Duolingo in Spanish class - Mis Clases Locas

One of the most popular posts recently has been about Choice Real World Homework. I have also posted about two of my new favorite additions #SpanStuChat and Trivia Crack in Spanish. Today I am going to share about another new (to us) option, Duolingo. I am pretty sure I am the last world language teacher to try out this free way to work on language skills, but in case any of you have not jumped in, I figured I would share.

Duolingo is a FREE online service and app to practice a language using speaking, listening, writing and translation for tons of languages. You can start at the beginning or take a placement test to see where you fall in the learning of the language (NOTE: I would recommend taking the placement test on a computer rather than a phone, to avoid typing and accent errors.) This week while exploring the app I started learning French.

What makes this appealing for students is it is set up like a game where you earn badges for mastering certain sets of skills. You set a daily goal and can have notification sent to you to remind you to complete your daily amount of points to met your goal. You can also see what words you have learned, and how you are still doing based on recent practice and review completed. You only have a certain number of “hearts” or lives to complete a section, so if you make too many mistakes you must start over. As another teacher recently mentioned, playing Duolingo myself reminds me what it is like to be a novice learner! I dread when I have to type a sentence based on just hearing it, and I am sure I have students who are exactly the same way!

How does Duolingo fit with Choice Real World Homework you ask? I have added “play Duolingo for 30 minutes” as a 3 point option. (Spanish III & IV need 3 points per week). I do hope that by downloading and starting the program that they will continue to play, even beyond earning homework points 🙂

Something else that is worth investigating is the new Duolingo: Schools.

I have not tried it out yet, but it looks like you can add students, assign them specific skills to work on, and track their progress.

I think I will probably just keep it as an option for Choice Real World Homework, but in the future I could see it as a great tech tool to add to a language teacher’s tool belt, as well as a fun way for us language nerds to learn new ones.

Do you use Duolingo or Duolingo: Schools? How?

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