I’ve been learning, or attempting to learn, Czech now for a few years, and a loyal companion on that journey has been the Memrise language app, which uses a flash card style approach to help you absorb vocabulary in your chosen language. Of course, it’s hard to tell just how effective the app is, but it feels like it’s making a difference.
New research from Michigan State University attempts to take a slightly more scientific look at matters. Rather than Memrise, however, the researchers focused on language app Babbel.
“Despite the fact that millions globally are already using language learning apps, there is a lack of published research on their impact on speaking skills,” they explain. “There are virtually no other studies that have investigated mobile language learning apps in a quasi-experimental way. Therefore, this robust and methodologically rigorous study makes an important contribution to the field.”
Learning the language
The researchers put 85 students through Babbel for 12 weeks in an attempt to learn Spanish. Each volunteer took a test before the experiment started to gauge their vocabulary, grammar and oral proficiency in the language. At the end of the experiment, a second test was administered on the 54 students who stayed the course.
The results revealed that the majority of the students managed to improve both their knowledge of the language and their ability to communicate in Spanish at the end of the 12 weeks.
“On the whole, learners in this study increased their oral proficiency, as measured by an improvement on a well-established and valid speaking test, the Oral Proficiency Interview,” the researchers say. “These results establish that using Babbel can facilitate the development of oral communication skills and not just grammar and vocabulary acquisition, as a previous study had demonstrated.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the level of improvement seen in the students broadly correlated with the amount of time they spent using the app. On average, however, 59% of the volunteers were able to improve their oral proficiency by at least one sublevel of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages proficiency scale. Those who performed even better tended to spend more time using the app, with those studying for at least 15 hours able to improve by 75%.
Of course, what the study doesn’t do is compare 15 hours spent on Babbel with 15 hours spent in some of other form of language learning. The researchers themselves concede that arguably the most important thing is to put the time in, and the way you do that is perhaps of secondary importance. Language apps do provide an easy and accessible way of putting in those hours, however, so perhaps there is something to them after all.
