Delving into the Psychology Behind the DuoLingo Approach

When I logged on to my DuoLingo program this morning, it gave me a pat on the back by telling me that I was on a 14 day streak. This means that every day for two weeks straight, I have earned a minimum of ten XPs (Experience Points) on DuoLingo.

It is still surprising to me how much I want to maintain that streak!  In my free time, I could walk around the yard and check on plants, take a nap, read an article on Flipboard (my favorite iPad app), pet the cat, or watch House Hunters on HTGV. But because someone (???) cares how much I am sticking with my Portuguese maintenance program, I'll work on a DuoLingo exercise instead.  I would not have guessed that I could be so easily seduced.

Another motivational feature of DuoLingo is charting how many XPs I have earned each day for the previous week.  

As you can see, on Thursday and Friday, I did just the minimum amount of work to earn 10 XPs. On Monday, a holiday, I got busy and earned 200 points. I wanted that orange bar across the top to move closer to the next skill level, Level 12.  And I discovered that if I can test out of certain skills, I will earn 90 XPs instead of just 10.  

Testing out is not easy, as I discovered when I got right  to the end of a test yesterday and made a mistake with no hearts left.  (I understand that for gamers, hearts are like lives.  When they are gone, you are dead!) I got a message from the DuoLingo Professor Owl saying that he was very sorry, but that I was out of hearts. I was sorry too.

I have never been a gambler.  Las Vegas casinos have no appeal for me.  But when I saw this offer on DuoLingo, I have to admit I was a bit tempted to participate.

Lingots are the virtual currency of DuoLingo and can be earned by various means.  If I want to bet five of my Lingots that I will maintain a seven day streak, I can double that amount and end up with ten Lingots. If I don't maintain the streak, I'll lose five of my present 21 Lingots.  It sounds like a pretty sure bet to me!  I hope this decision doesn't lead to a life of crime!

There is one more DuoLingo message that I'm not sure I want to hear about.

When I first read this message, I thought, "How sad!" But then I realized that introverts like myself would prefer to learn alone than to actually have to interact with another human being, even virtually! 

I've got to rate DuoLingo very high for motivation.  And I now understand why my son and his friends, when they were teenagers, wouldn't stop playing those video games until they either got killed or reached the next level.  I really want to reach DuoLingo Level 12 this week!

Language acquisition for procrastinators

I am a procrastinator.  And I'll bet I am not alone in the world.  But I think I have found a language learning program that I will stick with for a while.

Last week I wrote about starting DuoLingo,

a web-based language learning program available on computer and mobile devices.  For the first few days, I tried out the program just on my laptop.  Recently I also put the free app on the iPad, and today, waiting for a friend at a restaurant, I downloaded the app for the iPhone. Now I have fewer excuses not to improve my language skills.

Instructions for using the program are minimal, which for a procrastinator is a good thing. You can't put off starting by saying that you are going to learn how to use it first (old thinking!).  I just started clicking on buttons.  Nothing disastrous happened.  I chose Portuguese as my language and was taken through a series of  questions and then placed at a certain level.  If I would have realized that I was being given a placement exam, I would have been a bit more careful with my answers, but I feel comfortable with the results.  The questions are (like the Three Bears) sometimes a little too easy, sometimes a little too hard, and sometimes just right.

I'm not absolutely certain about the following information, but it appears that you can practice grammar skills

and vocabulary

to gain experience points (if you are successful - not always easy). You can also participate in real world translations.  I have only felt brave enough to choose the practice option up to now.

When you sign in, you are given three icons at the bottom of the screen.  One is learn, one is practice, and one is store.  The store allows participants to spend virtual currency, called Lingots, for virtual prizes.  I'm getting in over my head here, so I'll stop and talk about motivation, an important topic in the field of language acquisition.

Language acquisition is a task that is appealing to many people but very difficult to follow through on.  I am very impressed with the motivational features of DuoLingo and surprised at myself for devoting extra time for a few extra experience points.  And when I receive an email from the DuoLingo gently chiding me because I haven't participated yet that day, I feel real guilt and move language learning up to the top of my to do list.  

Last night I really wanted to skip language instruction and escape into a good murder mystery novel, but I used my iPhone to do a practice and earned 10 experience points!  I'll be exploring more features this week. If you use DuoLingo, please let me know your experiences.

.

Something new in language learning!

In last week's post, I traced the arc of my lifelong goal to acquire the Spanish and Portuguese languages. Unfortunately, that arc is now at its nadir because I haven't been using those languages.  The dreaded condition of language attrition is starting to take its toll on my hard-earned foreign language fluency. I need a new approach!

