Duolingo
Duolingo
Duolingo
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
Diploma thesis
Brno 2014
The diploma thesis deals with the e-learning education, especially with a new lan-
guage-learning portal called Duolingo. This innovative project is introduced, its learn-
ing system and strategies are described and analysed, the learning effectiveness of Du-
olingo as well as the public responses are critically evaluated by the support of the
reported Duolingo Effectiveness Study results. The awareness and the potential use of
Duolingo among the Czech language learners is examined by research. The future per-
spectives and proposals of this learning portal are suggested on the basis of the con-
ducted research.
ANOTACE
KEYWORDS
KLÍČOVÁ SLOVA
e-learning, učení cizích jazyků, inovativní jazykový výukový portál, aspekty učení,
strategie učení, efektivita studia cizích jazyků, spokojenost uživatelů
Declaration
I declare that I have written my thesis on my own and that I used the sources listed in
the bibliography. I agree that the work will be kept in the Masaryk University library
for study purposes.
I am very grateful to my supervisor Ailsa Marion Randall, M.A., and I would like to
thank her sincerely for giving me helpful and valuable advice. I appreciate her dedica-
tion and willingness to consult my thesis anytime I needed it.
CONTENTS
Bibliographical description
Declaration
Bibliographical description
Acknowledgements
Contents ......................................................................................................................... 6
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 8
I. THEORETICAL PART
1 E-learning as a method of learning ................................................................... 10
1.1 Development and definition of e-learning ....................................................... 10
1.2 E-learning forms .............................................................................................. 12
1.3 Reasons for using e-learning ........................................................................... 13
1.4 Methodical aspects of e-learning ...................................................................... 14
1.5 E-learning in learning languages ...................................................................... 15
2 Duolingo as the future in translations and learning languages ......................... 16
2.1 Definition of Duolingo ..................................................................................... 16
2.2 The primary aim of the project ......................................................................... 16
2.3 Functioning of the system and the early ideas .................................................. 17
2.4 The first idea and the early history ................................................................... 18
2.5 The Duolingo developers’ team........................................................................ 19
2.5.1 The founder’s professional resume ................................................................... 20
2.6 The translations resulting from Duolingo ......................................................... 20
2.6.1 Critical views on Duolingo translations; the advantages and disadvantages
of this translation system .................................................................................. 21
3 Learning languages on Duolingo ...................................................................... 24
3.1 The available languages .................................................................................... 24
3.2 The system of learning...................................................................................... 25
3.2.1 Gradual progress ............................................................................................... 25
3.2.1.1 Particular lesson schema – learning German .................................................... 26
3.2.2 Learning vocabulary ......................................................................................... 29
3.2.3 Speaking, listening and pronunciation .............................................................. 29
3.3 Monitoring progress and skills ......................................................................... 30
3.3.1 The skill page .................................................................................................... 30
3.3.2 Duolingo’s feedback system ............................................................................. 32
3.3.2.1 Discussion forums ............................................................................................ 33
6
3.4 Real text translations from the learners’ point of view..................................... 34
3.5 Motivation ........................................................................................................ 34
4 Evaluation of Duolingo from different perspectives ........................................ 37
4.1 Evaluation of Duolingo effectiveness – Duolingo Effectiveness Study........... 37
4.1.1 Selection of the eligible sample ........................................................................ 37
4.1.2 Course of the Study .......................................................................................... 38
4.1.3 Duolingo effectiveness – summary of the main results .................................... 39
4.1.3.1 Factors affecting the effectiveness.................................................................... 40
4.1.4 Users’ satisfaction with the learning on Duolingo ........................................... 41
4.1.5 Limitations of the study and future recommendations ..................................... 42
4.2 Duolingo as a successful e-learning program from the lay general public
point of view ..................................................................................................... 43
4.3 Critical view on Duolingo learning system ...................................................... 44
4.3.1 Deficiencies related to the conversational aspects of language ........................ 44
4.3.2 Deficiencies related to the translations within the lessons ............................... 45
4.3.3 Limited language availability ........................................................................... 46
4.3.4 Uncertain future of Duolingo............................................................................ 46
4.3.5 Unsuccess of Duolingo due to individual unsuitability .................................... 46
II. PRACTICAL PART
5 The awareness and use of Duolingo for learning languages among the
Czech public ..................................................................................................... 49
5.1 Characteristics of the research problem ............................................................ 49
5.2 Aim of the research ........................................................................................... 49
5.3 The research sample ......................................................................................... 50
5.4 The research method ......................................................................................... 50
5.5 Determinig the hypotheses ............................................................................... 51
5.6 Deficiencies described by the respondents who already use Duolingo ............ 51
5.7 Summary and evaluation of the obtained data .................................................. 52
5.8 Verification of the hypotheses .......................................................................... 55
5.9 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 59
6 Constructive suggestions to improve the current conditions ............................ 60
7 Future prognosis of the Duolingo translating and educational system ............. 63
Summary ...................................................................................................................... 65
Sources ........................................................................................................................ 66
List of appendices ........................................................................................................ 69
7
INTRODUCTION
This thesis is mainly focused on the new language learning portal Duolingo,
which enables free online language learning. It is divided in two big parts – theoretical
and practical.
The first chapters of the theoretical part describe e-learning more generally,
point the options and consider the advantages and disadvantages of it. The second part
is devoted to the new language learning portal Duolingo, its methodology and learning
system. Duolingo is explored, critically considered and evaluated in terms of appropri-
ateness and quality of an educational portal, which represents the goal of the theoreti-
cal part.
The practical part includes a research regarding the awareness and use of Duo-
lingo for learning languages among the Czech public. The goal is to monitor, assess
and determine the extent of using Duolingo in the Czech Republic, to inform about
this new possibility in language learning and based on this research to bring the con-
structive suggestions how to improve its current deficiencies. In conclusion there are
presented the future prognosis of the Duolingo translating and educational system.
8
I. THEORETICAL PART
9
1 E–learning as a Method of Learning
The first part of the thesis is devoted to e-learning as such. Before defining this
term it is worth to say that in the recent age e-learning reached and is still reaching a
significant expansion in terms of new technologies, modern teaching and also lifestyle
habits and trends of this modern age. It entered into education as well as in other areas
of our life.
It is worth to mention that the growth of e-learning goes hand in hand with the
growth in importance of lifelong learning. “Relevant features of this movement are:
The birthplace of e-learning is America, where also the first definitions were
formed. The definition of e-learning is very broad and complex, therefore there is no
one unique but it is dependent on a particular view on e-learning. E-learning can be
seen from different perspectives, which are all parts of it and can be included in the
broad concept of e-learning. These are:
1
Mason, R. a Rennie, F. Elearning: the key concepts. London: Routledge, 2006, xxxviii,
158 s. ISBN 0415373069.
10
- Web-based Learning (WBT) - This involves online learning, which repre-
sents only one part of the TBL. It is an education conducted through internet,
intranet or extranet. Because it represents a large area of e-leaning, it is
viewed as a separate group. 2
This distinction as well as the definitions derived from it, has its roots in the
USA. In the Czech Republic the term e-learning began to be used at the end of the last
century. Due to fast development of information and communication technologies it
first began to be used in higher education (at universities) and in business education
(in companies). It has been expanded rapidly and now it is used at least in partly in any
kind of education.
In this definition the connection between computers and net is missing. Pre-
cisely this aspect – online learning - is necessary for a quality e-learning for these days
(it is now even preferred). Therefore it would be better to define e-learning as follows:
“e-Learning is understood as multimedia support for the educational process with the
use of modern information and communication technologies, which is usually imple-
mented through computer networks. Its primary responsibility is the free and unre-
stricted access to education in any time and space.” 4
2
Barešová, A. E-learning ve vzdělávání dospělých. 1. vyd. Praha: VOX, 2003, 174 s.
