=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2390/PaperA4
|storemode=property
|title=Risks of using Duolingo by Polish Learners at Primary Level
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2390/PaperA4.pdf
|volume=Vol-2390
|authors=Agnieszka Grygo,Elżbieta Gajek
}}
==Risks of using Duolingo by Polish Learners at Primary Level==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2390/PaperA4.pdf
Risks of Using Duolingo by Polish Learners at Primary Level
Agnieszka Grygo1, Elżbieta Gajek2
University of Warsaw
Institute of Applied Linguistics
55 Dobra Street, Warsaw
ae.grygo@students.uw.edu.pl1, e.gajek@uw.edu.pl2
Abstract
Despite the advantages of using Duolingo by language learners for learning vocabulary there are also risks which may
influence the effects of learning the target language. The text presents some examples of controversial areas which need to
be considered by English teachers who want to recommend this crowdsourcing tool to their learners in the Polish context.
It can be used as a complementary material but the teacher should monitor the acquisition of the target language to prevent
mistakes and misunderstandings. The article provides examples of potentially misleading issues the Polish learners may
acquire whole learning English with the use of Duolingo.
Keywords: Duolingo, crowdsourcing, language learning, language teaching
1. Introduction 3. Problematic Areas for Polish Learners of
This chapter analyses the linguistic aspects of using English Articles “the”, “a”, “-”
Duolingo at primary level. It focuses on the issues that may Even though Duolingo mainly functions as a tool for
build a false vision of the structure of the English language learning vocabulary, one cannot help but absorb other
in the minds of young learners. It also shows interlingual elements of content presented on the platform as well. The
challenges between English and Polish. This analysis is in majority of sentences and sequences of words one has to
tune with the analysis of translation quality from Spanish translate seem to be a part of longer texts but are introduced
into English (Garcia, 2013) but exemplified by the without context. Therefore, a number of them may appear
difficulties Polish learners face while learning English. illogical, unnatural and impossible to be applied in real life
Teachers who use Duolingo with their pupils need to be situations. As a consequence of that, they may trigger
aware of the shortcomings of the learning site. unwanted tendencies among Duolingo’s users and lead to
their making mistakes. This subject primarily concerns the
2. British and American English in the use of articles in exercises on the platform, especially if one
Polish Educational Context takes into account scarce explanations of grammatical rules
provided by the programme. Translating detached
First of all, before starting the Polish-English course in
sentences such as “I am the bear”, “The crab drinks water”,
Duolingo, one needs to be aware of fact that the variety of
English that is taught on the platform is American English. “She reads the newspapers”, “The cat drinks the water”,
“The ducks drink milk”, “The turtle eats rice”, “The girls
It may not constitute a problematic issue for older learners
write”, “The cat jumps”, “A boy and a girl eat” (Duolingo)
who have already graduated from secondary schools, but
British English is the variety of English that is preferred in may help learners to master new vocabulary, but at the
same time, it may also influence their understanding of
the majority of Polish textbooks and taught in most Polish
articles negatively and make them forget or never truly
schools, and therefore, learning with Duolingo might be a
confusing experience for those who are still school students realise one of the most fundamental principles, id est that
“[w]e use the before a noun when our listener / reader
and have never been presented with an extensive
knows (or can work out) which particular person(s),
description of differences between British English and
American English. Duolingo itself does not offer any thing(s) etc we are talking about” (Swan, 1995). When one
tries to analyse more thoroughly the sentences mentioned
information or guide explaining dissimilarities between
above, it might render difficult to propose circumstances in
those two types of English. It may thus lead to students’
inconsistency in using English and their mixing two which they could be uttered, particularly for learners at the
early stage of their English-language education, and thus it
aforementioned varieties together as well as their receiving
might cause confusion. Words offered by Duolingo in word
lower notes on tests for choosing, e.g., spelling that is
incompatible with their student’s books. Besides, even banks accompanying sentences may be a source of further
questions. If a sentence or a sequence of words in English
Duolingo lacks the consistency when it comes to using one
contains the article “the” before a noun, many word banks,
variety of English. For instance, in the word bank
accompanying one of the translation exercises, Duolingo from which one can choose words needed for a correct
translation, provide corresponding Polish articles such as
offers the word “film”, which according to the online
“ten, ta, to”, etc., indicating the reference to a specific thing,
Cambridge Dictionary is a word mainly used in the United
Kingdom, instead of suggesting the use of the word person, and so on. However, Duolingo is not consistent in
this case either. For instance, among Polish words
“movie”, which, according to the online Cambridge
appearing in word banks with such sentences as, e.g., “The
Dictionary, is the American term referring to the same
phenomenon, that is “a series of moving pictures, usually crab drinks water”, “She reads the newspapers”, “The
cats drink water”, “The turtles eat rice”, “the
shown in a cinema or on television and often telling a
sandwiches”, “The turtle drinks milk”, “the author”, “the
story.”
