Genius Hour: Reaching Level 3 (Part 2)
Welcome, everyone.
Like with Memrise, when I first opened Duolingo, I was once again presented with an ad. This was also an internal ad for the company itself, advertising some course upgrades and the option to try Duolingo Plus (the premium paid version). Unlike Memrise, there was no mention of prices, but a quick search on their website shows its $6.99/month, which about 39 cents less than Duolingo's monthly rate without the 50% discount. While I've already discussed the fact I think students should have free access to educational tools, I do like the fact Duolingo mentions that part of the proceeds from their sales goes to making Duolingo available in countries where education is not as accessible.
To further compare Duolingo to Memrise, I tried lowering the volume on my phone to see if the app would detect that the volume was too low, but I received no notification. Instead, the game offers the option to skip questions that require your volume to be up or use of the microphone by clicking "Can't listen/speak now." I think this feature speaks to the fact that Duolingo is supposed to be accessible to you at all times, and you could easily complete a lesson in a public setting if needed.
One feature that both apps do have in common is a Leaderboard. Duolingo's Leaderboard is only accessible after about 10 lessons. It allows you to add friends by searching for them by their Duolingo username. But there is also a public league that you become a part once you unlock the Leaderboard. This league allows you to know where you stand against other users and how much time you have before you lose your standing (in my case it is 3 days). I think this option would be a great motivator for students without having the competition get too personal.
As for the English being used in the app, it seems to be the generic American English. The vocabulary hasn't advanced enough for me to truly judge if there are any discrepancies. But Duolingo also seems to cater to younger students because a lot of the questions have to do with identifying the French word accompanied by a picture. So you may have une aubergine, which any UK English student would know meant, aubergine, but a Canadian student would probably be able to identify that this means "eggplant" based on the picture.
When considering Duolingo's motivating factors, you'll find it is much more complicated than Memrise's. Like Memrise, there is a point system, but these points (known as "gems") can be multiplied by making wagers on how often you will use the app. You can also purchase "power ups" that can double your points, or watch a third party advertisement to earn extra gems. As an educator, I don't think I will put too much emphasis on the point system. I am more interested in how far a student is in their lessons.
The daily goal standard with Duolingo is 10 minutes of play a day but you can set a goal of to up to 20 minutes. There are 4 lessons within every level and it takes 5 levels to complete a unit. Both apps have maps to outline your next lessons, but I did not find that Memrise gave a clear structure of how many lessons you had to complete in order to move up a level. Memrise more focuses on how many words the user learns per day with a standard of 5 words.
Along with the collection of gems, Duolingo also has its infamous green owl named Duo. Duo often pops in to give you words of encouragement in between lessons!
What is interesting is with Duolingo is there is a lot more responsibility on the user's part to get from one question to the next. You need to click to "check" to submit your answer as well as click "continue" to go on to the next question. Meanwhile, Memrise automatically detects when you have the right answer and moves on to the next question for you. I find the lesson goes much faster because of this.
In terms of the types of knowledge you gain through Duolingo, it is both visual and oral-based teaching. Some of the different question formats found on Duolingo include:
The best feature would have to the microphone option. The fact students are asked to repeat back a French saying for evaluation surprised me for a free learning app. After playing for about 30 minutes I was told the microphone would have to be disabled for an hour. I am not sure why this is the case, but I don't see this being an issue if Duolingo is something you just want to incorporate for 10 minutes a day in the classroom.
[Please note: All Duolingo app photos are screenshots taken on my personal Android phone.]
I decided to post a part two to my last blog post as analyzing Duolingo took a whole other day's worth of study. So let's get started!
Like with Memrise, when I first opened Duolingo, I was once again presented with an ad. This was also an internal ad for the company itself, advertising some course upgrades and the option to try Duolingo Plus (the premium paid version). Unlike Memrise, there was no mention of prices, but a quick search on their website shows its $6.99/month, which about 39 cents less than Duolingo's monthly rate without the 50% discount. While I've already discussed the fact I think students should have free access to educational tools, I do like the fact Duolingo mentions that part of the proceeds from their sales goes to making Duolingo available in countries where education is not as accessible.To further compare Duolingo to Memrise, I tried lowering the volume on my phone to see if the app would detect that the volume was too low, but I received no notification. Instead, the game offers the option to skip questions that require your volume to be up or use of the microphone by clicking "Can't listen/speak now." I think this feature speaks to the fact that Duolingo is supposed to be accessible to you at all times, and you could easily complete a lesson in a public setting if needed.
