Why I love Duolingo

My three daughters all learn French. My eldest learnt it for three years at high school, and her sisters are currently learning it through the iPad App ‘Duolingo’. The younger two girls both love ‘Duolingo’. It provides short, sharp, daily lessons in lots of different languages (and I have noticed it is moving into the maths world too)!

At our house, ‘Duo’ is the first thing the girls do when they wake up in the morning. They take it very seriously!

Miss 13 has a 595-day streak and Miss 8 has an 86-day streak. She should be on 421 but we had a little ‘mishap’ over the July holidays and she devastatingly lost her streak🤦‍♀️. This took me back to the horrible 1992 event where twelve-year-old me lost all the cases I had solved, just as I was about to enter the Carmen Sandiego 'Hall of Fame'. Does anyone else remember how good the computer game Carmen Sandiego was?!

I find learning about how the brain works absolutely fascinating. And the way Duolingo has been designed aligns perfectly with Brain Science.

I read the other day a blog that outlined three ways a piece of information can go from short term to long term memory:

Urgency, Repetition and Association.

Urgency

Urgency is when something scary or dangerous happens to us. Our brain remembers this event or series of events, so it can warn us away from this danger should we be in that situation again.

I am very familiar with this...although it only happened once, my brain will still not allow me to run on nature strips (I think this may be an Australian term- the translation is a piece of grass between the footpath and the road). A few years ago I fell down a hole on a nature strip (it was dark) and broke my leg. That experience is seared into my long-term memory!

Exhibit A: Nature Strip

Repetition

The second way information can be moved into long term memory is through repetition. 

Duolingo is designed with regular practice and repetition in mind.

It masterfully gamifies this process to motivate learners.  

 The app has rewards, reminders and encourages users to practice every day so as to increase their 'streak'.

The repeating pattern of completing a Duolingo lesson every day and increasing your streak results in a hit of  'feel-good' dopamine.

Both girl's brains now look for that every day.

The desire to keep their streak is extremely motivating, but hidden beneath the streak is another extremely motivating factor...success.  

It is chicken and egg scenario.

The girls want to keep their streak going, so they practice without fail every day (dopamine hit). But through practicing every day they are improving, and when you improve you feel successful. 

This success is then motivating.

It is a virtuous learning cycle.

Another important feature of Duolingo is short, sharp practice sessions.

The girls are on the app for less than 5 minutes a day, but they are improving at an impressive rate because of the repetition.

Brain science has shown us that the brain responds favorably to repetition.

Practice makes permanent.

Think of anyone who is at the top of their field. Be it sport, art, music, business or academia. None of them have made it to the top by chance. While luck does play a part, (just ask Steven Bradbury) people at the elite level have put in hours upon hours of, as Ericsson and Pool (2016) explain in their excellent book Peak, 'deliberate practice'.

Put simply, when we practice our brain produces Myelin which insulates the neurons allowing nerve impulses to move through them more rapidly.

Think of driving on a road at peak hour compared to at 4am in the morning.

Practice allows the nerve impulses to avoid traffic congestion and be constantly travelling 'off peak'! 

When we learn something for the first time, we are awkward and slow. This is because our brain is trying to forge a new neural pathway…

This process can be faster for some than others. This is where association becomes important.

If the brain can connect a new piece of information or skill with an existing neural pathway, we learn at a faster rate. It is like taking a short-cut to avoid traffic!

When we understand how the brain works we can ensure we are providing the most efficient conditions for our students to learn. 

It is very clear to me that if we want our students to develop fluency in maths (who doesn't?), we must provide them with repeated short, sharp, targeted opportunities for deliberate practice.

Brian Poncy (PhD) and his colleagues have done extensive research in the area of maths fluency. Their research has shown that daily fluency practice sessions can be effective with as little as 4 minutes of practice (Hernandez-Nuhfer, Poncy, Duhon, Solomon, & Skinner, 2020). For me this is a really important area of research.

This research heavily influenced the design of my Number Fluency Program (NFP). My NFP program is designed to only take 15 minutes each day. This includes, set up, pack up, self-correction and goal setting. It is actually only a maximum of 5 minutes the students are spending on their recall.

Fluency practice should be short, sharp and is only one part of our maths instruction (and I would argue is better as a stand-alone 'extra' session outside our maths lesson). As Payne, Solomon, Silva, Korzeniewski & Poncy (2024) point out, focusing on skill fluency practice will never replace high-quality Tier 1 maths instruction, but it is a critical part of our instruction that cannot be overlooked.

We have a finite amount of time to teach our students mathematics, so let's make the most of the time!

This week I encourage you to consider where you can squeeze some daily fluency practice in with your students. Many of the schools who are trialing the NFP have found first thing in the morning is a great time to run the session- students are fresh, it provides a set routine for them (the brain loves pattern and structure) and they start the day with success. Just like Duolingo has done for my daughters (and millions of other language learners across the world), when structures are in place, fluency, success and motivation will follow! 

Have a great week!

Ange 🎲🎓

P.S: If learning a language has always been on your 'when I get time' list, consider this blog a sign from the universe to download 'Duolingo' and begin your streak today!

 P.S. You can download the PDF version of this blog to print or share with colleagues here.