Digital Resources: Duolingo

Before I became a teacher, I worked for Operation Smile, an awesome international nonprofit organization that provides reconstructive surgeries for kids in developing countries. I organized educational workshops and conferences for medical care providers (nurses, doctors, speech language pathologists, etc.) and foundation staff around the world. I always tried to learn a few words in the native language of the countries I visited (usually things like hello, thank you, excuse me, you're welcome) to make my trips easier. I studied French in high school and college, but a lot of my travels took me to Spanish-speaking countries so I invested in a VERY pricey copy of Rosetta Stone to try and learn enough Spanish to communicate with my colleagues in a language they were comfortable with. If I had had Duolingo, I could have saved money AND taken my studies with me wherever I went on an easy-to-carry tablet (although this was the early 2000's so CDs and laptops were as portable as things got).

The launch page for Duolingo - as students complete assginments
they earn lingots (which they can spend in the lingot store)
and the images go from grayscale to color. You can even add
fluency information to your LinkedIn profile!

As great as Duolingo is for individual students, they've recently rolled out features that make it suitable for classroom use. Teachers can set up classrooms and track their students' progress through the Duolingo activities. These activities can be great for reviewing vocabulary concepts, gamifying instruction (Duolingo offers points for completing activities; if you earn enough points you receive a "lingot" which you can use to purchase additional language packs such as idioms and situation-specific phrases), as warm-ups or even as summer or winter break work. Duolingo's graphics and ease-of-use makes it a natural fit for students of any age. It makes learning a new language (or brushing up on a previously-learned one) easy and fun.

Where: www.duolingo.com (available on the web or as an app on iOS and Android)

Cost: Free (for both the student activities and the classroom portal)

What: Web-based language instruction

Students! Try Duolingo if you want to...

independently learn a new language

prepare for international travel by knowing a few key words and phrases

practice a language you are in the process learning

Teachers! Try Duolingo if you want to...

gamify your language instruction

assign self-directed work for students over breaks or when you have a sub

introduce a game-like element to your instruction