Duolingo Application? Was It Worth It?

Duolingo application? Was it worth it?

"Take a count, how many teachers are there left?" Emperor Hirohito's question shortly after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—as a result of being sentenced to “Little Boy” and “Fat Man”—it immediately shocked the Japanese generals. How not, according to them, even without a teacher, Emperor Hirohito could still be saved.

“We fall, because we don't learn. We are indeed strong in weapons and war strategy. However, we do not know how to create such a powerful bomb. If we don't want to learn, how are we going to catch up with them? So, gather all the remaining teachers in all corners of this country, because they are the ones we will now rely on," continued the Emperor who seemed to answer the confusion of the Japanese generals at that time.

How important the figure of a teacher was in the eyes of the Emperor when Japan was devastated by the atomic bombing was certainly not much different from what it is today.

The international organization United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said that Indonesia's educational innovations were adopted by many countries around the world. According to Unesco, Indonesia has provided many educational innovations that have been adopted by countries all over the world. Regarding literacy, the Ministry of Education and Culture is highly recognized by the world. In addition, the Merdeka Learning program. According to UNESCO data, global education has improved. This result can be seen from the number of students who come to school directly, although it is not yet 100 percent. There are still some countries whose attendance rate is not yet 100 percent. But the state will continue to ensure that education continues to improve.

If previously school was a "second home" for students, now in the midst of this pandemic storm the situation has changed: home becomes a "second school" for them. Learning techniques and methods that must be carried out by teachers are also required to change, from classical to digital-based by utilizing devices and the internet. Unfortunately, teachers who are expected to be able to be lanterns in the midst of this pandemic storm are not all qualified in terms of using technology for learning. 

Sumber: duolingo

In this digital era, all of the activities that we want to do become easier. Especially in the realm of education, technology has an important role to support teaching and learning process in the classroom. As we see from the situation at school in Indonesia, the main factor that push this problem is the students feel that English is difficult subject to learn, besides the 2 learning activities are monotonous and boring. With technology, we can use laptop, computer or mobile phone (android) to make the learning process more interest and fun. The most popular tools use as a learning media is mobile phone (android). In mobile phone, we can find some mobile application like social media, Edmodo, Blog, Duolingo, etc. This paper focus to discuss about Duolingo Application. Duolingo is a free language learning application that we can find in playstore on mobile phone.

Duolingo builds a world with free education and no language barriers. With this application the users are able to learn language especially English to practice and increase skills in English. That tools can be an interesting media in EFL teaching and learning by download a mobile application like Duolingo Application. Mostly, the previous study had been done about the use of Duolingo application can increase students’ vocabulary mastery.

Mastery of English vocabulary becomes knowledge that Indonesians need to learn. The magnitude of the need to learn English has turn this knowledge into a commodity separate business. If you used to be a new Indonesian child study English at high school level, now they started it at an earlier level i.e Elementary and even kindergarten. Mastery of vocabulary is the most important thing fundamentals that students must master in learning English which is a language secondly for all students and the Indonesian people.

With the number of vocabulary mastered by someone then wider range of knowledge. Vocabulary is very important in learning English, in addition to structure, grammar, pronunciation, because if a student does not master the vocabulary, it will be difficult for him to communicates what's on his mind well orally or in writing.

Based on the results of observations, it can be seen that So far, students' interest in following English learning is still lacking so that affect the level of mastery of language vocabulary.

Technology integration is important in this era of part of today’s society especially in the realm of education. Technology integration can make an interesting teaching and learning with the variations of the features of mobile application like Duolingo application that can support teaching and learning from EFL in Indonesia. This study finds that Duolingo application useful to be integrated in EFL language skills in Indonesia. This study also shows that Duolingo application useful in practice and increase their EFL learning process, particularly their vocabulary mastery and also their writing, reading, listening and speaking ability seen from some aspects; boost their confidence in learning English, encourage their participation in learning with fun an interest media in learning English, and help them to increase their English skills.

It is recommended that mobile application, particularly Duolingo application can be used and integrated in EFL classes in Indonesia. However, need to remember that teacher’s guidance is still needed to ensure the use of Duolingo application in EFL classes based with the purpose of teaching and learning objectives that has predetermined. Besides that, mobile phone can be used for another purposes outside of the realm of education, that’s why teachers also needed to ensure that students use mobile phone as a learning media, not for another activity or another purposes.

Students enrich their vocabulary using Duolingo Application

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