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Duolingo for Spanish???


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Has anyone successfully used this program with a high schooler? Dd is wanting to learn Spanish and I know I am not qualified to teach it and have no personal interest in learning it myself right now.    

 

Any info you can share would be appreciated.  Thanks

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My opinion:

 

Duolingo has some advantages:  Kids generally like to use it, lessons are broken down to be short and sweet, it's "gamified", so the student is rewarded for progress and regularity of play.  

 

Downsides:  It does not teach much explicit grammar.  It does not follow any traditional scope and sequence.  The speaking portion can be frustrating and inaccurate.  It is not not not equivalent to real language lessons, no matter what they claim.  It teaches translating mostly, and if you use the app, it uses less powerful memorization techniques (lots of matching vs fill in the blank, which is harder and makes memorization stick better).  There is no opportunity for spontaneous conversation or open-ended writing.  The Bots are ok... but not the same as a teacher.  

 

I think it is a great tool in conjunction with another method.

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It's great for slipping in 5 minutes of practice through your day (especially since I use the website) but it is not a full program. It would be fine as a precursor to a formal class as well (like, if she were going to DE as a jr/sr for Spanish, I would definitely use it now). 

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I love DuoLingo for getting a decent speaking ability quickly. But the information covered is only roughly equivalent to what I got in the first semester or so in community college Spanish classes, so it’s not something that could be used to fill a 2+ year high school requirement. They do introduce verb tenses beyond present and preterite, but very briefly and with nearly no practice with them. The vocabulary in DuoLingo was more immediately useful to me than what I learned in a classroom, but still stopped at a fairly basic level.

 

In other words, it’s great for getting a good start self-teaching a language, but it’s not a full language program.

Edited by Jackie
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I love DuoLingo for getting a decent speaking ability quickly. But the information covered is only roughly equivalent to what I got in the first semester or so in community college Spanish classes, so it’s not something that could be used to fill a 2+ year high school requirement. They do introduce verb tenses beyond present and preterite, but very briefly and with nearly no practice with them. The vocabulary in DuoLingo was more immediately useful to me than what I learned in a classroom, but still stopped at a fairly basic level.

 

In other words, it’s great for getting a good start self-teaching a language, but it’s not a full language program.

 

Agree - but I love it also as a simple, free way to reinforce language practice 7 days a week; the power of repetition in language learning is crucial, and DuoLingo makes it fun and easy to do that.

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Any recommendations for something she can use in conjunction with Duolingo that she can do on her own?

 

We are not trying to meet a 2 year language requirement for graduation or college admission.  She can take Spanish at the local CC if it becomes necessary at a later time.  

 

She just wants to do it for fun at this point.

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Doesn't take much time, good introduction, has free audio files available, inexpensive, grammar is taught, goes well with Duo . . . Getting Started With Spanish. You get roughly the grammar (but not nearly the amount of vocab) taught in the first semester of a Spanish 1 high school class.

Any recommendations for something she can use in conjunction with Duolingo that she can do on her own?

 

We are not trying to meet a 2 year language requirement for graduation or college admission.  She can take Spanish at the local CC if it becomes necessary at a later time.  

 

She just wants to do it for fun at this point.

 

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Another great free resource that might pair well with Duolingo is the Destinos series, a telenovela that teaches incremental Spanish and is free through Annenberg Learner. My dd is doing something similar with French in Action  (also free through Annenberg) and Duoloingo and I cannot believe how much she has learned. At some point she will want to incorporate a textbook to deepen her understanding, but she really is learning to speak French this way.

 

 

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Doesn't take much time, good introduction, has free audio files available, inexpensive, grammar is taught, goes well with Duo . . . Getting Started With Spanish. You get roughly the grammar (but not nearly the amount of vocab) taught in the first semester of a Spanish 1 high school class.

I agree with this.  I had DD do DuoLingo and GSWS together in 8th-9th grade, and I think they complement each other well.  Maybe together they would be a first year Spanish course.  Then DD went to Homeschool Spanish Academy.  I expected that she would be placed in their Spanish 2, after DuoLingo, but I think she was nervous and didn't do as well as she'd have liked on the placement test, so they put her in their Spanish 1.  She flew through it with an easy A and no outside studying, saying that there was almost entirely nothing new in it, maybe a handful of vocabulary words.  So yeah, I think DuoLingo and GSWS could be Spanish 1, although I think the biggest thing they're lacking is back and forth conversation (I know enough other languages to muddle through the vocabulary and grammar but not enough to be the conversation she needs).

 

We LOVE HSA though -- they're really nice, and I love that they're student-paced.  Basically, DD covers whatever she covers per class with no pressure.  They roughly suggest 60 classes per level, but if the student is picking it up quickly, she might cover two lessons in one class and skip the extra built-in review.  Otoh, if the student is tired and a little foggy one day, they cover a little less.  DD has a preferred teacher, so she only schedules classes with that one, which helps in continuity too.

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I agree with the above suggestions.  I am working on learning Spanish myself.

 

I am using Duolingo with the goal of 2 little units a day.

 

Getting Started with Spanish......one lesson a day and then once I got up to lesson 40 I went back to the answer key and did lesson 20 translating from English back to Spanish (reverse of the way the original lesson is).  I also try to listen to the dictation for each of the exercises and write it down from what they say and THEN look at the written example to see if I am close (to help work on my listening skills)

 

The pastor at the Spanish church we attend once a month (for their once a month bilingual service) gave me a bilingual Bible.  For my devotions I am reading through the New Testament in English and then listening to the same chapter in Spanish each day while I follow along in the Bible.  I then write down a key verse in English and Spanish.

 

I have also done the Destinos show and it was cheesy but good for learning more conversational Spanish.

 

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