Assignment 1 – Juan Gonzalez

Description: Duolingo is a language-learning platform.

Objective: Duolingo allows users to learn new languages by repetition, dividing lessons in chunks, providing a lesson sequence, and giving immediate feedback.

URL: https://www.duolingo.com/

Age group: 12+

Assessment

Diversity: The content is relevant to users from all racial groups. The main character is an owl, which I see as gender and race neutral. Also the images on the lessons include characters of both genders and different races.

Accessibility: Duolingo targets any individual that wants to learn a foreign language. One can access the platform by downloading the Duolingo app to a mobile device or via the Duolingo website. Duolingo is free and has more than 20+ languages available.

Interactivity: The learners can add friends to their profile so they can compete or hold each other accountable.

Education: The content is very educational, the users learn a new language and the content is divided by relevant levels. Each level is locked and the learner must complete the below level before he or she can move to the next level. If the learner knows one level pretty well, he or she can “test out” and if the learner passes the test he or she can move to the next level faster. The levels are arranged from the basic level of verb conjugation (e.g. present) to more complex conjugations (e.g. subjunctive). Users can always go back and repeat a lesson from a lower level; in fact at the bottom of the profile, Duolingo has a “practice weak skills” button, so learners can practice the words that they are struggling with; this module would include any words that the learners are struggling with from any level. Duolingo uses a lot of repetition to ensure that the users internalize the learning.

Value: Learners can choose the language they wish to learn and choose the amount of time (as a personal goal) that they want to dedicate to it each day. The tool will send them a notification or email reminder every day to help them stay on track. Duolingo sends the learners congratulation messages when they have met their time commitment goal multiple days in a row. Once they complete a lesson, the learners get “lingots” that can be used to buy virtual items in the Duolingo store app such as freezing a day so they can skip a day without feeling bad or to dress up their owl (the Duolingo character).

Artistry: Duolingo is user friendly and very easy to navigate. The art design is high quality and reinforce the learning of the language; learners can connect words to images.

Safety: Although users need to create an account using their Facebook or email account, Duolingo only uses this information to send reminders to the learners. I have been using the tool for over a year and I have not seen links to inappropriate sites.

Top Strengths

• Duolingo is user friendly and very easy to navigate
• Duolingo sends daily reminders to help learners stay on track
• It is easy and convenient to access it
• Learners can practice their pronunciation by repeating back sentences and the app detects whether they pronounced the words right
• Users can add friends so they can hold each other accountable

Main Weaknesses

• If users wanted to learn words (e.g. science words) that are on a higher module, they cannot, they have to complete and pass all the levels that are before this module level
• It is very repetitive, some of the users may get bored by having to repeat a word so many times
• Duolingo mainly focuses on translation and not so much on comprehension

Suggested Improvements

The tool could be improved by adding the following features:

• Allowing the users to learn lessons that they wish to learn regardless of the level the lesson is in, so there is less risk of having bored users
• Connect students with foreign speakers, so they can practice the language in the real world. Sometimes you may think that you speak a language very fluently, but it is not until you have to practice the language in real life that you can find out your fluency level
• More complex reading comprehension. Have the student read more complex paragraphs/passages and then ask them to interpret what they understood instead of just translating sentences

Recommendation: I actually love Duolingo and would recommend it to anyone who wants to start learning a foreign language.