ISBN 8086324273.
3
Průcha, J., Walterová, E. a Mareš, J. Pedagogický slovník. 3. rozšíř. a aktualiz. vyd.
Praha: Portál, 2001, 322 s. ISBN 8071785792.
4
Kopecký, K. E-learning (nejen) pro pedagogy. Vyd. 1. Olomouc: Hanex, 2006, 125 s. ISBN
8085783509
11
1.2 E-learning Forms
2. Off-line e-learning – this form does not require the connection to a com-
puter network or to any other computer, the study materials are obtained by
using the storage media – CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or formerly diskettes.
This form of e-learning is very often combined with the present learning at
school or course, this combination is so called blended learning.5
5
Zlámalová, H. Distanční vzdělávání a eLearning: učební text pro distanční studium. Vyd. 1.
Praha: Univerzita Jana Amose Komenského Praha, 2008, 144 s. ISBN 9788086723563.
12
1.3 Reasons for Using E-learning
To learn with a kind of electronic support has its advantages and disad-
vantages. Beneficial is that it enables to take lessons when it suits the learner without
being dependent on others (other students, lecturers) and place of the instruction
(asynchronous approach); a learner can return individually to information that was not
fully understood (opposed to lectures); its operation is mostly cheaper than in the clas-
sic way; a big advantage is also a more illustrative approach (it uses images, anima-
tions, videos, and especially hypertext links to additional sources of information -
charts, photos and real footage from the camera location).
On the other hand it is worth to stress that E-learning cannot in any way re-
place a classical mode of teaching (teacher-led instruction). That is why many experts
see its future in the combined method, sometimes called mixed teaching (lecture + E-
learning). Among the largest gaps can be mentioned the insufficient interaction; lim-
ited exchange of information and experience among learners; in case of a misunder-
standing of the content it does not enable a teacher to reformulate the interpretation so
that it can be more easily understood; reading from the screen is slower than from the
paper; it can be less suitable for the auditory types of learners; also it is unsuitable for
persons, who have no experience with working on a computer and predictably it is
dependent on owning a certain kind of devices, hardware and software equipment.
6
Zlámalová, H. Distanční vzdělávání a eLearning: učební text pro distanční studium. Vyd. 1.
Praha: Univerzita Jana Amose Komenského Praha, 2008, 144 s. ISBN 9788086723563 .
13
Among the most often pointed disadvantages we can mention:
7
Zlámalová, H. Distanční vzdělávání a eLearning: učební text pro distanční studium. Vyd. 1.
Praha: Univerzita Jana Amose Komenského Praha, 2008, 144 s. ISBN 9788086723563.
8
Vejvodová, J. Metodická příručka pro autory on-line kurzů. Plzeň: Západočeská univerzita v
Plzni, 2004, 41 s.
14
1.5 E–learning in Learning Languages
Learning foreign languages is more than anything else connected with every
day activities and life situations (we need to speak, listen, read and write…). In case of
English this is done automatically when working with technologies, PCs, Internet as a
side effect. However, if we want to learn any other foreign language e-learning offers
a wide range of options in this field. Therefore, e-learning is widely used in learning
languages.
For the development of the reading skill (and translating skill), there is also
innumerable number of interesting texts on the Internet (short texts, articles, or whole
books). A learner can choose the area they are interested in, which significantly sup-
ports the motivation.
Less amazing it is with the productive skills – i. e. with the speaking and writ-
ing. These cannot be learned by receiving of the offered, above all on the Internet (as
the receptive skills), they require the activity of a learner. In practice it means that it is
necessary to use a certain educational program or an online portal with the relevant
content, which enables a learner to produce, insert, create, fill in the exercises, record
the sounds. Such a system must have elaborated its own content, methodology, feed-
back, evaluation and the other aspects which are necessary for a successful learning.
15
2 Duolingo as the Future in Translations and Learning Languages
The primary idea of Duolingo is very deep. It combines human and computing
power to solve problems neither people nor computers could solve alone. Human
computation is a growing research area that studies how to harness this combined
power.
9
http://blog.duolingo.com/
16
tional, so that students solve the problems at the same time as they learn. With mil-
lions of people learning online, education could provide a powerful motivator for par-
ticipation in distributed human computation. This project will demonstrate that educa-
tion allows significantly more complex problems to be attacked with human computa-
tion than has been possible with previous paradigms for human computation. The pro-
ject will also explore whether human computation can be a motivator for education.”
10
This idea has set a goal to translate the entire Internet and make it available for
all the people. “More than a hundred million recaptchas are solved each day. The
founder of Duolingo said a million users could translate all of Wikipedia’s English
entries into Spanish in 80 hours.” 11
The priority of Duolingo is that it cleverly tries to motivate the people by learn-
ing a foreign language. Anyone who wants to learn a new language can join it and
help to translate the Internet. The computers are estimated to do not accurately work in
translations for the next 20 to 30 years. Human beings, however, must be motivated to
10
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1054630
11
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/423894/translating-the-web-while-you-learn/
17
translate a large amount of text. It would be too expensive to translate the whole web
in this way. Therefore there is an incentive aspect to learn a foreign language.
Duolingo was launched last year by Carnegie Mellon University Professor Luis
von Ahn and CMU doctoral student Severin Hacker. As mentioned in the previous
chapter, the system of Duolingo is based on recaptcha. It all started in 2005 at Carne-
gie Mellon University where the graduated student Luis von Ahn had an idea of a
game. This game was one of the first examples of crowdsourcing, he had people look-
ing at images and labeling them to improve image search. The game was acquired in
2005 by Google and renamed Google Image Labeler. Then in 2007 already titled Pro-
fessor von Ahn had another idea. He realized that the people waste their time by typ-
ing the captchas and it could be beneficially used for digitizing books. This recaptcha
project was bought by Google again in 2009. 12
Then along with his Ph.D. student Severin Hacker they started to develop this
project. Instead of getting people to do something that feels like unpaid work they
changed it into a learning experience. ”The solution was to transform language transla-
tion into something that millions of people want to do and that helps with the problem
of lack of bilinguals: language education.” 13
12, 13
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/12/duolingo/
18
2.5 The Duolingo Developers’ Team
As can be noticed from the previous part of the text, the founder of Duolingo is
Luis von Ahn together with his graduated student Severin Hacker. The current devel-
opers´ team is now composed of 27 people including mainly the software engineers
and language experts. Some of the important names of the early founders are Antonio
Navas, Vicki Cheung, Marcel Uekermann, Brendan Meeder, Hector Villafuerte, and
Jose Fuentes. These original founders can be seen on the Fig. 1.
Luis von Ahn and Severin Hacker together with the other members of the team
started to work on Duolingo and developed the effective language learning portal.
