Innovation in Language Learning

Croatia, a country heavily reliant on tourism, has seen a significant influx of tourists from Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. However, Spanish is not as commonly studied as English or German. Introducing Spanish as a foreign language, particularly through an engaging and practical mobile-assisted language learning application like Duolingo, could have a transformative impact on language learning.

Previous research by the same authors demonstrated that respondents held an overall positive opinion about the quality and potential of using the Duolingo app for learning French and Italian [1],[2]. In this study, the authors explored the effectiveness of Duolingo for learning Spanish among university students.
Participants, all of whom were students at the Faculty of Teacher Education in Zagreb studying to become primary or nursery-school teachers, used Duolingo to begin learning Spanish. The app's instructions were in English—a language the students had been studying for an extended period. Students were required to complete at least three half-hour sessions and accumulate 300 points. After completing the mini-course, they took a 10-minute self-constructed Spanish test and completed a short, self-designed questionnaire.
The presentation of the results will focus on both quantitative and qualitative analyses, offering insight into the relationship between the course format, test performance, and survey responses. According to the results, students found Duolingo more effective for learning Spanish than other methods and reported a reduction in language anxiety.