Evaluating the reading and listening outcomes of beginning‐level Duolingo courses

Abstract

The Challenge As more and more learners use digital apps to learn languages, it is important for the field of language learning to understand the effectiveness of these apps. This article presents the listening and reading proficiency of Duolingo learners when they reach the end of its beginning-level Spanish and French courses.

Learning Polish with Duolingo: A case study in Taiwanese academic setting

“…It has been researched around the globe, including places such as Taiwan (Charlene Tsai 2016), 3 my native Poland (Uchwat-Zaród 2020; Krajka & Białek 2021, or Aleksandrowska & Stanulewicz 2020 and many other European countries, including Eastern Europe (Federova 2018;Kvitka 2020) and Greece (Karasimis 2020). The current research has been informed also by research from Iran (Nushi & Eqbali 2017), Israel (Gafni et al 2017), from the Arabic linguistic context (Ahmed 2016), from Borneo (Ajisoko 2020), as well as from the Americas, including Columbia (Abaunza et al 2019) and, of course, the U.S. (Short et al 2021;Jiang et al 2021). Some of the studies involve international samples, like Tafazoli et al (2018) or Cebron et al (2021).…”

“…Some of the studies involve international samples, like Tafazoli et al (2018) or Cebron et al (2021). There is an abundant body of research on Duolingo-enhanced learning of English (see Short et al 2021, for more detailed information; de Castro et al 2016;Tafazoli et al 2018) and other popular languages like Spanish or French (Jiang et al 2021). Some studies include learning two or more languages (Ahmed 2016;Charlene Tsai 2016), up to fifteen, as the one conducted by Aleksandrowska and Stanulewicz (2020).…”

“…Some projects included single participants, like Geben's case study of a Lithuanian female studying Polish (Geben 2020), where Duolingo was mentioned, or Ahmed's intervention involving a child. Larger samples can be found in Gafni et al (2017), whose comparative study relied on 89 informants in two different populations, as well as in Jiang et al (2021) who researched 135 Spanish learners along with 90 people learning French. Tafazoli's (2018) project involved 415 persons, while Cebron et al (2021) worked with 1028 respondents in six European countries.…”

“…Tafazoli's (2018) project involved 415 persons, while Cebron et al (2021) worked with 1028 respondents in six European countries. Ages varied as well, including children (Ahmed 2016), teenagers (Gafni et al 2017), college students (Charlene Tsai 2016), adults (Karasimos 2022;Jiang et al 2021), or mixed samples (Aleksandrowska & Stanulewicz 2020). In larger groups, women prevailed (Aleksandrowska & Stanulewicz 2020, Tafazoli 2018.…”

Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development

“…The students in the second, more advanced group, found the app helpful (80%), but only 43.8% of the students enjoyed using it, and only 50% of the class was actually satisfied with Duolingo (strongly agree and agree). Jiang et al (2020) report their results of a study on 225 participants, who were students of Spanish or French and resided in the United States, had little to no prior proficiency in the target language and used Duolingo as their only learning tool. The results showed that the students reached Intermediate level in reading proficiency but remained at Novice level in listening proficiency (assessed using the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) reading and listening proficiency tests).…”