During the formation of Duolingo in its present form they faced a great deal of chal-
lenges. According to their utterances the biggest challenge was the multilingual nature
of Duolingo, since the users with the keyboard layouts intended for English cannot
easily generate special characters used in other languages such as the umlaut in Ger-
man. Therefore the developers embedded a considerable amount of effort to improve
14
http://twitpic.com/4sjlpm
19
the interface including developing a fast and intuitive virtual keyboard for generating
these characters.15
Luis von Ahn was born in 1979 in Guatemala City where he also grew up. He
attended the American School of Guatemala, from which he graduated in 1996. He
studied and obtained a Ph. D. from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005. His accom-
plishments in the field have been recognized worldwide including through a 2006
MacArthur Fellowship and by Spanish-language Foreign Policy magazine, which last
year named him as the most influential new thought leader of Latin America and
Spain. In 2000 he succeeded with the already mentioned early work on captchas. This
brought him a large interest among the public. In July 2006 he gave a talk at Google
on Human Computation – crowdsourcing, where he was watched by over a million
viewers. In 2007 von Ahn invented recaptcha, which is a new form of captcha that
also helps to digitize books. This product was sold to Google in 2009 and is currently
used by over 100 000 websites and is transcribing over 40 million words per day. In
2011 he was awarded the A. Nico Habermann development chair in computer science
(this award is given to a junior faculty member of unusual promise in School of Com-
puter Science every three years). Von Ahn is now an entrepreneur and an associate
professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He was
also awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (the „genius grant“) in 2006 and later he ob-
tained more different awards. He has also been named one of the 50 Best Brains in
Science by Discover Magazine. From 2011 is von Ahn working on Duolingo. With his
full attention devoted to Duolingo and the concept of a universally readable Internet
was communicated to the public that the world should not expect to see any new ideas
out of him soon. 16
15
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/423894/translating-the-web-while-you-learn/page/2/
16
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/ashton-kutcher-backs-cmu-duos-startup-duolingo-
641086/
20
When considering this whole system an important question regarding the cre-
ated translations may arise. The following lines indicate the strengths and weaknesses
of this translation system. To teach the users a language Duolingo uses a combination
of computer exercises and real-world texts from the Internet. Each learner inputs their
own translation, which they consider being the best translated, Duolingo merges the
best translations and chooses through an algorithm the most correct and common one.
As feedback for the users they can search the words if they need clues for their transla-
tions and the program automatically recognizes the obvious mistakes.
Users’ attempts to translate a phrase are later voted on by other users, then Du-
olingo compiles input from multiple users to make its final translations. In a talk given
at a recent conference at Carnegie Mellon was said that the results “are as accurate as
translations from professional language translators.” 17
17
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/423894/translating-the-web-while-you-learn/
21
As an example of translating a piece of text through Duolingo see Fig. 2:
That the system is genuinely accurate can be seen from the picture above. The
second sentence was translated by a professional translator and the third was done by
Duolingo.
Duolingo has a big advantage in comparison with other language tools. It is for
free and therefore available for everyone. This means its potential audience is enor-
mous, encompassing anyone with a computer. In addition, in recent years the system
was made accessible by iPads and iPhones and they plan to make it accessible by mo-
bile phones, which would increase its reach by an enormous number of potential users.
On the other hand some of the critics raised an interesting idea: “Democratizing lan-
guage learning is a worthy goal. But it’s worth remembering the old adage that if a
web service is free, you are the product being sold.” 19
18
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678985/how-the-creator-of-captcha-will-translate-the-entire-internet
19
http://hackingportuguese.com/2013/05/review-duolingo/
22
This argument by the way opened a lively and turbulent online discussion, a
large number of Duolingo users and admirers responded immediately and defended
Duolingo by their own positive experience. More of these issues relating to learning
effectiveness and popularity of this system contains the chapter 3 The Evaluation of
Duolingo from Different Perspectives.
It is highly probable that this translating system has also its disadvantages. As
the most significant ones the unreliable users are seen. The critics say that learners
inevitably make mistakes, so the system requires a number of people working on and
checking each sentence before declaring the translation correct. Von Ahn insists Duo-
lingo can match professional translators for quality, which is still seen very sceptically.
A considerable amount of users have the opinion that anything that relies solely on
learners will limit the number of experts who will participate. Some critics who do not
see the future of Duolingo very positively say that it will work fine for simple sentenc-
es but in cases of nuanced meanings the learners will struggle with it. 20
The problem in translation may also occur by use of idiomatic expressions, the
bane of automated translation services may also cause problems. “Google, for exam-
ple, translates the Spanish idiom “nunca llueve a gusto de todos” as “it never rains to
everyone's taste”, whereas a professional translator would provide something like “you
cannot please everyone”. It remains to be seen whether Duolingo’s learners can do as
good a job.” (ibid.)
20
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328476.200-learn-a-language-translate-the-web.html
23
3 Learning Languages on Duolingo
The following chapters are focused on the methodical learning aspects and di-
dactic principles, which are necessary for the successful learning of languages. The
learning system of Duolingo is examined in detail below and evaluated in accordance
with the language learning principles, consequently the possibilities of using this
learning system are described.
For the Czech learners it means that they can learn for example German
through English so far. The Czech is not available on Duolingo yet. However, this
“duolingual“ system is more effective because the learners (mainly those whose moth-
er language is different from English) can try to think in English, discuss and deal with
things in a foreign language.
24
way to let users add new languages themselves. There will be a certain model, which
would ensure that only one single person wouldn’t be able to start a language course,
they would need to involve enough people interested and supporting the plan.
From the discussion available at Duolingo blog the above mentioned interest in
adding particular languages can be read. The other required languages are mainly Chi-
nese, Japanese or Swedish. The selected contributions from the discussion and com-
ments regarding the requirements and wishes for adding the new languages can be
seen in the Appendix 1 - Contributions in Discussion Regarding the Wishes for Add-
ing of New Languages.
This chapter describes the system of learning a foreign language through Duo-
lingo. As mentioned in the previous chapters about e-learning methodology, every
learning system must have elaborated a certain number of methodological aspects,
which ensure the successful learning. These aspects, e.g. monitoring the progress, mo-
tivation, feedback, vocabulary and some others are described below.
25
The Duolingo lessons tree can be seen on the Fig. 3:
21
Fig. 3 Duolingo lessons tree
The exercises within a lesson are created so that a learner can develop the pro-
ductive skills as well as the receptive ones. For a more accurate image of the learning
process authentic lesson of German language is analysed in the following lines.
21
http://dailytechslife.blogspot.de/2012/11/duolingoeasy-and-free-way-to-learn.html
26
When an account on Duolingo is created and the settings are done (it is neces-
sary there to set up a language, which should be learned and the acquired one, in
which the learning will be carried out) there is a lesson tree in the middle of a Duolin-
go page (illustrated by Fig. 3). The lesson three naturally begins with lesson called
Basics 1. After choosing this first lesson the five sub-lessons must be completed or a
test must be passed. The test enables the advanced users to go through a lesson quick-
ly. The number of test attempts is limited. During fulfilling a test a learner has three
possibilities to make a mistake, which is illustrated by three symbols of heart in the
upper right corner, otherwise the test must be done again from the beginning. Similar-
ly, when completing a lesson there are limited possibilities to make a mistake. For
completing the sub-lessons or passing the test there are points given according to a
learner’s success. Before practising a lesson there is a possibility to read and learn the
explanation of the lesson-related piece of theory and grammatical rules, which are
available in the lower left corner of the web page. The theory is explained in a clear
way, simply and practically. For better awareness there is an authentic explanation of
the grammar from lesson Basic 1 of German language in the Appendix 2.
