apps

This journey really started with Duolingo. I’ve got relatively deeply into Duolingo’s Portuguese lessons in 2017/18: I would be spending a fortnight in Lisbon at the Eurovision and wanted to *not* be *that* anglophone dude. Strangely enough, my French was more useful than my risible Portuguese.

As a pedagogue I wasn’t impressed with aspects of Duolingo. In particular:

• Badging/gaming
• Passive/aggressive reminders
• No real curriculum, just a shiteload of formative assessment

But it does let you squeeze in studies wherever you are, on most devices. Plus Himself was deep-down into the gaelige lessons already. He loves the gamification bits. I am, in some ways, an archetypal Knowlesian adult learner: extrinsic me not!

I’ve been noodling around the Irish Duolingo for months now. Last week I expressed my frustration that the app is all assessment and no curriculum. “Why haven’t you used the Tips and Notes?” Um…because I didn’t know they were there? These have helped a fair bit, but I am still missing out on some workbook type exercises to integrate what I’m learning.

Alas there is no Duoling for te reo 😦 So I can’t even unhappily use that.