15th January 2020 15:14
By Blue Tutors
At the start of the year there’s a spike in people downloading language apps as they try to keep a new year’s resolution, and a recent article on the BBC asks whether this can ever replace traditional learning. There is often a reluctance from teachers to embrace technology as quickly as they might but as the available apps become better and offer more variety, learners are choosing a different way to study.
One of the benefits of learning via an app is that it can be done at the student’s pace. Typically in a class there will be a mixture of abilities and at some points everyone finds themselves struggling to keep up or slowed down by others. With the best software available now, students can repeat things when necessary or quickly skip through anything they understand quickly.
The popularity of app learning might also be due to the reasons people learn languages. For some it is simply the desire to learn something new, but for many it’s for business reasons or travel, and the latter type of learner is more likely to stick with studying after a few hours. For these people, often working full time, they want something convenient which fits around their lives.
Dr Baron, a senior lecturer in Spanish and Latin American studies, said that he welcomes technology to help studying, but added that the apps should be used in conjunction with more traditional learning, particularly when the language is being studied for academic reasons. He said that the apps tend to teach the ability to speak the language, aimed at travellers and business people. However, students, particularly degree students, need more grammatical and cultural understanding, and also need to study literature. These are still better taught in the classroom and lecture halls than on the apps.