- at the first level there are: Basic 1, Basic 2 – these are requirements for
the lessons on the level 2, which are:
- Common Phrases, Food, Animals
- the third level are Plurals
- the fourth: Adjectives – Predicative, Clothing
- the fifth: Verbs – Present 1
- after these five lessons there is a shortcut (illustrated by a key), where a
learner can take three attempts to unlock the following lessons without
passing these five previous in case he/she is more advanced
- sixth: Nominative pronouns, Accusative Pronouns
- seventh: Family
- eighth: Household, Conjunctions, Questions
- ninth: Dative Case, Numbers
27
- tenth: Dative Pronouns, Travel, Negatives
- again after the tenth lesson there is a shortcut
- eleventh: People
- twelfth: Colors, Formal You, Occupations
- thirteenth: Comparisons, Qualifiers
- fourteenth: Adjectives – Predicative 2, Prepositions
- fifteenth: Medical, Verbs – Present 2
- sixteenth: Dates and Time, Feelings
- nineteenth: Adverbs 1
- twentieth: Frequency, Verbs - Modal
- twenty-first: Nature, Genitive Case
- twenty-second: Adjectives – Nominative 1, Adjectives – Accusative
- twenty-third: Adjectives – Dative
- shortcut
- twenty-fourth: Adjectives – Nominative 2, Places, Adverbs 2
- twenty-fifth: Verbs – Preterite, Verbs – Present Perfect, Verbs Past
Perfect
- twenty-sixth: Objects, Communication
- twenty-seventh: Verbs - Future 1
- twenty-eighth: Education, Science, Verbs - Future Perfect
- twenty-ninth: Verbs Reflexive
- shortcut
- thirtieth: Business 1, Language
- thirty-first: Abstract Objects 1, Verbs - Present 3
- thirty-second: Verbs – Future 2, Verbs – Conditional
- thirty-third: Abstract Objects 2, Verbs – Conditional Perfect
- thirty-fourth: Business 2
- thirty-fifth: Sports, Spiritual, Arts
- thirty-sixth: Passive Voice, Verbs – Imperative, Politics
- thirty-seventh: Abstract Objects 3
- thirty-eighth: Abstract Objects 4, Verbs – Conditional 2, Verbs – Pre-
sent 4 22
22
http://www.duolingo.com/
28
From the above listed column the continuity and complexity of grammar can
be seen, which is by the way quite complicated in the German language. For opening
each new lesson it is required to have finished the previous one. From the lessons at
the same level is mostly possible to choose.
While browsing the lessons a learner can come across some pronunciation
tasks where they are required to rewrite a sentence according to the dictation which
they hear, and thereby they develop the listening and writing skills. The dictated sen-
tence can be played repeatedly, a learner can choose from the two options – slower
speed of speaking or faster version of it.
This system works even vice versa, i. e. a learner is required to read a sentence
aloud with the right pronunciation, the sentence is recorded and if judged to be correct
the lesson is continuing by the next task, otherwise it must be repeated (of course with
the loss of one heart). This is important for development of the speaking skill. It is
necessary to mention that these conversational aspects such as speaking and listening
unfortunately have some deficiencies, which are analysed in the chapter 3.3.1. Defi-
ciencies Related to the Conversational Aspects of Language.
29
3.3 Monitoring Progress and Skills
One of the most significant and motivating aspects when learning anything is
the possibility to see the success, progress and development. Providing the feedback,
evaluate and correct mistakes are the necessary tasks of each teaching subject. This
learning project has an interesting way of recording the process is education. Students
can learn gradually step by step and monitor their results and progress. The skill points
illustrated as a yellow coin and the words learned illustrated as a letter W in the blue
circle can be seen on the right side.
30
For better monitoring of the learners’ skills there is a skill page, which can be
seen on Fig. 4:
In the lower right part of the page there is a detailed overview of the acquired vocabulary. All
the words learned in a lesson can be seen and evaluated according to the learner’s attempts in
this vocabulary section and also on the Vocabulary page, which is described above, in the
preceeding chapter 2.2.2 Learning Vocabulary.
23
http://blog.duolingo.com/
31
3.3.2 Duolingo’s Feedback System
When the developer’s team started working on Duolingo, they noticed that
most of language learning methods outside of the classroom had not developed any
appropriate system of feedback. Some of them never provided the learners with any
feedback (for instance the books or the audio tapes from the 1980s), the other ones
which were considered to be more interactive only provided feedback on single words
or multiple choice questions. Giving the most detailed feedback possible is highly
beneficial for learning. The disadvantage and also the reason why the most of methods
do not provide this is that to indicate whether a correct sentence was formed is very
difficult because there are many different ways how to say the same thing. To provide
an example: the Spanish sentence “Tengo una lámpara más vieja que esa en mi casa"
has over 500 correct translations to English, which range from “I have a lamp that is
older than that one at my house" to “At home I have got one lamp older than that.”
(ibid.)
The Duolingo team spent last few months working on a detailed feedback sys-
tem that aims to tell the learners exactly what they did wrong. If they enter, for exam-
ple, “Das Mädchen isst ein Apfel” as a German translation for “The girl eats an ap-
ple,” Duolingo tells them (like a human teacher would) that they should have used
“einen” because Apfel is a masculine noun. See the Fig. 5 below:
32
Fig. 5 Duolingo Correction System 24
It is also pleasant to mention that Duolingo, like a sensible teacher, does not
penalize for small typos, e. g. when entering “boosk” instead of “books”.
24
http://blog.duolingo.com/
33
tial problems or disagreements, make suggestions for improvement or provide another
kind of help. The learners find it beneficial: “I liked that every single exercise linked
to its own discussion thread where there were often knowledgeable native speakers on
25
hand to answer questions.”
Such a discussion concerning the lesson grammar problems can be seen in the
Enclosure 3.
As can be detected from the previous chapters of the thesis, Duolingo is con-
cerned with the real translations. For this purpose has Duolingo, inter alia, a separated
translation page called Immersion where a learner can immerse and read, submit and
translate the real articles. The articles can be edited and evaluated. There is a possibil-
ity to choose among a number of articles from different background, e. g. Art and Lit-
erature, Design, Economy and Finances, Curiosities, Fitness and Health.
The most beneficial of this system is that a learner can not only translate and
read the articles but he/she can also see and read how the articles were translated by
the others (by some more advanced learners or native speakers), compare the opinions,
consider or discuss the possibilities.
3.5 Motivation
As can be noticed in the previous chapters, the whole system of learning itself
is highly motivating. In particular, it is the model of gradual improvement, monitoring
of the learning skills and the feedback. “Users can acquire points for returning to the
site every day and Duolingo uses a set of algorithms to re-enforce vocabulary and
grammar according to rules that will maximize mental retention.” 26
25
http://hackingportuguese.com/2013/05/review-duolingo/
26
http://newtech.about.com/od/Tech-Startups/a/Startup-Profile-Duolingo.htm
34
There are also some minor motivating aspects, e. g. the fast tests allowing to
pass a lesson easily, the limited attempts for a lesson or test, which means the limited
possibilities to make a mistake during completing a lesson or test. More accurately, in
a test there are three possibilities, in a lesson three or more. These are illustrated by the
appropriate number of symbols of heart in the upper right corner otherwise the lesson
must be done again from the beginning. Then, for instance, there is a possibility to win
a golden cup after finishing a lesson. One of the newest actualization is a Duolingo
coach, which like a virtual teacher reminds a learner via email, follows the course of
learning, praises or admonishes. The Duolingo creators found a model in the success
of personal trainers and this new coach in visual form of an owl also encountered great
success among the learners. These aspects may seem to be unimportant, but right these
they the ones that make Duolingo different from the others learning portals. This “Du-
olingo game” made a large amount of people dependent on it (similarly as Facebook,
twitter or other social networks). The learning online itself provides a sufficient level
of motivation. “A hard thing when learning a language is just staying motivated. A
large fraction of people want to learn a language but at end of day it is hard to do it.“ 27
The ability to translate real-life content and stories has proven to be a strong factor
in helping users remember what's learned, Mr. von Ahn said. “When you are doing the real-
world stuff, such as reading a news report in German or French, you really feel like you are
accomplishing something," he said in a press release. "It reinforces why you are working to
understand this new language." 28
27
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/423894/translating-the-web-while-you-learn/
28
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/ashton-kutcher-backs-cmu-duos-startup-duolingo-
641086/
35
The next point regarding motivation is the rapid development of the learning
possibilities. At the beginning it was possible „only“ to learn online, then it could be
uploaded to a computer and available offline, now the high level of motivation espe-
cially for the young learners is represented by the availability on modern communica-
tion devices. It is possible to learn also on the new technological advances such as
iPad or iPhone or tablets and smartphones, which is highly popular these days. For the
graphical design of the portal Duolingo on these devices see Fig. 6:
The modification of the visualization for new media was carried out by opti-
mizing the previous stretched phone version to a new application for the bigger screen.
