SAIGON UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

Subject: Scientific Research Method in the English Linguistics Major

A SURVEY ON THE EFFECTS OF DUOLINGO ON NON-MAJOR

ENGLISH STUDENTS IN IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS AT
SAIGON UNIVERSITY

Nguyen Nhat Hung

Dao Quang Thieu

Nguyen Ngoc Khanh Nhat

Nguyen Thanh Vy

Instructor: Le Ha To Quyen
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract..................................................................................................................................................1

I /Introduction........................................................................................................................................1

II/ Literature review:..............................................................................................................................1

1/ Duolingo- an English listening app...............................................................................................1

2/ Listening skills..............................................................................................................................2

3/ Obstacles when learning on Duolingo.........................................................................................2

4/ Strategies to get the best effectiveness of using Duolingo for learning listening:...................3

5/ Benefits of Duolingo.....................................................................................................................3

6/ Relevant research.........................................................................................................................4

III/ Notion of original research............................................................................................................5

IV/ Statement of purpose:...................................................................................................................5

V/ Statement of value..........................................................................................................................5

VI/ Research questions and research objectives:.............................................................................5

1/ Research questions:.....................................................................................................................5

2/ Research objectives:....................................................................................................................6

VII/ Research methods:.......................................................................................................................6

1/ Overview.......................................................................................................................................6

2/ Participants:.................................................................................................................................6

3/ Research techniques...................................................................................................................6

VIII/ Research procedure.....................................................................................................................7

IX/ Research analysis..........................................................................................................................7

X/ Research limitation.........................................................................................................................7

XI/ Proposed chapter outline..............................................................................................................7

References............................................................................................................................................9

Appendices.........................................................................................................................................10
Abstract:

Key words: Duolingo, listening skills, experiences, students.

I/ Introduction:

English has been a worldwide language, and it plays a crucial function in assisting people to
communicate and integrate into the world. Many people throughout the world are more inclined
to learn this language. John Knagg, a member of the British Council, estimated that there are up
to 1.5 billion English learners worldwide. This may seem like a lot, but 142 countries include
English as a mandatory element of their national education policy.

In recent years, mobile teaching mode becomes popular in education, especially in higher
schools. The development of language learning mobile application soft-wares (apps) for smart
mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computer has risen amazingly in these recent
days. These apps were continuously reported to be highly potential to support the students to
learn the target language (Tuti Hidayati, Sari Diana, 2019). Tayebeh Mosavi Miangah, Amin
Nezarat (2012) confirmed that "the main characteristics of mobile learning (m-learning) are
recognized as the potential for learning process to be personalized, spontaneous, informal and
ubiquitous", "the learners feel a greater sense of freedom of time and place, so that they can
take the advantage of spare time to learn a second language when and where they are".

One of the most poular mobile learning application in the world is Duolingo. In Vietnam, the
number of active users in Vietnam grew by 67 percent a month in the year since January 2021.
There are four skills of English (Listening, Writing, Speaking and Reading) with many interesting
lessons of many topics in this apps that helps learners acquire knowledge and enhance their
English skills. Listening skill is one part of them. With a short, podcast-like radio show in each
episode, learners can gain vocabulary and practice reflex in deduction to generalize information
of the episode and give the correct answer. These lessons are not only set up with native
speaker spoken, but also the way it is told, language, intonation, voice, and body
language.However, Duolingo still has bugs and disadvantages that reduce users' experiences.
This study aims to understand the drawbacks of Duolingo in enhancing listening skills of Sai
Gon University Students, especially non-major English students. In addition, our groups identify
some potential solutions for non-English-majoring students to have a better experiences with
Duolingo and gain more useful knowledge.

II/ Literature review:

1/ Duolingo- an English learning app:

- Duolingo is a free utility created with the aid of Luis Von Ahn and Severin Hacker in November
2011. Its slogan is “Free language education for the world.” According to its website, it has extra
than 30 million registered users. It offer various languages for English speakers as nicely as
other for non-English speakers. (Husnul Khatimah Haris, Muhammadiyah University of
Makassar, January 2021).

