Duolingo

"Expand your world in 35+ languages with Duolingo, the language learning app for everyone." - Duolingo (2023a)

Duolingo is a language learning app, created in 2011. As indicated by the marketing taglines above, it supports courses on 35+ languages around the world. To ensure students are meeting learning outcomes, courses are designed with reference to the CEFR, also known as the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Duolingo, 2020).

Through the Duolingo app, languages courses are also gamified in a variety of ways (Duolingo, 2011):

• Leagues, While cosmetic only, it gives students the ability to "Level Up" as those with the highest points in a League are moved into the next

• XP, Experience Points used to Level Up from Bronze League to Silver League, Silver to Gold, on so on

• Leaderboards, Used to Compete with Friends and other Learners from Around the World

• Streaks, The number of days in a row with which you've completed a lesson

• Hearts, The number of mistakes you are afforded within a particular time period

• Gems, Premium currency which can be awarded by achieving in-game missions, used to buy streak guards, and so on

Implementation in the Classroom:

Duolingo could be used to support testing of students to learn English. As per Duolingo (2023b), Duolingo offers English tests which can be compared against several international standards of English testing such as TOEFL iBT, IELTS Academic , and CEFR. 

Duolingo can also support ELL learning itself, as their English courses are offered in various languages such as French, Farsi, Deutsch, and so on. The students can complete oral and reading comprehension lessons in their native language, something that would be difficult to facilitate if the teacher did not speak the student's primary language.

As per the the research of Loewan et. al. (2019), which will be further discussed in the section below, Duolingo does not give students confidence in their abilities to utiluze their learned languages. As such, teachers may want to use Duolingo as a Minds-On tool only, in order to initially engage students. After this, there should be a main instructional period whereby learning is made more personalized, and relevant to the students.

If teachers are familiar with the "levels" available in the application, and those levels are currently testing grammar which students should be familiar with, then Duolingo could also be used as an exit card to verify student learning at the end of a lesson.

How the Tool Enhances Student Learning:

Kreisa & Cristiano (as cited by Rosyidah et. al., 2023) found that the following aspects of Duolingo enhance students' motivation and achievement in language learning:

• Lessons are organized into progressively more difficult levels (we move from simple to complex ideas)

• Users can revisit mistakes and are given tips to address them (students work towards mastery)

• Levels, points, and leaderboard rankings serve as extrinstic motiviation to continue learning (the satisfaction which students feel from receiving these awards, will motivate them to keep learning - behavioural psychology)

• Listening skills are trained through a variety of listening application methods (listen-translating, listen-speaking, listen-arranging activities mean students engage with the content through a larger array of cognitive abilities)

• Daily reminder notifications, as set by the students (students are trained to learn at the same time everyday, and pick the time that is best for them)

In Rosyidah et., al.'s (2023) study of 32 students, their findings were significant enough to say Duolingo leads to better learning outcomes and listening proficiency in junior high school students. They find that the gamification of the learning was the largest factor in this improvement.

In Loewen et. al.'s research (2019), they found mixed results on the use of Duolingo in the classroom. While they praise the gamification methods and amount of engagement + motivation which Duolingo installs into learners, students reported repetitiveness of the tasks made them feel less competent in their learning. Although students would continue their Duolingo training, it became less of a learning opportunity and more of an exercise. So, Duolingo is good at having the students complete their Duolingo tasks, and despite there being a positive correlation between Duolingo training and test scores, students' confidence in their abilities did not keep up. As such, Duolingo is a tool with which teachers could likely start a lesson with, to keep engagement high, but for the main content of a lesson, teachers should teach something more personalized to the learners and what is relevant to them. In this way, students can use the languages in their everyday life, increasing confidence in their competencies.

References

Duolingo. (2010, March 24). Learn over 30+ languages for free with duolingo [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV2R1vWFg3w

Duolingo. (2020, February 27). Goldilocks and the CEFR levels which proficiency level is just right. https://blog.duolingo.com/goldilocks-and-the-cefr-levels-

which-proficiency-level-is-just-right

Duolingo. (2021, February).  Duolingo 101: How to learn a language on Duolingo https://blog.duolingo.com/duolingo-101-how-to-learn-a-language-on-duolingo/

Duolingo. (2023a, November). Duolingo Brand Narrative. https://design.duolingo.com/writing/brand-narrative#principles

Duolingo. (2023b, November). Duolingo English Test Understanding scores. https://englishtest.duolingo.com/institutions/scores

Loewen, S., Crowther, D., Isbell, D. R., Kim, K. M., Maloney, J., Miller, Z. F., & Rawal, H. (2019). Mobile-assisted language learning: A Duolingo case study. 

ReCALL, 31(3), 293–311. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0958344019000065

Rosyidah, U. J., Dewanti Laksmi, E., & Anugerahwati, M. (2023). Gamification in Duolingo App on improving English listening proficiency of junior high school 

students. ENGLISH FRANCA Academic Journal of English Language and Education, 7(1), 119. https://doi.org/10.29240/ef.v7i1.5377