Fitness experts say that a person needs to vary an exercise routine to achieve maximum results, don't they?  I wish I could confirm that recommendation, but right now it's my mind rather than my body that I feel is in need of attention.  I've studied languages through various approaches - grammar-translation, audio-lingual, and communicative, but I want a fresh approach that will keep me on task.

I decided to investigate a web based program called Duolingo (http://www.duolingo.com). I don't remember how or when I first heard about it, but somehow yesterday I found myself staring at my laptop computer screen and reading the motto "Free language education for the world."  Hmm, generous and ambitious, I thought.  I googled Duolingo to learn more about the program before I went through the sign-up procedure.

Here's what I know about Duolingo so far.  The five languages offered in complete form are Latin American Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Brazilian Portuguese.  That suits me fine, because at the moment I want to maintain Spanish and Portuguese (maybe French for later on if all goes well).

There is no cost to the program.  That raised a red flag in my jaded mind.  I was suspicious of the claim until I read about the Duolingo business model. Because it is a crowd sourced text translation platform, income is generated by charging organizations that want their web site or other documents translated.  Crowd sourcing!  Doesn't that sound hip and modern?

Duolingo has other modern features that may provide a partial solution to my nagging fear that the world of technology is leaving me behind.  Duolingo  is available on the web and also on both Apple and Android devices as a free app.  I have dreams of putting it on my iPad and iPhone so that I can play around with a foreign language in my free time and anywhere I choose.

After the simple sign up procedure on Duolingo, I tested my Portuguese language abilties.  I didn't really know what I was doing, but I just followed the simple instructions.  I was asked questions using various language skills, translating from Portuguese to English, translating from English to Portuguese, multiple choice grammar questions, audio bites to write in Portuguese (with a slow down feature, fortunately), and even remarks like "watch your accent marks"when I failed to do so.  It was absorbing and fun.  I was given a chance to further practice my skills , which I did.

It will take some time to fully understand the program, I know.  The practice structure is described as  "gamified", which will be a real challenge for me, because I have never played a video game in my life.  And this morning I received an email from Duolingo, gentle chiding me for not practicing yesterday and reminding me that learning a language requires constant practice. Everyone needs a little nagging now and then.

My main impression of Duolingo  at this early stage is that it is new and challenging.  And best of all, I am looking forward with great anticipation to continuing it.  Language study has now moved from my "have to" list onto my "fun to do" list.

I'll keep you posted!

     

Oh no! I'm losing it!

I suppose I could say I am losing many things these days (except those extra pounds off my body), but what has me most concerned recently is the loss of my foreign language abilities. Linguists have a fancy term for that phenomenon- second language attrition, and I am a victim. Here is my sad story.

.

Five minutes!  I spent a lot more time than that!

When I was in college, my best foreign language was Spanish.  I have heard Spanish all of my life and studied it from sixth grade through a Master's degree. That extended period of study equated to countless hours spent listening, speaking, reading, writing, and yes, studying grammar in Spanish.

After graduation, I taught Spanish in public school for quite a few years. Instead of improving my own Spanish language abilities, I concentrated on how to teach others a foreign language (not an easy task!). My Spanish took on the typical basic characteristics of Spanish I and Spanish II courses.

I'm not sure all of my students were this eager to learn!

Recently, I began an informal project with a friend to reread the Spanish classic, El Ingenioso Caballero, Don Quijote de la Mancha. I pulled my old college copy off the shelf and was delighted to discover that my much younger self had made very helpful summary notes at the bottom of each page. Not only were the notes a guide to reading comprehension, but they were written in fluent Spanish.  I could hardly believe that it had been me writing those notes like a native speaker of Spanish. Where had that fluent Spanish gone?

I can still read  Spanish fairly well, although it takes more concentration than reading in English. I need absolute peace and quiet in the house!  But my Spanish oral fluency is not what I would like it to be. My husband inquired as to whether reading a 17th century novel was going to increase my ability to speak Spanish on our trip to Spain this fall.  I told him that at the very least, I am starting to hear Spanish swirling around in my mind again.  I may surprise a few Spaniards by speaking to them in the style of  Don Quijote!

Don Quijote and Sancho Panza

Then there is the matter of Brazilian Portuguese.  Intellectual curiosity caused me  to sign up for a Portuguese course at the local university one semester many years ago.  It was love at first sight for me.  I signed up in subsequent semesters for all available Portuguese courses and even spent a summer in Brazil on an NEH grant.  We were given an exit exam at the end of the course. I received a 10, the highest possible score! My Portuguese abilities were in great shape!

