Google Alert Week in Review #8

I was intrigued by an article that came across in my Google alerts this week entitled, "Best language apps to help travellers click with locals".  I'm often intrigued by the ways in which people attempt to learn various topics "in the real world" (language of course being one of them) as opposed to how they have been traditionally approached in school.  I find that even tech-based teaching tools aimed at the same end goal (say, learning a new language) often vary in interesting ways based on whether or not they've been designed for the traditional educational setting or not.  Since I explored a new app being billed as a strong classroom language learning tool last week (Mondly) I thought this list might provide some interesting contrast. However, after reading the article I found that only the first app on the list, which I explain below, is solely designed for outside-of-the-classroom use, while the others are squarely at home inside the classroom. 

The first app that is covered in the article is Drops.  This app is essentially aimed at giving people the bare essentials they need to "survive" in a foreign country.  It basically boils down to techy drill-and-kill flashcards, which are admittedly noun-heavy.  Useful as a last minute crunch before the plane lands perhaps, but not so much for the L2 classroom, I don't believe.

The second app covered in the article, Busuu, I found much more interesting.  This was by far the gem of the list. As the article explains, it's basically like app-based pen pals.  The user can complete practice exercises in a given language and then have them "graded" by native speaking students, so long as they then return the favor for people practicing their native tongue.  I think that this concept could be incredibly engaging and rewarding for L2 students, who I know would feel incredibly proud of their ability to "put on the teacher hat" for a change and help people learn in their native tongue as opposed to always being on the other end of things.  This concept dovetails nicely with the information we reviewed in this week's readings about the social benefits of game-based learning.  An app that would allow students to form a sort of partnership with a students from another part of the world could potentially give them an added incentive for learning the language as it would be linked to this new relationship.

The only downfall of this app is that it's a freemium model that really does require one to make the purchase(s) for long-term use, but it is not prohibitively expensive, so in a one-to-one environment where monies formerly spent on hard-copy textbooks are being diverted to tech-based solutions, this could absolutely be a viable option.

I'm so intrigued by this that I've emailed both the foreign-language and ESOL teachers in my High and Middle schools to see if any of them are interested in giving it a go with a small group for the upcoming school year.  Several of them have had great success with Duolingo in the past (which, incidentally, is also covered in the article I read this week) so I am hopeful that they'll be willing to take the plunge with me on this one as well!