model” (Duolingo), there are no articles.
EnetCollect WG3 & WG5 Meeting, 24-25 October 2018, Leiden, Netherlands 21
In a normal situation, when one is given a full text or a according to Duolingo, the sentence “I watched that film
longer utterance to translate, translating articles into Polish last night” can only be translated into Polish as
is not always necessary due to other ways of signifying “Obejrzałem ten film wczoraj wieczorem” despite the fact
differences between general and specific statements in the that, depending on the context, it could be translated as
language. Yet, for laymen, it may not be obvious and thus “Wczoraj wieczorem obejrzałem ten film” (Yesterday
may render them oblivious to disparities in the usage of evening I watched this film) as well.
definite and indefinite articles in English.
It is worth adding that acquisition of articles which is 6. Punctuation
difficult for learners of English of Polish origin might not A number of sentences presented in translation exercises in
be a problem for speakers of other languages. For example,
Duolingo and answers deemed by the programme as
there is no risk for Japanese learners to acquire English
correct may trigger, due to their dubious correctness and
words incorrectly while using Duolingo (Kennedy, 2018) stylistic problems, more frequent occurrence of mistakes in
both English and Polish among Duolingo’s users.
4. Correct and Incorrect Translations For instance, one does not need to include punctuation
Considering the fact that Duolingo contains a vast number marks for an answer to be marked as correct by the
of translation exercises, it seems almost impossible to platform.
predict and include all correct translations that users may However, punctuation is an integral part of the language
produce. Hence, a translation containing no mistakes may and learning rules concerning it should be considered as
not be deemed as a right answer by the programme and may important as learning rules regarding any other area of the
get marked as wrong. language. If one repeatedly makes the same mistake in
For example, if one translates the Polish sentence “Piję Duolingo and gets never corrected, they will make the same
mleko, podczas gdy on pije wino” (Duolingo) into English mistake in other areas of their life as well, that is at school,
as “I drink milk, whereas he drinks wine”, the answer gets at work, while communicating with acquaintances, friends,
labelled as incorrect on the platform. In addition, the etc.
sentence “This sum includes taxes” is only one of many Besides, if one makes the same mistake over and over
sentences that could be translated into Polish in at least six again, it becomes a habit and is much more difficult to fight
different ways, but not all of them are accepted by the than it would be at the very beginning of acquainting with
system. The response generated by the programme may a language.
negatively affect students’ perception of what is correct and
what is incorrect, and may lead to an erroneous conclusion 7. Polish Pronouns
that a solution proposed by them is false, whereas in reality,
Duolingo only accepts translations into Polish with such
it is a perfectly correct answer. pronouns as “swój”, “swoja”, “swoje”. Those translations
are correct but others are also accceptable. For example, if
5. Word-for-Word Translation one translates the sentence “He likes cooking for his
Translation exercises in Duolingo frequently promote the family” as “On lubi gotować dla rodziny”(He likes cooking
word-for-word type of translation, which in multiple for the family), their answer will be labelled as false and
situations, happens to be incorrect and triggers a wrong changed into “On lubi gotować dla swojej rodziny” even
approach to translation in general, diminishing its role and though in real-life circumstances, a sentence without the
distorting its main point. Probably only a small group of pronoun could be uttered.