Among actualizations there is, for instance, a new side-bar that enables to see immedi-
ately the Duolingo statistics or leaderboards of friends. Then, there was also added a
landscape mode, which adapts the screen and therefore enables to hold a device in any
29
http://blog.duolingo.com/
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way possible. Next steps in updating these features are planned, above all already
mentioned offline mode and speaking exercises.
For a learner there is an option to ask for a link for their kind of device right
through the Duolingo, consequently the link will be send by email.
The participants of the research were at least 18 years old, native speakers of
English, not from Hispanic origin, not advanced users of Spanish. The initial sample
37
was taken from the voluntary Duolingo learners of Spanish language. There were 386
eligible participants, from which the initial sample was randomly selected. After some
selection tests, the initial random sample consisted of 196 people. 30
Their age and gender distribution can be seen in the Appendix 3 – Age and
Gender Distribution.
The participants took one Spanish language test in the beginning of the study
and one test at the end. The test results were measured in points (the higher the better).
The study lasted 8 weeks, the research team sent e-mail reminders two times a week to
the participants with information about how much time they have used Duolingo each
week. The initial target for this study was to use Duolingo at least 30 hours for the two
months of the study. The people who met all these requirements were 88 at the end,
which created the final study sample. (ibid.)
Their age and gender distribution can be seen in the Appendix 3 – Age and
Gender Distribution.
During the studying the people had the possibility to indicate, what they used
the most when spending their time on Duoligo. The table below shows the preferred
activities and the division of their study time:
30
http://static.duolingo.com/s3/DuolingoReport_Final.pdf
31
http://static.duolingo.com/s3/DuolingoReport_Final.pdf
38
The above mentioned numbers in the table show the popularity of activities of-
fered by Duolingo. From this table is obvious that the most preferred activity was
completing the lessons.
The average study time was about 22 hours with 2 hours as the lowest and 133
hours as the highest. A quarter of the participants studied between 2 and 8 hours, and a
quarter of them have 30 hours or more including 7 people with 50 hours or more. The
distribution of the study time can be seen on the graph below:
32
http://static.duolingo.com/s3/DuolingoReport_Final.pdf
39
4.1.3 Duolingo Effectiveness – Summary of the Main Results
Usually, in these kinds of studies with two measures (initial and final test), a
simple measure of the progress is computed and analyzed - it is the difference score
between the final and initial score. The problem with the progress measured as differ-
ence score is that it does not take into account how much time each participant actual-
ly studied. For example in this study, the study time varied a lot - from 2 hours to 133
hours for the two months. That is why a more reliable and analytical measure of pro-
gress was constructed – a new indicator is the ratio of the amount of progress (the dif-
ference score) divided by the time of study (in hours). For example a participant with
20 hours of study and improvement of 40 points from the initial to the final test will
have an effectiveness measure of 40/20=2. The resulting number 2 means that this
person obtained 2 points per one hour of study. This is a more objective measure of
the progress, because it takes into account the two most important elements - time for
study and improvement. (ibid.)
The table below shows the difference in points reached in the initial and final
test. On average there was an improvement of 91.4 points.
Improvement
Statistics Initial Results Final Results
(Final – Initial)
Mean (std) 162.5 (116.5) 253.9 (110.5) 91.4 (88.0)
Median 161 262.5 81.5
Min 0 0 -57
Max 405 539 341
N 88 88 88
33
http://static.duolingo.com/s3/DuolingoReport_Final.pdf
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Also in this study were investigated and described some factors, which could
influence the effectiveness. The examiners discovered that there were no statistically
significant differences by racial groups, but there were differences in gender - men had
better progress than women. Then, there were some differences in progress by age
groups; the 31- 40 years old group had the highest results. There were expected the
differences between the education groups, the participants with the MA/PhD were
estimated to have the highest progress but these differences were not statistically sig-
nificant. Another factor for higher effectiveness was the initial level of knowledge of
Spanish, the beginners should have the highest progress, the advanced learners the
lowest. There was no effect on progress of the presence or absence of relatives or
friends who spoke Spanish. Also the type of employment did not affected the progress.
It is known that the personal motivation can be a determining aspect in any activity in
general. The same applies to the learning of languages. From this study is obvious that
the only significant factor was the reason for studying Spanish. The best progress was
achieved by people studying for travel with an average improvement of 17.6 points per
one hour. The people who studied for personal interest or school had the least progress
- 5.7 points per one hour. (ibid.)
The users’ reasons for studying compared to the effectiveness of learning can
be seen in the table below:
Effectiveness
Reason N
Mean (std)
Travel 10 17.6 (22.7)
Business/Work 16 11.4 (15.7)
Personal Interest or School 62 5.7 (7.0)
Total 88 8.1 (12.1)
34
http://static.duolingo.com/s3/DuolingoReport_Final.pdf
41
The satisfaction and the feeling of usefulness is in most cases the most signifi-
cant aspect from the learners’ point of view. At the end of the study the participants
were asked to complete an exit survey with questions related above all to their experi-
ence with Duolingo. The results of this survey are reported in the table:
Strong-
Neither Disagree Strongly
Do you agree with the follow- lyDisa- Disagree Agree
nor Agree Agree
ing statement? gree
Percent
Duolingo was easy to use 4.5 37.9 57.6
Duolingo was helpful in study-
ing Spanish 7.6 40.9 51.5
I enjoyed learning Spanish
with Duolingo 3.0 9.1 45.5 42.4
I am satisfied with Duolingo 4.5 16.7 40.9 37.9
If combined the “Agree” and “Strongly Agree” answers it can be stated that
95.5% of Duolingo users consider it easy to use, 92.4% think that Duolingo helps
them study Spanish, 87.9% enjoy learning Spanish with Duolingo and 78.8% are satis-
fied with Duolingo.
As one of the most important deficiencies is seen the fact that the results of this
study cannot be generalized for the languages other than Spanish. It would be possible
to expect similar results with other languages available on Duolingo, but there are not
enough empirical studies in the literature to prove it. As expected, many people had
problems with their self-management and orderliness and thus their use of Duolingo
for the two months of study was very uneven. Some of them studied very irregularly,
e.g. a few hours in the beginning of the study followed by long periods of inactivity.
Therefore, it is highly recommended that Duolingo develops some kind of individual
online clock which shows how much time each user spends by date or week... Because
some people do not have an accurate notion about how much time they have spent
42
studying a foreign language. If they spent less than two hours studying for two months
their expectations for improvement, naturally, cannot be very high. (ibid.)
As can be realized from the previous chapters, Duolingo has become very suc-
cessful in learning languages all around the world. It has a large number of users and
admirers, which is still continuously growing. There are a few opinions or experience
of Duolingo users presented in the following lines, which represents some kind of
feedback necessary for the future improvement.
