How Effective Are Language Learning Apps?

When you start doing something new, especially learning a language, it turns out to be not an easy task. In order to learn all the subtleties of English, German, French or even Chinese, it takes time and a huge amount of methodological material. Our modern world offers huge opportunities for those who are engaged in their self-development. Mobile apps have turned language learning into an interesting game. Learn English and other languages with your favorite TV shows and songs, funny quests or memes. This does not require a lot of time — use the minutes that you stand in queues or spend on public transport. So, how effective are language learning apps?! Let's get it sorted out.

Why do people use applications to learn English?

Electronic devices are increasingly being used as tools for education and language learning. As for interactive learning applications, with the help of them, students, pupils and even adults can improve and control their skills in teaching a foreign language. English Grammar, English words, Spoken English, English from scratch, English for beginners – useful applications. They will help you concentrate on a specific aspect of the language and tell you how to become the best version of yourself by mastering a useful skill. Self–education is a trend of recent decades, and learning English through a mobile application combines the capabilities of technology and the desire for independent learning. To learn English in the modern world, just download different language learning apps to your phone. Firstly, you can learn different languages with them at any time of the day or night. And secondly, modern applications are just ideally designed for fast and effective language learning. They allow you to use texts, listen to foreign speech and put English words in your mind. Developers use the latest techniques and methods, thanks to which you can significantly improve your English level.

The effectiveness of applications to learn English

Are language learning apps effective?  It is safe to say yes. Apps offer huge opportunities for grammar practice and vocabulary expansion. Special language mobile applications allow you to speed up and improve your level of English. Firstly, many phones have the ability to reproduce words, phrases and whole authentic texts. Moreover, students or adults can record their own speech, listen to it and compare it with the pronunciation of a native speaker. Secondly, each type of activity can be presented in the form of an animation or a picture. This feature will be useful when studying new lexical material. Language apps also help to develop stable language patterns, communication skills, rules of English grammar. Regular use of these applications in your mobile will help in learning English and will significantly increase your level and quality of language knowledge.

Advantages of Language Learning Apps

We live in a huge information flow, where we are constantly running out of time, and applications help us get the most important information in a structured way. Learning apps can be used on the way to work or study, because they help to occupy you at any free moment of time. It is worth noting that using a mobile application is much more convenient. There is no need to expand notebooks and textbooks in search of the necessary information; the program is in one smartphone.

Classes in applications are always interesting, colorful, often built in a playful way, which undoubtedly attracts attention and time passes unnoticed, and the benefits are invaluable. Also in such applications there is access to multimedia.

Problems of such Applications 

In addition to the advantages, of course, any program has its drawbacks. For example, there is the restriction of group and collective work, and constant spending time on the phone tires your eyes. Using even the most effective language learning app, it is impossible to predict the phonetic, grammatical or semantic error of the student.

In the process of teaching a foreign language using a tablet, websites and mobile applications, you may encounter the following weaknesses:

• a shortage of prepared training mobile applications and programs for students in various fields and educational profiles;
• a lack of authentic unadapted material in the specialty;
• entertainment applications sometimes distract students from their main educational activities;
• small size and relatively small screen resolution

Limitations of Language Applications 

If you answered incorrectly or the application shows a bad answer, here you will not get an explanation of why and how exactly it was necessary to complete this or that task. In the classroom or with a tutor, they will explain and tell you everything, there is no such thing in applications. You cannot ask questions about any aspect of the language, there is no practice of reading and writing.

How Do You Quantify The Effectiveness Of The Application?

The uniqueness of mobile learning in comparison with the usual techniques and traditional learning lessons lies in the fact that students are primarily not tied to a specific time and place, having access to educational material always, at any convenient time. Thus, the fundamental difference between mobile learning is two points:

•   informal nature of education, where students devote more time to self-study;

• constant learning process, blurring the boundaries between academic classes and extracurricular time, work in the classroom and beyond.

Language Applications Are Effective For Certain Purposes 

There are a large number of applications for teaching English, but not all applications are of high quality that meet the goals and objectives of teaching schoolchildren and students. In addition, there are applications focused on different aspects of the language.

Mobile training applications can be divided into groups according to the priority method of training:

1. Professional multimedia applications – the main method of teaching is multimedia (texts, images, audio materials, and a lot of authentic training videos).
2. Language social networks – the main method of teaching is language exchange. Here you can ask any question and get an answer from a native speaker. Other users can check your text and make comments. You can also send audio recordings to check pronunciation.
3. Interactive applications-courses. Interactive means interaction–based, i.e. each student's request triggers an immediate response from the application.

When it comes to travel, there are many categories of apps: flight apps, hotel apps, weather apps, and even currency exchange apps. All of them serve a specific purpose and can help make life easy when traveling.

Similarly, language apps designed to help you move around a host country where people speak a completely different language can serve you in different ways, and you have a lot of choice.

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Can you become fluent with Language Apps?

By saying "learn a language", people mean language proficiency at some desired level, which consists of the ability to read, understand by ear, write and speak. These four types of speech activity can develop unevenly. For example, you can understand TV shows in English, read novels, but not be able to connect two words. None of these skills is possible without at least a minimal knowledge of words and grammar.

The most desired skill is the ability to speak English (speaking + understanding). Usually, "learn English" means "speak English", and not read or write.

As a result, language learning boils down to the following points: ​vocabulary replenishment, grammar study, practice in reading, listening, writing and speaking.

Fluency in language is the ultimate goal for most language learners. The apps offer instant feedback to their users. Unlike performing tasks in the classroom or with traditional independent work, mobile applications give immediate feedback about the work you have done. It can be a monosyllabic answer "true" or "incorrect", before a detailed review explaining the mistake made and providing the correct answer or recommendations for improving language skills.

Do language learning apps really work and what is the most effective language learning app?

In order to fully assess all the advantages and disadvantages of Internet technologies used to learn English, you need to analyze all the features and most effective language learning apps offered.

Promova is a mobile application for expanding the lexical vocabulary. The application has a comfortable and intuitive user interface. Good material, animation, didactics, illustrations. Each lesson contains different types of exercises for translation, you practice to read, write and to listen English speech, designed to learn grammatical rules or new vocabulary in the context of live speech. At any stage, trainings are available to consolidate the acquired knowledge.

Memrise - the developers of this mobile application used a special scientific technique - memes, thanks to which users train different aspects of their memory in game mode. Users highly appreciate Memrise thanks to a huge database of audio and video recordings that demonstrate the pronunciation of native English speakers. The app is available for free download on Google Play and the App Store.

Lingualeo is one of the most popular apps for learning English. Lingualeo application allows you to learn English in the form of a game. It also contains a variety of tasks to improve your knowledge in listening, reading, writing or grammar.

Duolingo is a system of lessons on various topics: both lexical and grammatical. As we move forward, the program reminds us of the need to repeat the material covered earlier. The training program is divided into lessons arranged in order of complexity.

The Result of Using Language Learning Apps

Do language apps work? The training is built competently and efficiently: first, the user learns new words and then learns his pronunciation and grammar. As you learn the language, the application adapts to the user, identifying his weaknesses and providing him with additional exercises.

Learning a language is first of all diligence, memory and constant expansion of the lexical stock. You can know how a particular structure is built, master intonation and pronunciation brilliantly, but without knowledge of vocabulary, nothing will work. Promova is one of the most convenient assistants in learning English!