David's Blog

For the last few weeks, I’ve been undertaking a critical inquiry of the Duolingo learning app, and been reporting my findings, progress and observations here. I picked Duolingo because I’m interested in the use of digital technologies for self-directed learning. Duolingo came to mind because it is very popular, and demonstrated that second-language acquisition (SAL) is a prime opportunity for such such technologies. I tackled the subject from two directions. First, I was curious to learn whether or not Duolingo had employed the latest learning methodologies in its design. Or, specifically, to what extent Duolingo’s use of spaced-repetition could be substantiated by recent research. Knowing that would help to determine whether or not Duolingo’s success demonstrated the effectiveness of those methodologies or not. Or, to what extent Duolingo was genuinely intent on creating a useful app that would assist in SAL, or if instead, as is often typical of modern digital technologies, was primarily intended for financial gain, by creating a “sticky” experience that generated high traffic to their platform.

For that reason, I also investigated what I could about Duolingo’s business history. It turns out I found some fascinating information, and shown how Duolingo is merely the latest project of a long history of the Pentagon’s interest in cybernetics, and specifically, the development of artificial intelligence. That has been enlightening, especially about the ulterior purposes of many popular digital technologies. That has inspired me to look beyond the hype, to explore less celebrated tools, where I have discovered not only other great language learning platforms, but also approaches to SAL which are not being widely adapted, as I outlined in my last post. These discoveries, and my final observations, will be the substance of my critical inquiry as part of my final assignment for this course.

My aim has been to achieve basic proficiency in the German language through whatever online tools I might find available. Below, in sequence, is my survey of the platforms I used. Continue reading “My Journey Through Language Learning Online”

Cybernetics

The majority of the Duolingo’s research is published by the Association for Computational Linguistics, in 1962, and which developed out of the field of machine translation (MT) and cybernetics. Contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study connecting the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, and psychology in the 1940s, often attributed to the Macy Conferences (Tudico, 2012). The Macy Conferences were a set of meetings of scholars from various disciplines held in New York under the direction of Frank Fremont-Smith at the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation starting in 1941 and ending in 1960. The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation had close links with the Rockefeller Foundation, which according to Frances Stonor Saunders, author of The Cultural Cold War (1999), served as a front for the CIA. The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, or Macy Foundation, was founded in 1930 by Kate Macy Ladd (1863–1945), a friend John D. Rockefeller Jr., in honor of her father, Josiah W. Macy Jr. Much of the family firm, known as Josiah Macy and Sons, had been bought by Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Corporation (Tudico, 2012). Continue reading “Duolingo and the Cold War Origins of Machine Translation”

Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

In background research to understand the positioning of Duolingo, I looked into the history of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). The field of SLA is a subdiscipline of applied linguistics, but also receives research attention from a variety of other disciplines, such as psychology, cognitive psychology, and education. Significant approaches in the field today are: systemic functional linguistics, sociocultural theory, cognitive linguistics, Noam Chomsky’s universal grammar, skill acquisition theory and connectionism (VanPatten & Benati 2010). There has been much debate about exactly how language is learned, and many issues are still unresolved. There are many theories of SLA, but none are accepted as a complete explanation by all SLA researchers. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field, this is not expected to happen in the foreseeable future. Although attempts have been made to provide a more unified account that tries to bridge first language acquisition and second language learning research (Janciauskas & Chang, 2017). Continue reading “Spaced Repetition or Extensive Reading?”

The recurring question in the several articles as part of the reading list for Activity 1 of Unit 2 of LRNT 525 (Weiner, 2009; Biech, 2007; Weller & Anderson, 2013; Feldstein, 2017), is how to manage change, specifically technological change, with reference to the substantial changes taking place in education. As is often the case in this field, the questions attempt to determine how to address the change, instead of defining the nature of the change. An interesting perspective is offered by Weller and Anderson (2013), who consider an organization or institution’s “resilience” to change. Using the analogy of an ecosystem, the field of education much adapt to new environmental conditions, and the species itself must adapt. However, Weller and Anderson (2013) suggest that an essential factor for survival is that the “core function remain.” According to the authors, “In terms of higher education practice then, resilience is about utilising technology to change practices where this is desirable, but to retain the underlying function and identity that the existing practices represent, if they are still deemed to be necessary” (Resilience). Continue reading “Technological Challenges to Teaching”