Professional Competencies in Language Learning and Teaching

Description

Coventry University Institution Wide Language Programme (IWLP) offers beginners language learning modules to approximately 3000 students. Each module is taught over 11 weeks for a total of 1 hour and 40 minutes and two of the weeks are used for in-class tests so tutors generally agree that students need to practice their skills outside the classroom in order to pass the module. One way of doing this is to use the language learning app, Duolingo which helps students to gradually broaden their linguistic, professional competence and digital fluency through increased learner autonomy. How effective this approach is, however, has never been measured. The project, which will run from January to April 2018, explores whether a correlation exists between regular use of the app by IWLP learners at CEFR level A1 of French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish and achieving a high formal coursework assessment mark. The views of both learners and tutors of their experiences of using the software, and the tutor tools provided by Duolingo Schools, will also be canvassed. A virtual classroom will be set up within Duolingo Schools for each participating cohort of students and they will be encouraged to use the app on a regular basis. The tutor tools allow the monitoring of how many days learners were active, how many lessons they completed, how many courses they completed and how many points they were awarded whilst using Duolingo. These statistics will then be compared with the overall formal assessment grades on modules and further data will collected at the end of the project from a representative sample of learners (#300) and tutors (#10) to establish how influential they think the software was in influencing module marks.

Period	12 Jul 2018 - 13 Jul 2018
Event type	Conference
Location	Nottingham, United Kingdom