The effectiveness of Duolingo in reinforcing English learning and the perceptions of struggling EFL students

Abstract

The widespread availability of technological tools for teaching and learning has motivated instructors at all levels of education to place more emphasis on integrating technology into the classroom. Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) tools and the advancement in Web 2.0 applications have transformed instructional enhancements to be more convenient, practical, and accessible in all fields of academia including language learning. This study thought it was worthy to appraise the effectiveness of employing an educational technology such as Duolingo for language learning on struggling university-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Turkiye and explore the students’ perceptions toward the implementation. A quasi-experimental study was conducted on 38 participants of the English preparatory school of a private university divided into an experimental group (N=19) and a control group (N=19) with a Duolingo intervention applied to the experimental group for four weeks. The results revealed that the intervention of utilizing Duolingo as a reinforcement tool alongside conventional schooling significantly improved the achievement levels of the participants and comparatively, the learners demonstrated favorable emotions toward the scheme of utilizing the educational enhancement.

Keywords

• educational technology
• language learning
• instructional technology
• ELT
• ESOL

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