A Brazilian praça

But when I returned to my Spanish teaching job in the fall, I had quite a shock. I would try to speak Spanish and out would come Portuguese.  About the time I was getting the two languages straight in my mind, I began an administrative job in the school district which required different skills than pure language skills. Both my Spanish and Portuguese went into a slow decline over almost two decades.

My third career was teaching Portuguese courses at the university level.

I quickly immersed myself in Portuguese language and Brazilian culture and survived the first semester.  As time went on, Portuguese completely took over Spanish in my mind.  Students would speak to me in Spanish, and I would understand them with no problem, but if I tried to answer back in Spanish, it was all Portuguese.  Very embarrassing! Now it has been almost a year since I have spoken Portuguese on a regular basis, and I am beginning to feel very sad that I no longer hear that beautiful language in my head.

So I definitely have a bad case of second language attrition.  I'm going to work on remedies this week and let you know what I have self-prescribed in next week's blog.  If you have suffered from the same disease and have found a cure, please let me know!
 

Do you speak Castilian Spanish?

"My parents taught me Castilian Spanish,"  I heard someone in El Paso, Texas say recently.  How strange, I thought.   To me,  the term Castilian Spanish conjures up images of the dialect of Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain and its capital, Madrid.  Why in the world would you want to learn that dialect in the American Southwest, where we have our own dialect of Spanish? Upon further consideration, I realized what the speaker probably meant by Castilian Spanish. She was using 'Castilian' as shorthand for 'correct'.  Ah, the plot thickens!

Castilian Spanish has a variety of meanings and connotations.  Viewed as one of many dialects of Spanish, it  has a distinctive pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. One of the most easily recognized characteristics is the pronunciation of the letter 'z' before all vowels and the letter 'c' before 'e' or 'i' (the sound of the 'th' of 'think' in English). Try saying the word plaza Castilian style.

Spanish verb conjugation of ver estar

A grammatical difference from other dialects is the more frequent use of the plural pronoun 'vosotros' for 'you'  (you all in Texan!)  Other Spanish dialects use ustedes for more than one person you are speaking to. This is significant because  vosotros and ustedes require different verb endings. I memorized the vosotros verb endings, like estáis, habláis, coméis, vivís (you-plural are, speak, eat, live) when I was in high school, but they are no longer in my speaking vocabulary. Maybe I had better bone up on verb conjugations before I travel to Spain later on this year.! 

Seal of Real Academia Española

There is another, expanded meaning of Castilian Spanish which refers to the concept of Standard Spanish. Many languages have one dialect that for political and economic reasons is raised to the status of Standard Dialect and used by the media and educational institutions.  The Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española) has declared that Castilian Spanish is the standard dialect. Now Castilian Spanish has taken on a new meaning of 'the correct way to speak Spanish'.

With an expanded meaning of Castilian Spanish, we can play amateur psychologist and delve into the possible meaning behind the aforementioned speaker's declaration that her parents had taught her Castilian Spanish. I don't believe that they insisted that she speak Spanish as it is spoken in a large part of Spain. They probably did insist that she use whatever they viewed as correct pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.  And their variety of Spanish may have been somewhat different from Southwestern Spanish.  A bit of language snobbishness, I would guess.  

I'm anticipating learning a lot about attitudes toward using different varieties of Spain when we travel there.  I remember from our last trip that a restaurant owner paid me a backhanded compliment by saying that my Spanish was quite good, but that I sounded like a 'Chicana'.  Another bit of language snobbery, it seems. I think he meant that I was using New World instead of Old World Spanish, which would be perfectly natural, since I am American and learned my Spanish on the US-Mexico border.

Spanish-speaking regions of the world

 At least he didn't complain about a feature of my Spanish that embarrasses me to no end -  my lack of a good, strong trilled 'r'!

 



    

The Wisdom of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza

My paperback copy of El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha has lost its front and back covers and is filled with scribbled notes from college days.  I don't want to think about how long ago that was, but the price of $3.75 marked on the front page takes me back a while.

A friend and I have recently challenged each other to read a certain number of chapters of  El Quijote and discuss them every week by email. We have a trip planned to northern Spain and Portugal later this year (husbands included) and thought what better way to prepare for the journey than to read the classic novel by Miguel Cervantes?

El Quijote was published in Spain during the first part of the 17th century.  Wikipedia heaps kudos on the novel with descriptions like "the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age...,  ...a founding work of modern Western literature..., ...it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published."  Credentials established, right?

So what makes a novel a classic?  From an ordinary reader's viewpoint, I believe it has something to do with making a connection between the novel and one's daily life, even if they are centuries apart.

I''m only on Chapter XX on this my second reading, but already I am finding bits of wisdom dispensed by both Don Quijote and his squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel the Spanish countryside in search of adventure.