Duolingo’s users plan a career as translators or interpreters,
but other people are also affected by the site’s content as 8. Mistakes
the majority of translations proposed by Duolingo resemble
Sentences provided by Duolingo in translation exercises
word-for-word translations. From the perspective of the may simply contain mistakes such as, e.g. the sentence
English language, it may not render harmful, but it
“Nie dzięki” (No thanks) lacking punctuation marks,
definitely has a damaging impact on learners’ quality of the
translating “lunch” as “obiad” (lunch is smaller, eaten in
Polish language and encourages the usage of calques. the early afternoon, obiad is two or three course meal eaten
For instance, according to Duolingo, the sentence
in the afternoon or early evening) even though those two
“Yesterday we saw them writing a book” should be
words mean different meals, the sentence “Ty
translated into Polish as “Wczoraj widzieliśmy ich przedstawiłeś twoich przyjaciół” with the word “twoich”
piszących książkę” even though it may sound unnatural and
instead of the word “swoich”, the sentence “The hotel room
peculiar as in similar cases, users of the Polish language
is including breakfast”, which is not the most natural way
tend to avoid participles and usually opt for subordinate of indicating that the price of the hotel room covers the
clauses, that is the aforementioned sentence could also be
costs of breakfast, translating the sentence “It was hard for
translated as “Wczoraj widzieliśmy, jak (oni) pisali
him to stop working” as “Trudno było mu zaprzestać
książkę”, but (Yesterday we saw how they wrote a book) pracowania”, which is a calque and should be instead
that version is not accepted by the programme.
translated as, for instance, “Było mu trudno przestać
Additionally, the programme very often marks as correct
pracować1”, etc.
only those translations of English sentences in which the
adverbial phrase is placed at the end of the sentence even
though in many cases, it is more natural in Polish to put the
adverbial phrase at the beginning of the sentence, e.g.,
1
The difference refers to specific grammatical phenomena in
Polish.
EnetCollect WG3 & WG5 Meeting, 24-25 October 2018, Leiden, Netherlands 22
9. Ambiguous Content in Duolingo 11. Evaluation from the Teacher’s
Notwithstanding the fact that the majority of sentences Perspective
offered in translation exercises in Duolingo are Since teachers are more knowledgeable when it comes to
grammatically correct, the lack of context in which they various teaching techniques and methods, they may render
appear may trammel the process of understanding them and more critical of Duolingo than most users and analyse risks
as a consequence, hinder the process of translation and and benefits that using the platform may generate more
transfer into real-life conversations. thoroughly. Even though the main conclusion of their
Numerous sentences such as “A boy and a girl eat”, “He analysis might be that benefits generally outweigh risks
says”, “The girls write”, etc. would be much more connected with using Duolingo, it is still not a sufficient
straightforward and much clearer if they were accompanied reason for teachers to recommend the programme to
by objects. Moreover, a number of sentences seem to lack students if other, less harmful, ways of expanding one’s
adverbials. Sentences such as “I eat three apples”, “We are vocabulary are available.
watching five movies”, “The children eat an apple” do not Participating in the courses on the platform definitely helps
make much sense separated from their source texts and one improve their vocabulary to a certain extent as doing
would definitely benefit from adding information on the exercises is naturally more beneficial than doing nothing,
exact time or frequency in which the activities occur. but if students can be presented with content containing
In addition, many of sentences on the platform appear as if much fewer mistakes and exercises which are not based on
they were produced by a machine automatically combining the highly criticised translation method, the teacher should
words into sentences which, in the result, are devoid of avoid speaking favourably of Duolingo and use it only as a
logic. For instance, one may encounter in Duolingo such tool to sensitise students to the fact that they have to be
sentences as “The cat reads a book”, “The cats drink beer”, especially wary of the Internet language teaching resources
“I am a duck. I speak English”, “I eat under the table”, “My created by non-professionals and be critical of content
tiger is vegetarian”, etc. found online. For instance, during lessons, teachers may
The aforementioned sentences may be grammatically devote time to showing mistakes which can be encountered
correct, but they promote false or unlikely information and in Duolingo and analyse them with students so that learners
may move students’ focus from studying to trying to can develop their critical thinking skills, become aware of
interpret what the author exactly meant by those examples. the fact that every resource may contain errors and acquire
Besides, learning progresses more smoothly if it is based strategies helping them to evaluate the accuracy and
on real-life and authentic content to which one may refer correctness of content.
later in conversations, compositions, etc.
