Duolingo for Schools
Topic/ Area
Language Acquisition
Date released
2016
Type of Best Practice
PD/ Training Programme
Partners/ network
a) Name: Luis von Ahn, Severin Hacker
b) Country: USA
c) Purpose: Language Acquisition
Short Description of the methods/ approach
The introduction of this language acquisition platform in the classroom has the power to make language learning more engaging for young learners and offer personalised approaches for specialised learning environments. It will offer primary school teachers the opportunity to integrate technology into the classroom and track learner’s progress through the platform. This practice allows learners to interact and engage with their learning and with this new platform, schools across Europe will be able to utilise the resources to encourage second language acquisition. The new platform will offer teachers the tools necessary to prepare daily language classes. A dashboard will allow classrooms to centralise the learning progress of students.
Purpose/Aim
The purpose of this platform is to offer primary school students the opportunity to interact with a fun and engaging platform that will motivate them to learn languages. The platform is completely free of charge for educators so they can integrate it into their pedagogic framework easily and without barriers. Duolingo for Schools looks to personalise learning and reinforce student patterns using artificial intelligence. Duolingo for Schools will know how to modify learning methods for students to help students who are struggling with language learning to improve in learner-specific areas.
Evaluation (results) of its effectiveness
Duolingo for Schools is currently evolving based on testing and feedback from educators, language experts, parents, and students. To date, there is currently no data available to support the effectiveness of this app in a classroom or school environment.
Overview of the lessons learned which are relevant to the project
The Duolingo app, which was released in 2011 showed that “overall the average improvement in language abilities was 91.4 points and the improvement was statistically significant. The effectiveness measure showed that on average participants gained 8.1 points per one hour of study with Duolingo.” This shows the potential benefit that integrating technology, that is supported by effective AI, can have on improving the performance of students in language learning. These lessons can also be transferred to other curriculum subjects.
Reference
Additional notes
This platform can inspire students to use artificial intelligence learning to cater to their personal needs and encourage them to learn. The user-friendly interface of the platform makes the app feel like a game which works to motivate students to progress in their own learning.