Don Quijote, the dreamer, often puts his optimistic thinking in terms of pithy proverbs. He assures us that when one door closes in life, another will open ("Donde una puerta se cierra, otra se abre" Chap. 21). He also reminds us that time and death will erase all memories and pain ("No hay memoria a quien el tiempo no acabe, ni dolor que muerte no le consuma" Chap. 15).  He states philosophically that neither the good nor the bad in life will last ("No es posible que el mal ni el bien sean durables" Chap. 19).  And another helpful thought he gives the reader is that something is better than nothing at all ("Más vale algo que no nada" Chap. 21).

Don Quijote is a careful observer of personalities. He believes that a person is known by his deeds ("Cada uno es hijo de sus obras" (Chap. 14) and that for a man to think of himself as higher than other men, he must do more ("No es un hombre más alto que otro si no hace más que otro"(Chap. 18). His observation on love relationships still rings true today, even though I would say that he could be speaking about either sex when he states that women naturally reject those who love them and love those who hate them ("Esa es natural condición de mujeres: desdeñar a quien las quiere y amar a quien las aborrece"(Chap. 20).  

Sancho Panza inserts more worldly thoughts into the narrative by pointing out that it takes a long time to know what a person is like ("Es menester mucho tiempo para venir a conocer las personas"(Chap. 15) and warns us that nothing in this life is safe ("No hay cosa segura en esta vida" (Chap. 15). He also warns us that greed will bring disaster, ("La codicia rompe el saco" (Chap.20).

Proverbs and wise sayings are found more frequently in everyday use of Spanish than they are in English. I'm planning to memorize a few of my favorite quotes from El Quijote and sprinkle my conversations with them when we are in Spain.  Do you suppose a few well placed proverbs will make up for my very badly trilled r's?  I certainly hope so!   

.

Can Introverts be Good Language Acquirers?

Today I participated in a webinar with the somewhat intimidating title of "The Radically Common Phenomena Called Language:  How the human mind creates and acquires it,"* featuring the well-known applied linguist John De Mado.  It was great.  I could have chosen to sit in front of the computer in my robe and slippers sipping a fresh cup of coffee, but I wasn't completely sure that I wouldn't be required to use my webcam to participate.  (Has anyone figured out how to look halfway decent using a webcam?) But the webinar was all audio, so I was pleased to be able to relax and learn more about language acquisition.

As John De Mado discussed three main personality traits that are helpful for acquiring language, I started to squirm in my chair.  The first trait is Risk-Taking.  To acquire language, you have to talk to people - lots of people, the more the better.  He pointed out that it takes a lot of nerve for a non-native speaker to strike up a conversation with a native speaker, who is by definition much more in control of vocabulary, grammar and accent.

The second trait is Vulnerability.  A language acquirer must be able to be vulnerable enough to make errors - lots of errors, because there is no way to acquire language without them. If we clam up at the first wrong word choice, incorrect verb ending, or botched pronunciation, all is lost. We will not make progress toward our goal of acquiring a second language.

So why was I squirming in my chair?  It is because I am an introvert, and introverts have lots of trouble complying with the first two traits! Now in case you belong to the two-thirds of Americans who are classified as extroverts, you may not understand an introvert's world. The best way I can describe it is that if you and I were Energizer Bunnies, after a long conversation the extroverted bunny would feel charged up and ready to go.  The introverted bunny would be very, very tired and need some alone time to recharge.  So introverts are going to be especially reluctant to take a risk and strike up a conversation, especially in another language.

Now that you may be viewing the world through the eyes of an introvert, you can imagine how making an error in another language is not what an introvert wants to do. Communication in itself makes an introvert vulnerable to the world.  And not being understood because you have made a mistake!  Horrors!  Where's my shell to hide under?

Thank goodness the third personality trait mentioned by John De Mado is Intuition.  In order to understand what other people are saying to us (even in our native language), we have to filter what they say through our own knowledge and perceptions. People are often communicating much more than their actual words would indicate.  I can do this!  I am a good listener!  At last, something an introvert can do well!

So, can introverts be good language acquirers?  Yes, we can choose to be with a little pre-planning. My goals are: force myself to talk to more people in more different circumstances but allow myself a nice, long recharging time afterward;  if I am obsessing about the errors I made, write them down and think what I would have said differently; rejoice in the fact that I can pick up communication clues because I prefer to listen rather than talk.

Hmm.  Perhaps I'll sign up for an online language program where I would have conversations with a real native speaker.  At least I could log off quickly if things get uncomfortable!

*Webinar courtesy of Association of College and Research Libraries and Mángo Languages.