12. Conclusions
10. Evaluation from the Learner’s In the case of younger students, one should be more careful
Perspective before recommending them to use Duolingo since children
On the one hand, one of the most important advantages of and adolescents’ brains are tremendously receptive and if
Duolingo is definitely the fact that learners can use the one combines it with the fact that younger learners are very
platform whenever they desire to and that there are no often only at the beginning of the process of developing a
restrictions which could limit their time spent on the site. critical approach to the content they encounter on the
Duolingo may also catch the interest of learners as both television, on the Internet, etc., participating in lessons in
beginners and more advanced students can partake in Duolingo may pose a threat and trigger bad habits due to
courses and thus either start learning a language from mistakes and ambiguous examples occurring on the
scratch or significantly enrich their vocabulary. platform. However, content found in Duolingo may also
What is more, one can use Duolingo for free. Therefore, if help achieve positive results since showing this tool to
one is not satisfied with the program, they can cease to students and analysing it with them may contribute to the
exploit the platform at any time without bearing any process of developing students’ critical thinking skills and
financial costs. to the process of developing various language learning
On the other hand, students beginning to learn a language techniques. To sum up, using Duolingo may render a
may accept content in Duolingo uncritically since they do beneficial tool for learning vocabulary if only one
not possess sufficient knowledge enabling them to evaluate approaches this method sensibly and is aware of the fact
the quality of materials and to detect mistakes. Besides, the that the platform may include errors. Even though
content presented in Duolingo may not render attractive to translation is frequently regarded as a poor technique of
everyone. Some students may deem lessons on the platform learning languages, in the end, it is a student who decides
too monotonous and repetitive, and mistakes occurring in what suits him best. If translating sentences generates
exercises too distracting. However, it is only a matter of satisfying results and helps the learner to expand their
personal taste and the background of a student. vocabulary, there is no reason for them to stop using the
Whereas some learners might be of the opinion that method they deem most efficient
exercises in Duolingo are absorbing and help them acquire Further work may focus on (a) the content analysis of
new vocabulary more efficiently, others may regard Duolingo vocabulary and its relevance to CEFR levels
courses on the site as boring and claim that they promote PreA1, A1, B1, e.t.c. ; (b) the learners, what they get while
bad habits. practicing vocabulary with Duolingo; (c) pedagogical
value of the material provided on the platform, that is at
what stage of the language lesson it can be used effectively
(d) the role of teacher as a mediator between the Duolingo
content and learners.
EnetCollect WG3 & WG5 Meeting, 24-25 October 2018, Leiden, Netherlands 23
13. Bibliographical References Swan, M. (1995). Practical English Usage (2nd ed.).
Garcia, I. (2013). Learning a Language for Free While Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Translating the Web. Does Duolingo Work? Vesselinov, R., Grego, J. (2012) Duolingo effectiveness
International Journal of English Linguistics; Vol. 3, No. study. City University of New York, USA 28 (1-25)
1, 19-25. http://static.duolingo.com/s3/DuolingoReport_Final.pdf
Kennedy, O. (2018). Overcoming problematic smart-phone von Ahn, L. ACM (Ed.) Duolingo: learn a language for free
usage for effective mobile learning. Presentation at while helping to translate the web. Proceedings of the
EuroCall Conference Future-proof CALL: Language 2013 international conference on Intelligent user
learning as exploration and encounters. Jyvaskyla, 22-25 interfaces (IUI '13), 2013, 1-2
August 2018.
EnetCollect WG3 & WG5 Meeting, 24-25 October 2018, Leiden, Netherlands 24