In the online discussions users highlight the Duolingo’s ability to immerse a
learner and make them addicted to it. They appreciate the “language gamification”,
which forces a learner to spend their gametime effectively and make something pro-
ductive. The ability to attract the attention to learning languages, and thus to mediate a
step to a kind of further language learning is seen as the most beneficial feature of Du-
olingo.35
“I am soon going to be a polyglot thanks to you! I love learning languages, and Duo-
lingo is a very effective, very fun and very awesome way to do so. I was lucky to be invited
very early. Without any previous knowledge of Spanish, I can now read, understand and trans-
late Spanish texts without too much of a problem. I never tried writing or speaking Spanish to
35
http://hackingportuguese.com/2013/05/review-duolingo/
43
someone until now... I am sure it will take some real life training, but I believe I will be able to
progress much, very much faster and easier than with any other traditional classroom, learning
method or online service around.” 36
“I have been using Duolingo for the past few months to learn Spanish, and I have
learned more using this app than I have in 4 years of school. Absolutely fantastic .” 37
Because it is necessary to examine the issue from both sides, the following
lines are focused on the weaknesses of Duolingo as a learning system. The finding,
identification and analysis of the deficiencies may help progressively to the future im-
provement of the entire system.
The most significant deficiencies are, as can be expected, associated with the
conversational function of the language. Similarly like the most of e-learning pro-
grams Duolingo does not induce real conversational situations. It does not teach users
to interact in speaking, to recognize different styles of pronunciation or dialects, to
perceive pauses or to use other conversational elements. It does not even provide more
options of the statements, questions and requests that might be used in a conversation
for a certain purpose (refered to the insufficiency of Pragmatics).
There were also some allusions to the “unrealistic” sentences from the conver-
sational point of view. Although it is usually grammatically correct, it is possible to
find there sentences, which would probably not be used in a real conversation. Some
of the sentences seem to be created randomly from words (which a user has already
acquired) and then seem to be unnatural, e. g. “The teachers have water.” instead of e.
g. “Which way is to the beach?”, which could be probably more usable in practice. 38
36
http://blog.duolingo.com/post/20142464554/we-have-a-blog
37
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/duolingo-learn-languages-for/id570060128?mt=8
38
http://hackingportuguese.com/2013/05/review-duolingo/
44
However, this problem of unrealistic sentences has its justification in its essence of
functioning. In fact it is a computer, which through an algorithm chooses the words,
which a learner submitted incorrectly and teaches them on the principle of drill. If we
consider a vocabulary test at school, for example, it is also nonsense to write certain
words without any context because we will never speak like that in the reality. This is
happening only from the beginning when a learner has a small amount of the acquired
vocabulary. The more wide vocabulary they have, the more possibilities the Duolingo
system has. On the other hand, vocabulary is better not to learn isolated but right in the
context – this question is discussable and can be developed further...
From the conversational point of view, there are some other deficiencies re-
garding the human factor of assessment or correction of the answers. It is about the
sense of interaction, the suitability of a particular type of an answer in a conversational
situation and finally about the personal preferences and cultural background. There-
fore, one of the major objectives of learning a foreign language – the oral fluency is
almost impossible to gain and according to some language teaching methods (e. g.
Stephen Krashen’s model), oral fluency is what should come first and it comes last
with Duolingo.
As a consequence of using sentences from the unrealistic conversation and
therefore the lack of authenticity, the loss of motivation may be caused, as mentioned
above. Although Duolingo is otherwise highly motivating learning resource, some
cases of insufficient motivation can appear then.
45
lack in the continuity between the exercises it the lessons and the translated text. Due
to the fact that there is a large hole between the difficulty of sentences in the exercises
and authentic texts for translation, a considerable number of users have problems with
the translations because these are simply too difficult and complex for them.
Solutions for this problem are suggested below in the chapter 6 Constructive
Suggestions to Improve the Current Conditions.
Although the future of Duolingo is seen very optimistically, some doubts natu-
rally may arise. Above all, due to the fact that Duolingo is for free, the founders, crea-
tors and the development team are volunteers. The whole team promised to do it for
free but there will probably appear some tendencies to commercialize it, to buy it or
even banish it because the translators may worry about their work in the future or
similar problems of this nature.
46
4.3.5 Unsuccess of Duolingo due to Individual Unsuitability
The vast majority of Duolingo users appreciates and praises it, however, there
are some, for whom this program is not suitable. They don not like the learning sys-
tem, it seems to them to be inaccurate or unsophisticated or simply they find the drill
exercises boring. Ones of the most negative comments available on an internet discus-
sions expressed the Duolingo is deficient in its language-teaching capabilities. The
users’ complained about permanent transcribing and translating the same dozen sen-
tences over and over again without any variations. They see lack in gradually teaching
more grammar and vocabulary in slow and easy steps. 39
It should be mentioned the learners are different, have different needs and pref-
erences. It can be considered as impossible to establish a program suitable for each
individual learner. This example was given rather to diversify to show complexity of
the problem, naturally it would be unacceptable to draw conclusions from individual
comments.
39
http://www.roadtoepic.com/learning-languages-with-duolingo/
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II. PRACTICAL PART
48
5 The Awareness and Use of Duolingo for Learning Languages among the
Czech Public
This chapter is focused on the determination and analysis of the current situa-
tion among the Czech learners. It will be dealing with the research carried out by
means of questionnaires. The research will indicate the awareness of the possibility to
learn on Duolingo, additionally the percentage of those who already use Duolingo. It
will also indicate the interest in studying foreign languages in general and the level of
satisfaction with the current methods of learning.
49
5.3 The Research Sample
Because Duolingo is accessible to all people and it is designed for the general
public, a wide variety of people from the Czech public were involved into this survey,
i. e. men and women, teenagers and adults, students and working people. The ques-
tionnaires were given to 300 people, of which 118 answered and returned it back.
50
The complete version of the questionnaire with the original questions and an-
swers can be seen in the Appendix 4 - Questionnaire to Determine the Attitude to E-
learning in Learning Foreign Languages and the Awareness of Duolingo among the
Czech Public.
H1: There will be less than 50 percent of the people who study language via e-
learning even in their spare time from those who study a foreign language
(comparing question 1 and 10).
H2: Few people from those who study a foreign language have heard about Duolin-
go (comparing questions 1 and 13).
H3: A large majority of the people who have not heard about Duolingo will try it
and create an account (comparing questions 13 and 14).
In the question 15 – the very last question which was the open one, the re-
spondents had a chance to express their opinion about Duolingo deficiencies. It is in-
teresting that the deficiencies presented in the online discussions and described and
analyzed in the previous chapters in the theoretical part of the thesis were very similar
to those revealed in the research.
The most often mentioned and therefore the most significant were the follow-
ing ones:
51
- limited portfolio of languages
- wild translations from Czech to English within the lectures
Three hundred people from the Czech public were randomly selected without
any restrictions (age, gender, education) and were asked to complete questionnaires.
118 of them accepted the request and participated in the research. Thus, the sample
consisted of 118 respondents of different age, gender, profession, education, life-style.
The request and the link to this questionnaire were sent them electronically, the period
to complete the questionnaire was one month (from 5th October to 5th November), the
majority of the respondents completed it during the first week. There results are pre-
sented and described in the following lines, demonstrated by the visual figures.
40
http://www.mojeanketa.cz/surveys/results/215748315/
52
Fig. 14 Results of the question 3 41 - showing the satisfaction with learning
33.1 percent of the respondents would like to study online or electronically but
so far they have not found a suitable source for them.
41, 42
http://www.mojeanketa.cz/surveys/results/215748315/
53
The results of the question 12 show the respondents’ meaning about electroni-
cal sources for learning English.
A large amount of the respondents believe that there exit some good sources
but so far they have not discovered them.
This research has revealed that 76.3 percent of the people are learning a foreign
language and 85.6 percent of the people think that these days is important to know at
least 2 foreign languages communicatively. When learning, 84.7 percent of the people
need to be motivated and to study in a way which motivates them, since they have a
lack of personal motivation (see fig. 13). More balanced answers were obtained when
investigating the satisfaction with the current method of learning a foreign language.