- Duolingo is one of the applications used to learn languages. It can be used as a learning media
because it includes four components of language skills, namely reading, writing, listening, and
speaking. The use of media in learning objectives is to facilitate and help students understand
teaching material in depth and in full. Important learning media used in language learning are
based on the results of research stating that the media can unite several elements to convey
the material so that it can meet the learning needs of students who have different cognitive
abilities. In addition, according to Franky Mantiri in his journal said that the benefits of learning
to use technology can help students learn better and understand what they want more easily
(Siti Niah, Pahmi (2019)).

- Saly Kurnia Octaviani (2022) asserted that Duolingo is a game-based platform for learning
foreign languages, especially English as international language and moreover, the application is
available as a browser-based application or an iOS, Android, or Windows mobile application
(Mulya & Refnaldi, 2016). People can also access in personal computer (PC) by accessing
website https://schools.duolingo.com/ for school purpose so that the students as second
language learners can also learn English in provided personal computer at school in case the
school regulation do not permit the student for not bringing or using mobile phone at school.

2/ Listening skills:

- According to Siti Niah, Pahmi (2019), listening is a skill that students must master in order to
use English fluently. But mastering listening skill is not easy because it is a process of
understanding grammar and vocabulary to understand what is heard. When communicating,
students must pay attention to what the other person is talking about and then respond by
conveying ideas.

- According to Nation and Newton, (2009: 52) “Listening is the first beginning of a natural (oral)
speech; developed in the early stages of language and a person's first language (and other
naturalistic acquisitions of languages) that depend on hearing”. In other words, listening is not
the same as hearing. Hearing refers to the ear that the voice enters. Physically processed that
happens automatically. While listening not only pay attention to the story, but how the story is
told, language, intonation, voice, and body language. In other words, listening should be aware
of both verbal and non-verbal messages. Exercise is very important so that students are able to
master the ability to listen, of course, by using methods or media that can attract students'
interest.

3/ Obstacles when learning on Duolingo:

- According to Jašková Jašková, Masarykova univerzita, Pedagogická fakulta (2014), the

learning system is not inaccurate or unsophisticated or simply they find the drill exercises
boring. The users’ complained about permanent transcribing and translating the same dozen
sentences over and over again without any variations. They see lack in gradually teaching more
grammar and vocabulary in slow and easy steps.

- According to Desi Derina Yusda, Deri Sis Nanda, Tara Lusiana Mahdi Pratiw, Haninun (2020),
some students revealed from the results of the interviewer by revealing that the problem was a
waste of quotas, and also when moving accounts, many advertisements, and if there is no
quota that cannot be played.

- Arima Mulya, Refnaldi (2016) claimed that Duolingo does not offer any explanation of
grammatical structures as part of its dashboard. Grammar is an essential part of language
learning and it makes the students have some difficulties to do the task.

4/ Strategies to get the best effectiveness of using Duolingo for learning listening:

- According to Addal Muddin (2018), for the teachers, teachers should apply an appropriate
media. Besides teaching by using text book teachers can also provide audiovisual media such
as Duolingo. it helps students find new vocabulary, helps them understand material, and also
help to memorized the vocabulary well.

5/ Benefits of Duolingo:

- According to Saly Kurnia Octaviani (2022), there are eight advantages of Duolingo for teachers
and students:

+ For teachers:

° Track students' learning process.

° Plan lessons suitable for students' ability.

° Assign Duolingo as homework, award extra credit points for students.

+ For students:
° Students can easily manage and share their learning process with their teachers or tutors.

° Duolingo motivates students to keep going, try their best to complete lessons better and beat
their previous records, and students have a chance to compete with friends in the world.

° Students can also get experience points (XPs) and pass different levels to get lingots
(purchasing unit of Duolingo) for purchasing items and getting bonus lessons.

° Duolingo has clean and friendly UI (user interface) for students. With lovely characters (Duo,
Bea, Lucy, Lily, Zari,...), colorful pictures, easy-looking letters and catchy high-quality music,
students can easily focus all the information displayed on their mobile phone, pay attention to
each lessons to have a best learning experience.

° Duolingo also has a really good voice recognition system.

6/ Relevant reserach:

- Siti Niah, in 2019, conducted a survey called "The utilization of Duolingo to improve the
speaking and listening skills of junior high school students in Pekanbaru" using experiments
method. The participants of this study were 58 junior high schools students of SMP IT Al- Hafit
Pekanbaru, grade VIII (Eight). They were arranged in 2 classes: Class I (one), with 31 students
and Class II (two), with 27 students.The stage of this research has 8 steps:

+ Preparation of data collection is carried out to collect the materials needed in the research
process.

