Let's Add a New Language into Our Basket!

I have been interested in learning English since  I was 7 years old. It was all started by fangirling the most popular Dublin boyband "Westlife"! The idea of being able to talk to them was a real motivation for me to learn English word by word and tried to chain them in a sentence. I asked my mom to send me to an English center near my home. I never missed the classes! I remember I mostly did the task more than my teacher assigned me, I sometimes memorized the next chapter vocabulary because I loved the feeling when I knew more words and finally could understand a few parts of Westlife songs. If only it was possible to practice my English other than in the English center and school, I would have become an English user faster! 

I am glad to now know that my students or any language learners will have a chance to access high-quality language learning for free! all they need is the internet! one more time, the advancement of technology has made it possible to be an independent learner. We can learn a language anytime and anywhere by creating an account and choosing a language we wish to learn in an application called "Duolingo".

How Duolingo helps language learners 

You will learn the language from scratch. They will expose you to the repetition of words and phrases until you finally can feel how the language is structured. No, they will not explain a list of grammar rules, instead, they will let you discover it through the scaffolding they arranged so that you find the hints and learn the structure yourself.

At the beginner level, they drill the learners with comprehensible inputs, such as pictures and words coming together or a jumbled sentence with a picture hint. 

There is also audio that can be played repeatedly on each page of the learning section. This is very helpful for learning how the words are pronounced. At the end of the lesson section, the learned words will appear again in a form of a matching exercise, one of the ways to repeat the learning, so that the learners have a chance to recall the words and hopefully can help them to store the words in their memory. 

A new language, new unfamiliar sound! Listening is one of the challenging parts of language learning. 

During my English learning time, I often struggled to catch the sentences in a movie dialogue or news. I just let myself listen and listen again, pause, and replay it until I can get the words said. I wish I knew TubeQuizard at that time! wait ....what's TubeQuizard? (please wait for my next post hihiihi) 

Duolingo has a section that will help you to just practice your listening by tapping the words you hear!

Before you criticize the drilling technique, I am delighted to tell you that Duolingo can do more than that! There are online events you can attend to boost your foreign language skills. The events are mostly conducted to give you a place to try to communicate using your new language. The native speakers will facilitate the talk. You can choose the event you wish to attend, I would recommend you to check the learning level in the event so that you will find the best learning experience for you. No more excuse that you don't have any opportunity to use your new language! I can imagine the language learners will experience Long's (1983) conversational modifications during their participation in the events, such as repetitions of self or other, confirmation check, comprehension check, and clarification request. In my prediction, these experiences can encourage the learners to keep using their new language to communicate. 

 
 Yes, I know...this could be the longest post in my blog. but I can't just leave you wondering about this app 😎.

Duolingo still has some more offerings! 

If you wonder how your new language is used in a real-life context, you might want to visit the podcast section. There will be some podcasts available in Spotify, Google, or Apple which are connected to the app. You will also find the transcripts of the talk, so you can use them to practice your listening or to check your understanding. 

You don't need to wait for me to mention how much you need to pay to utilize the further feature of this app, because it is all free1 Whoaaaa! This app can be teachers' "enemy" because it may take some roles of teachers in language learning, but, to maintain peace, this app enables teachers to create classes and assigned the available exercises to their students. sounds like a good deal? lol

Duolingo communicates with the users by providing reminders, feedback, and record. Once you registered for language learning, you will be asked to manage your learning schedule. The app will ask your permission to remind you to learn in the schedule you have set. Next, the drilling comes together with reinforcements, like "nice job", "nicely done", "great", "amazing". "correction", etc. This behaviorism taste is expected to motivate the learners to keep going in their learning stages. The app will then give feedback to the learner on how well the learners master the newly learned words. The students can also see the record of their study commitment in a graph. 

The available features and the communication Duolingo offered above force learners to maintain their self-regulation in learning. I am convinced that this app can be used to promote students learning autonomy. However, I think that it will only work for highly motivated learners because the last lesson can be continued at any time (not only at the scheduled time). 

I have been using this app to learn Spanish this two weeks. Honestly, it is hard to find the limitation of this app. My learning goes step by step. The app provides me with scaffolding before I can produce short sentences or phrases. Even though some of the event section is charged, the price is affordable and reasonable. However, if you wish to use the assignment provided by Duolingo, you can only choose the available ones. Unfortunately, this app does not allow us to create our own or edit the available ones. It can limit the options since we may have various learning topics which are not covered by this app. 

So, Let's add a new language to our basket! you can make your account here and let me know if you find more limitations in this app 😁

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Images: https://www.pexels.com/

Screenshots: Doulingo