14.4 percent are satisfied and enjoy their learning method, 39.0 percent were rather
satisfied, 28.0 percent were rather not satisfied and 18.6 percent were not satisfied at
all (see fig. 14).
43
http://www.mojeanketa.cz/surveys/results/215748315/
54
With regards to e-learning, the results were also more or less balanced. 27.1
percent are learning languages electronically, 39.8 percent prefer the classic way (from
books, written texts or other sources), the rest - 33.1 percent - would like, but so far
they have not found a suitable source for them (see fig. 15). 46.6 percent of the re-
spondents see e-learning as a kind of duty rather than a kind of entertainment. Only
33.9 percent learn via e-learning in their free time. Concerning the online learning por-
tals, 15.3 percent are satisfied with their current ones. 78.0 percent think that there
some very good portals existing but so far they have not found any amazing. The re-
maining 6.8 percent think that in general the learning portals mostly have a large num-
ber of deficiencies (see fig. 16).
The majority of the respondents (86.4 percent) have not heard about Duolingo
and thus they do not know it, 58.5 percent will experience it but they do not think they
will use it for learning. 20.3 percent feel that it must be amazing and will probably try
it and create an account. The third group of the respondents – 21.2 percent is not inter-
ested in it. According to the users who are already learning via Duolingo, the main
deficiencies of this learning portal are the less accuracy in translations from the point
of view of the real communication and real life situations. “There is no real life com-
munication and the sentences and used exercises are often quite disconnected from
real life. Often translations into English are such wild.” Among other mentioned defi-
ciencies is, for example, a limited portfolio of languages, the fact that the Czech lan-
guage does not exist there so far. Its overall results are published on the web page
www.mojeanketa.cz/res/21574831550185/ (Jaskova, 2014).
H1: The survey confirmed that there are less than 50 percent of the people who
study language via e-learning even in their spare time from those who study a
foreign language. This hypothesis was true. From the question 10 can be seen,
that only 33.9 percent of the respondents study a foreign language in their free
time, the amount of people who learn any foreign language is 76.3 percent.
55
When comparing these two questions we can conclude that 44.4 percent of for-
eign language learners study a foreign language in their free time.
H2: Few people from those who study a foreign language have heard about Duolin-
go. This hypothesis was also true. From the question 13 can be read that only
4.2 percent of the respondents have heard about Duolingo, this is only 5.5 per-
cent of those who learn a foreign language.
This question could be interesting to compare with the use of e-learning in the
free time (question 10). From the Fig. 18 below can be seen that 66.1 percent do not
learn via e-learning in their free time. It can be assumed that they prefer some other
activities of their interest or entertainment. Thereafter, it can be noticed that 86.4 per-
cent of the respondents do not know Duolingo (from results of the question 13 above).
44
http://www.mojeanketa.cz/surveys/results/215748315/
56
It is possible that it if they knew about this entertaining learning opportunity, they
would slightly change their attitude to e-learning.
100.0%
86.4%
90.0%
80.0%
66.1%
70.0%
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
do not use e-learning in their free time do not know and not use Duolingo
H3: A large majority of the people who have not heard about Duolingo will try it
and create an account. In the question 14 is visible that only 20.3 percent are
convinced to create an account, this is only 26.6 percent of the language learn-
ers, which is certainly not a large majority. Therefore this hypothesis was not
true. The large majority of people will experience it but they do not think they
will use it.
57
Fig. 18 Results of the question 1445
45
http://www.mojeanketa.cz/surveys/results/215748315/
58
5.9 Conclusion
This chapter was devoted to the practical research, which was conducted to
create an image of the awareness of Duolingo among the Czech public. The aim was
to obtain the opinions and views on Duolingo of the Czech people. The fundamental
questions were focused on the interest in learning foreign languages, using e-learning
when studying, and further on the notion about the e-learning portal Duolingo and
possible sympathy with or antipathy to it.
There were determined three hypotheses based on this research the two of them
were proved to be rightly assumed.
59
6 Constructive Suggestions to Improve the Current Conditions
There were noticed and discussed some deficiencies of Duolingo in the chapter
4.3 Critical Views on Duolingo Learning System, there were also some deficiencies
mentioned in the conducted research in the practical part of the thesis. In the following
lines some suggestion to improve the current situation will be presented.
At the beginning it is worth to say that due to the users’ immediate possibility
to interact via Duolingo blog where all the actualizations are shared as well as the
steps planned in development, there is a significant opportunity to improve the project
according to users’ comments. This is why some deficiencies can be removed even
before we notice them. This is considered to be very beneficial for its future improve-
ment and continual development. This Duolingo blog is tailored more for methodical
and didactic matters and suggestions, the problems concerning particular language or
translation problems are discussed directly in the relevant lessons, as was already men-
tioned.
From the previous evaluation can be noticed that Duolingo has an incredibly
well elaborated methodical and didactic system, therefore there is almost nothing to
suggest. But as the biggest weakness is seen the lack of authenticity and the unlinked
language sentences to the use of language in everyday life situations – this applies to
the lessons, not translations. Translations, on the other hand, are taken from the real
context - that is why most of the users successful in lessons could not succeed in the
translations. Thus the issue is, how to make the content of lessons and the exercises
used more authentic and natural and how to fill in the hole between the exercises and
translations, how to soften the board of difficulty. There are some suggestions below:
60
b) Keep a portfolio of previous translation attempts
- To enable a learner not only to look back at a translation and compare it with
the corrected one but to keep a portfolio of the translations with the results, which
could serve for the Duolingo system as a basis for further given translation (again ena-
bles the comparison of the text levels).
The next issue to solve goes hand in hand with the previous one – for the better
awareness of the Duolingo existence, more languages should be added. Taken con-
cretely, for instance if English could be learn through Czech, it would be much more
Duolingo learners and fans in the Czech Republic than it is so far, I suppose. This is
61
probably a question of time. The best solution is to request Czech on Duolingo blog as
intensively as possible.
62
7 Future Prognosis of the Duolingo Translating and Educational System
Except for this expected popularity and usefulness, it has a deep and more im-
portant impact on learning. As it was described in the previous chapters, Duolingo has
a very motivating learning strategy and the most of the learners feel they are playing a
game instead of learning. It can change a possible negative relationship to learning in
general and therefore the learning will perceived as a pleasant activity. This is a
broader goal of the teachers, teaching programs, textbooks and other educational activ-
ities. It also increases the demands on teaching in general (also for the teachers), as the
people will accustom the pleasant and entertaining way of learning.
“Of course, it is not going to put the language teachers out of business. Nor is it going
to make translators redundant. But there are hopes for Duolingo that it will push the language
teachers out of their stupor and make them realize the importance of high demands in language
63
teaching. I hope that it will help translators – by highlighting the importance of excellent work
and hard decisions.” 46
46
http://www.16kinds.com/2012/04/09/duolingo/
64
SUMMARY
The thesis clarified the key terms and concepts related to e-learning, introduced
the new language learning portal Duolingo, described its methodology and learning
system and evaluated it from different points of view. From the assessment and evalu-
ation resulted that Duolingo is very beneficial learning portal, which has cleverly
elaborated learning system as well as the motivation aspects. It presents a sophisticat-
ed, modern and entertaining way of learning foreign languages, therefore it can be
widely recommended to people who want to learn a foreign language. In addition, it
uses the human activity and acts like a translator of websites. Equally evaluated were
also the deficiencies, above all the gap in the language level between the lessons and
translations, and the in the penultimate chapter the possible ways to improve these
deficiencies were suggested.