+ Preparation questions were made to provide a preliminary test to the students at SMP IT Al-
Hafit Pekanbaru Grade VIII (Eight) in order to determine the students' abilities before using the
Duolingo application.

+ Validation of questions was done by the validator so that the questions given to students are
valid and quality.

+ Pre-test, test questions that have been validated are ready to be used to carry out pre-test as
an initial step to see students' abilities.

+ Treatment is carried out using the Duolingo application after the subject pre-tests to
determine speaking and listening skills.

+ A post-test was conducted to determine the effect of using the Duolingo application, whether
students get improved scores from before or not.

+ Data analysis was carried out when the research stage from the preparation of the data
collection to the pre-test had been carried out.

+ Finally, a new data analysis was conducted.

 In conclusion, about listening part, all these 58 junior high school students has a significant
improvement. This research showed and proved that the use of Duolingo in listening has a very
positive results.

- Deni Surkaya, Acep Bahrum Kamil, Praditya Putri Utami (2022) conducted a study examining
the students' experiences in implementing Duolingo-assisted listening learning of 30 nine-grade
students at one of junior high school in Karawang, Indonesia. They were chosen based on their
experience in Duolingo-assisted Listening Learning and the researcher will interview four
selected students by teacher recommendation.

In conclusion, the majority of these 30 students were pleased to the experiences of practicing
listening lessons with Duolingo. During these lessons, students experienced a feeling of fun,
engagement and motivation. Duolingo is an exciting medium; students always pay attention to
the material and learning in class makes them happy and enthusiastic. Duolingo makes it easier
for students to listen, especially for listening learning.

=> All these 2 researches indicate the advantages and effectiveness of Duolingo in improving
students' listening skills. The majority of students have acknowledged useful and important
listening lessons through the exciting experiences of Duolingo.

III/ Notion of original research:

- In this study, we will analyze the problems and solutions to the drawbacks of Duolingo's
listening lessons among non-English-majoring students. Our group knows that several scientific
researchers have been examining this topic. However, we will provide you other vision about
drawbacks of Duolingo in practicing listening.

Despite approximate 12 years since Duolingo first official launched to public users and had
many big updates and improvement, Duolingo still has obstacles that cannot give the full
satisfaction to the students. Some of them cause the umcomfortable and unpleasant
experiences. Meanwhile, just few of researches linked this issue to the whole experiences of
improving English listening skill, and strategies of improving English listening skill among non-
major-English Saigon University's students, in particular, did not mention frequently in this field.
Therefore, our group decided to give survey questions related to the effects of practicing
listening on Duolingo among non-English-major Saigon University's students to assess whether
students have good review about Duolingo or not.

IV/ Statement of purpose:

- The aim of this study was to revealing a new viewpoint of Duolingo's listening lessons among
this section of research subjects.

V/ Statement of value:

- The results of the survey are useful and valuable for investigations based on the different
Duolingo's listening lessons' experiences and opinions. Researchers can cite exact numbers
and suitable opinions as credible evidence for reference documents. The results might
contribute to linguists who are interested in the field of languages and mobile application
allowing them to predict the future development of English online learning activities.

VI/ Research questions and research objectives:

1/ Research questions:

- What impact does the student's background have on their listening lessons on Duolingo?

- What obstacles do Saigon University students have when learning practicing on Duolingo?

- What methods can be utilized at Saigon university to help non-English-majoring students use
Duolingo with the best effectiveness?

2/ Research objectives:

- To evaluate how students' background affects Duolingo's listening learning experiences.

- To understand the difficulties affects learning listening experiences on Duolingo of Saigon

University students.

- To investigate what methods are the most suitable for those who are not major in English use
Duolingo most effectively.

VII/ Research methods:

1/ Overview:

- At Saigon University, a quantitative technique using a survey questionnaire was utilized to

investigate both the advantages and disavantages that affect students' experiences of
Duolingo's listening lessons and, at the same time, understand solutions to optimize the
performance of this learning activity.