One feature that both apps do have in common is a Leaderboard. Duolingo's Leaderboard is only accessible after about 10 lessons. It allows you to add friends by searching for them by their Duolingo username. But there is also a public league that you become a part once you unlock the Leaderboard. This league allows you to know where you stand against other users and how much time you have before you lose your standing (in my case it is 3 days). I think this option would be a great motivator for students without having the competition get too personal.As for the English being used in the app, it seems to be the generic American English. The vocabulary hasn't advanced enough for me to truly judge if there are any discrepancies. But Duolingo also seems to cater to younger students because a lot of the questions have to do with identifying the French word accompanied by a picture. So you may have une aubergine, which any UK English student would know meant, aubergine, but a Canadian student would probably be able to identify that this means "eggplant" based on the picture.
When considering Duolingo's motivating factors, you'll find it is much more complicated than Memrise's. Like Memrise, there is a point system, but these points (known as "gems") can be multiplied by making wagers on how often you will use the app. You can also purchase "power ups" that can double your points, or watch a third party advertisement to earn extra gems. As an educator, I don't think I will put too much emphasis on the point system. I am more interested in how far a student is in their lessons.The daily goal standard with Duolingo is 10 minutes of play a day but you can set a goal of to up to 20 minutes. There are 4 lessons within every level and it takes 5 levels to complete a unit. Both apps have maps to outline your next lessons, but I did not find that Memrise gave a clear structure of how many lessons you had to complete in order to move up a level. Memrise more focuses on how many words the user learns per day with a standard of 5 words.
Along with the collection of gems, Duolingo also has its infamous green owl named Duo. Duo often pops in to give you words of encouragement in between lessons!
What is interesting is with Duolingo is there is a lot more responsibility on the user's part to get from one question to the next. You need to click to "check" to submit your answer as well as click "continue" to go on to the next question. Meanwhile, Memrise automatically detects when you have the right answer and moves on to the next question for you. I find the lesson goes much faster because of this.
In terms of the types of knowledge you gain through Duolingo, it is both visual and oral-based teaching. Some of the different question formats found on Duolingo include:
- Translate a written English sentence into French
- Listen to a French clip and speak into your microphone, repeating the same word/phrase
- Fill in the missing word in a French sentence
- Read the English word and select the corresponding French flashcard
- Match the English and French word in a word jumble (the French word is read aloud as soon as you select it)
- Listen to a French audio clip and identify what letter (usually with an accent) or combination of letters makes that specific sound (ex. "é" versus "e")
- Read the English phrase and select the corresponding French translation
As you can see, this list is slightly different than Memrise's list. There are some similarities in their translation questions, in the sense that punctuation or capitalization of the correct words does not seem to matter when building French sentences. (Something I personally disagree with as I think punctuation can be very important especially when considering that a language like Spanish would require a question mark at both the beginning and the end of the sentence.) But overall I find Duolingo easier to adjust as you can select a normal speed audio clip and a half-speed clip when you need to identify what you heard. That said, Duolingo does not provide as much variety in the voices you hear reading the clips, and most of them are very robotic sounding voices that don't mimic how Francophones speak in everyday life.
The best feature would have to the microphone option. The fact students are asked to repeat back a French saying for evaluation surprised me for a free learning app. After playing for about 30 minutes I was told the microphone would have to be disabled for an hour. I am not sure why this is the case, but I don't see this being an issue if Duolingo is something you just want to incorporate for 10 minutes a day in the classroom.
The one feature missing from Duolingo was a formal introduction for any new word. There was never a presentation of the word and its translation. Duolingo operates off the idea that the student is already learning French in a classroom and the app is simply there to reinforce previous lessons. Seeing as the vocabulary seems to follow what is generally found in the FSL curriculum for Ontario, I don't see this being an issue. But I would not recommend this app to someone who had zero background knowledge in French.
[Please note: All Duolingo app photos are screenshots taken on my personal Android phone.]
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