The second part was devoted to a practical research to discover the status of
Duolingo in the Czech Republic, its use, publicity and reputation, and thus inform
people about this new possibility of learning languages, which I consider very benefi-
cial because the research concluded that the majority of learners in the Czech Republic
do not know Duolingo. It must be conceded that the potential learners see Duolingo
rather sceptically, on the other hand, they are not satisfied with the current method of
learning a foreign language. Despite these facts, the future of Duolingo is seen very
optimistically, as presented in the very last chapter, mainly due to the constant and
rapid development and the planned addition of other available languages. Although it
will never replace the physical learning between teacher and student (and evidently it
should not), it is estimated to become a globally widespread and successful learning
portal.
65
SOURCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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dočeská univerzita v Plzni, 41 s.
WEBLIOGRAPHY
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learn-a-language-translate-the-web.html.
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learn/.
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guage learning [online]. 2013-07-16 [Cited 2013-07-15]. Available from
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entire-internet.
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Siegler, M.G. (2011). Meet Duolingo, Google’s next acquisition target; Learn a lan-
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duolingo/.
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gazette.com/stories/business/news/ashton-kutcher-backs-cmu-duos-startup-duolingo-
641086/.
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duolingo/.
68
LIST OF APPENDICES
69
Appendix 1: Contributions in Discussion Regarding the Wishes for Adding of
New Languages
“Are you guys working on any other languages? Can you keep us posted on
what you working on next? Oh and also, people who Italian can learn English but peo-
ple to speak English cannot learn Italian. Does that mean that you working on Italian?“
“Very fabulous, thank you!!! And now add Arabic? :) I vote for UN languages first!“
“I hope mandarin Chinese will come soon. Any prediction when this will be re-
leased?“
“....But Chinese...“
“Thanks for a great product. I wish I could travel to the future to start learning Japa-
nese with Duolingo!“
“Would this service work with Russian language? I think it necessary. I am really
want it for my English practice (you see - it not good now. “Google translate” service
+ my corrections was used for this sentence).“
“Latin please.“
“Latin? Seriously? A language that has been effectively dead for a couple hundred
years in favor of live ones?“
“Maybe so, but when you master Latin then all Latin derived languages have slight
differences but nothing more! (regardless that Latin should be taught from books and
speakers, rather than through Duolingo (with respect)).“
“Please add Swahili, Indonesian, and Arabic! The first two use the Latin alphabet so
they should not be too hard. Thanks, Duolingo is wonderful. :)“
Source: http://blog.duolingo.com
Appendix 2: The Authentic Grammar Explanation from the Lesson Basic 1 of
German Language
Capitalizing Nouns
In German, all nouns are capitalized. For example, “my name” is “mein Name,” and
“the apple” is “der Apfel.” This helps you identify which are the nouns in a sentence.
Nouns in German are either feminine, masculine or neuter. For example, “Frau”
(woman) is feminine, “Mann” (man) is masculine, and “Kind” (child) is neuter. The
grammatical gender may not match the biological gender: “Mädchen” (girl) is a neuter
noun.
It is important to learn every noun along with its gender because parts of German
sentences change depending on the gender of their nouns. In case you need to guess, the
most common gender is masculine.
Generally speaking, the definite article “die” (the) and the indefinite article “eine”
(a/an) are used for feminine nouns, “der” and “ein” for masculine nouns, and “das” and
“ein” for neuter nouns. For example, it is “die Frau,” “der Mann,” and “das Kind.” How-
ever, later you will see that these changes depending on something called the “case of the
noun.”
Umlauts
Umlauts are the two dots you see above some vowels in German words, such as in
“Mädchen.” Literally, “Umlaut” means “around the sound,” because its function is to
change how the vowel sounds.
An umlaut can sometimes indicate the plural of a word. For example, the plural of
“Mutter” (mother) is “Mütter.”
Verb Conjugation
I -e ich spiele
You (singular) -st du spielst
He/She/It -t er/sie/es spielt
We -en wir spielen
You (plural) -t ihr spielt
You (formal) -en Sie spielen
They -en sie spielen
Notice that the 1st and the 3rd person plural have the same ending as “you (formal).”
Source: http://www.duolingo.com/#skill/de/Basics-1
Appendix 3: The Age and Gender Distribution
The average age of the initial sample participants was 31.3 years with
45.4% females, and 99.5% of them being novice to intermediate users of Span-
ish.
The average age of the final sample was 34.9 years, ranging from 18 to 66
years of age. There were exactly 50% females, and 85.2% of the final sample
was novice to intermediate users of Spanish.
Source: http://static.duolingo.com/s3/DuolingoReport_Final.pdf
Appendix 4:
Questions:
2. Myslíš si, že je v dnešní době důležité umět komunikativně alespoň 2 cizí jazyky?
(Do you think that nowadays is important to know communicatively at least 2 for-
eign languages?)
3. Baví Tě způsob, jakým cizí jazyk studuješ? (Do you enjoy the way you are study-
ing a foreign language?)
- ano (yes)
- spíše ano (rather yes)
- spíše ne (rather no)
- ne (no)
4. Je pro Tebe důležité studovat způsobem, který Tě motivuje? (It is important for
you to study in a way that motivates you?)
5. Učíš se jazyky elektronicky pomocí PC? (Do you learn languages electronically
via PC?)
6. Využil/a jsi někdy pro jakékoli studium webové stránky, výukové CD/DVD nebo
výukový program? (Have you ever used some websites, an educational CD/DVD
or any other educational program for learning anything?)
7. Využil/a jsi někdy webové stránky, výukové CD/DVD nebo výukový program
pro studium cizích jazyků? (Have you ever used some websites, an educational
CD/DVD or any other educational program for learning foreign languages?)
8. Jak často jsi ochoten/a využívat při studiu e-learning? (How often are you willing
to use e-learning when studying?
- denně (every day)
- jednou týdně (once a week)
- jednou měsíčně (once a month)
9. Je pro Tebe elektronické učení spíše povinností nebo zábavou (obecně)? (Is e-
learning for you a kind of entertainment or rather a kind of duty, in general?)
10. Učíš se pomocí e-learningu i ve svém volném čase? (Are you doing e-learning
even in your free time?)
- ano (yes)
- ne (no)
11. Je pro Tebe motivující sdílet své výsledky na sociání síti, sledovat a komentovat
výsledky jiných přátel, soutěžit s nimi a zvát nové přátelé?
(Is it motivating for you to share your results on a social network, to monitor and
comment on the results of the others, to compete with them or invite new
friends?)
- ano (yes)
- ne (no)
12. Myslíš si, že existují dobré jazykové výukové portály? (Do you think that exist
any very good educational portals?)
13. Slyšel/a jsi o výukovém portálu Duolingo? (Have you heard about the educational
portal Duolingo?
- ano, znám ho a používám (yes, I know it and use it)
- ano, ale ještě jsem ho nevyzkoušel/a (yes, but I have not tried it yet)
- ne, neznám (no, I do not know it)
14. Duolingo má motivující systém učení a progresu, podobně jako počítačová hra. Je
online, zdarma a napojený na sociální sítě. V případě, že jej neznáš, co nyní
uděláš?
(Duolingo has a motivating system of learning and progress, similarly like a com-
puter game. It is online, free and connected to social networks. In case you do not
know it yet, what are you going to do now?)
- zní to skvěle, založím si účet (it sounds great, I will set up an account)
- podívám se, ale nemyslím si, že ho budu využívat (I will look at it, but I do
not think I will use it)
- není to pro mě zajímavé (it is not interesting for me)
15. V případě, že Duolingo využíváš, popiš prosím, jaké jsou podle Tebe jeho největší
nedostatky.
(In case you are already using Duolingo, please describe what according to you
are its biggest deficiencies.)
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