2/ Participants:

- The participants of the survey were 100 students who belong to the undergraduate program
and are not majoring in English at Saigon University, including 50 male students and 50 female
students. In order to make the questionnaire more reliable and accurate, the study employs
participants from different grade levels, from freshmen to seniors. At the time of data collection,
the majority of them were not learning English as their main language in all of their university
classes, and they had a range of personalities, goals, and degrees of motivation. And all
participants were informed that their replies would be kept strictly secret and would only be
used for research purposes.

3/ Research techniques:
- Part one included personal information such as gender (male or female), year of study
(freshman, sophomore, junior, senior), department (education, law, business, technology,
information technology, etc.), and their background about learning English, such as how long
they have been learning English and how much time they spent learning English, to address the
answers to research question 1: "What impact does the student's background have on their
listening lessons on Duolingo?".

- Part two and three contain the second and the third question above respectively, which require
the respondents to rate them on a Likert scale. Part 2 includes these questions asked to collect
data for the second and third research questions concerning the disadvantages of Duolingo's
listening lessons and the challenges faced by students with non-English majors. These
questions offered several drawbacks and obstacles with a scale that helped evaluate various
factors that affect to the whole learning listening on Duolingo.

-, And the last part, the students from freshman to junior were asked about solutions to regain
and maintain knowledges most effectively during the Duolingo's learning listening rocess. All
questions were based on quantitative methods with a ranged scale from "strongly disagree" to
"strongly agree" to grade and evaluate the level of various types of solutions believed to be
suitable for non-English majored students.

VIII/ Research procedure:

- This survey began on May 6th, 2023, and lasted eight days. It was decided to close on May
14th, 2023, after receiving 100 responses from non-English-majoring students at Saigon
University. In order to get responses from students, the link to the questionnaire survey was
posted to the Saigon University community group on social networking sites like Facebook with
clear instructions and explanations for filling it out.

After gathering the responses to the questionnaire from the students, the data was synthesized
and categorized for the purpose of responding to the research issues based on the table of
questions related to the research questions. The data and information were summarized and
analyzed by using statistical tools to calculate, convert to numerical formats, and show them as
charts to make comparison and contrast less complicated to read and evaluate.

IX/ Research analysis:

-The reliability test was conducted with 100 respondents to assess the effectiveness of
Duolingo's listening lessons in the context of Saigon University. This study looked at how
experiences of practicing listening on Duolingo affected students ranging from freshmen to
seniors. As a result, multi-group invariance analysis was performed to test for construct
comparability or measurement equivalence across students from first to fourth year.
Furthermore, the survey aimed to assist students in reducing affects of Duolingo's
disadvantages and gain most useful knowledge and skills of English listening skills.
X/ Research limitation:

- The investigation was conducted on the arrange of 100 research participants who are English
non-majoring students at Saigon University. Had the study been carried on with a greater
number of non-EFL undergraduates and for a longer amount of time, the outcomes would have
been more reliable and precise. It is the limited time as well as the non-diversity of the
methodologies, which bears all the hallmarks of lacking professionalism in employing the
information to the fullest exploitation.

XI/ Proposed chapter outline:

- Topic: Learning style.

- Title: A SURVEY ON THE EFFECTS OF DUOLINGO ON NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS IN

IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS AT SAIGON UNIVERSITY.

- Outline:

Abstract..................................................................................................................................................1

I /Introduction........................................................................................................................................1

II/ Literature review:..............................................................................................................................1

1/ Duolingo- an English listening app...............................................................................................1

2/ Listening skills...............................................................................................................................2

3/ Obstacles when learning on Duolingo.........................................................................................2

4/ Strategies to get the best effectiveness of using Duolingo for learning listening:.................3

5/ Benefits of Duolingo.....................................................................................................................3

6/ Relevant research.........................................................................................................................4

III/ Notion of original research............................................................................................................5

IV/ Statement of purpose:...................................................................................................................5

V/ Statement of value..........................................................................................................................5

VI/ Research questions and research objectives:.............................................................................5

1/ Research questions:.....................................................................................................................5

2/ Research objectives:....................................................................................................................6

VII/ Research methods:.......................................................................................................................6

 1/ Overview.......................................................................................................................................6

2/ Participants:.................................................................................................................................6

3/ Research techniques...................................................................................................................6

VIII/ Research procedure.....................................................................................................................7

IX/ Research analysis..........................................................................................................................7

X/ Research limitation.........................................................................................................................7

XI/ Proposed chapter outline..............................................................................................................7

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APPENDICES