are the examples of the badges. Wildfire, for example, has 7 different tiers. You can earn the Wildfire badge if you constantly use the app and prolong your activities/language studies.

Tier 1: have a 2-day streak.

Tier 2: have a 7-day streak.

Tier 3: have a 14-day streak.

Tier 4: have a 30-day streak.

Tier 5: have a 40-day streak.

Tier 6: have a 50-day streak.

Tier 7: have a 75-day streak

▲ Duolingo also features a reward system where the users can acquire "lingots", an in-game currency that they can spend on features such as character customizations or bonus levels.

▲ On public leaderboards, users can compete against their friends or see how they stack up against the rest of the world. The level system that Duolingo uses is XP(experience points), a system that represents a user's skill level.

3. Offers various methods/styles of Questions

Duolingo offers various styles of questions that help improve all the four language skills(reading, writing, listening, speaking) such as: listening to the pronunciation, reading sentences, talking with language bots and voice recording, forming phrases by ordering words, matching images to words, translating a given sentence, and so on.

Below are the examples of the different styles of questions you will see in Duolingo. I changed the setting as if I were an English-speaker who wishes to learn basic Spanish.

▲ Forming phrases by ordering words.

▲ Type what you hear in the target language. You can also use the 'slow version' of audio if you feel the original speed is too fast. Also, if you are in a situation where you cannot listen to the audio, you can skip the question by touching the 'CAN'T LISTEN NOW' button and you will not receive this form of a question for an hour.

▲ Speak this sentence. The language bot recognizes your pronunciation immediately and will tell you whether you pronounced the phrase correctly or not.

▲ Translating English to Spanish.

4. Give Feedbacks for every answer (even to correct ones)

As you can see from these two slides above, even if you have the correct answer, you can still get helpful feedback. Since Duolingo gives feedback to every answer, learners using this application will pay attention once more to the answer key, thus understanding the key concepts of the language rules. Also, it gives out personified feedbacks like 'you have a typo in your answer' or 'pay attention to the accent' if you misspelled some words.

5. Community (Q&A Session) allows users to freely ask questions.

If you are still confused with the feedback, you can use this function called 'community' where you can find it easily on the feedback page. Before you move on to the next question, you can click this 'community' tab and ask questions freely and check out the answer by a fluent user(he/she can be a native speaker, language teacher, or just a more proficient learner).

How it is useful?

1. Motivates learners

Since Duolingo resembles a lot of game features, users of this app will take 'language learning' as a fun activity which can be a great motivation for them rather than feeling burdened or stressed.

In addition, since it constantly shows how many time/days left until I get to the next level, I can immediately calculate how much more do I have to engage in and makes me tuned in the app. Since it motivates the inner urge rather than giving the external stimulus, Duolingo leads to self-directed studying as well.

2. Easy to learn through repetition

Duolingo does not follow the 'lecture' style. Rather, it gives out the language directly to the learners, therefore, users can learn the language as if a baby is learning its mother tongue. Through endless trials and errors, you learn through repetition. The internalized AI system of Duolingo provides similar/same questions that you missed in the past periodically, thus making you correct by yourself without interruption.

3. You can have access to this app anytime, anywhere

Since you can easily use this application through smartphones, you can learn languages using your spare time. I have seen a lot of people on the subway or on a bus using Duolingo to study new languages. Since all the language lessons are only 3-5 minutes based, it is not a huge commitment and less a burden. Therefore, it facilitates a lot of language learners to easily access the app and learn the language quickly!

What are the limitations?

1. Useful for beginners ONLY

Although it is a great app for starters, it only promises to get users to a level between advanced beginner and early intermediate. Since it follows the same language acquisition process as a baby or an infant, it can only provide some basic level words/phrases, thus the learners cannot rely fully on this single app.

2. Impractical vocabulary, phrase

Words and phrases you get in this app are mostly impractical ones where you do not usually use in daily lives. You only learn phrases like 'She is a woman', 'He is a boy', 'There is an apple'. Thus, communication is impossible however you work hard through Duolingo.

3. Do not help with communicative skills

What is the purpose of language learning? Although everyone has different perspectives and needs, one thing is for sure: Language is for communication. People are learning new languages and try to master it in order to understand, comprehend, and then respond to it. This process is called 'interaction' and communicative purpose of language learning is therefore to be facilitated. However, Duolingo lacks of communicative function.

Too often people misunderstand that entry-level language learners (beginners) cannot learn communicative language because language for communicative functions are complex and requires certain amount background knowledge. However, this is not true since even infants and baby learn to speak and interact with their parents or people around even though they have little knowledge about the world. Even though Duolingo facilitates the basic level of language learning, it does not provide any communicative language skills.

My own reflection on this process of reviewing Duolingo

Through analyzing this study app Duolingo, I realized that technology has greatly impacted the way we study. When I was a kid, the only way I could get instant feedback was to study with an English tutor in real-time. When the English tutor was not around me, I could no longer get any feedback, thus had to wander around so-called 'English land', being confused. However, thanks to the advancement of technology, now we can easily use the language application that gives instant feedback, which lets learners know what is an important point and what are the things to be improved. I can say for sure that technology has helped a lot of learners at the starting point, removing stress and motivate them in a positive way. Still, we cannot rely wholly on technology since it needs some improvement. As a future language teacher, I realized that technology can be a great supplement that compensates some problems of offline learning, but should be cautious when using online-based learning tools. For example, I would first give a brief lecture about the basic structure/grammar of English. Then, I would give out a vocabulary list that students should know. Then, for a classroom activity, I will then use Duolingo as an entertaining task, dividing the students into two to three groups and have them compete with each other through Duolingo games.