Learning a foreign language through e-learning. A comparative analysis of learning conditions and learners from two types of educational platforms

Abstract

Objectives. The objective of this study was to compare two types of foreign language                             e-learning courses: the Spanish course on Duolingo and the Spanish MOOC course on edX Basic Spanish 1: Getting started, in terms of the learning conditions provided by each course. The quantitative analysis of learners was conducted in order to compare learners from the two types of courses mentioned above in terms of global self-esteem, language self-esteem and motivation. 

 Methods. The twelve principles for good practice in language education proposed by Brown (2002) were used as criteria of qualitative analysis: (1) automaticity, (2) meaningful learning, (3) the anticipation of reward, (4) intrinsic motivation, (5) strategic investment, (6) language ego, (7) self-confidence, (8) risk taking, (9) the language-culture connection, (10) the native language effect, (11) interlanguage, (12) communicative competence. 261 Spanish learners participated in the quantitative part of the study. They were divided into two groups: Duolingo users and MOOC users from the edX, FutureLearn and Udemy platforms. Participants were asked to complete three questionnaires online (Rosenberg’s SES, language self-esteem questionnaire and motivation for language learning scale by Noels, Clément and Pelletier (2001)). The data was analyzed with Student’s t-test and chi-square test of independence.

 Results. The evaluation of the Spanish course on Duolingo and Spanish MOOC course on edX revealed that Duolingo is more effective in providing learner automaticity, the anticipation of reward and self-confidence, whereas the MOOC course has an advantage in meaningful learning, the language – culture connection, the native language effect and communicative competence. The quantitative analysis of learners’ characteristics indicated significant differences between the groups. Learners from Duolingo had higher language self-esteem than learners from the MOOC courses. Significant differences in motivation were also obtained.

 Conclusions. The qualitative analysis revealed differences in the implementation of e-learning, as well as its drawbacks. Language material happens to be non-contextual and served in a repetitive manner (as seen on Duolingo). Some online courses fail to keep learners motivated and their knowledge sustainable (as seen on edX). Age could have a mediating effect on the results due to a fact that 49,2% of MOOC group were people above age 61.