From apps to podcasts, COVID-19 has forced language learning online

When the COVID-19 pandemic sentAly Murphy into lockdown, she figured it was finally time tostart learning Russian.

Nearly one year later, she's still at it.

"I don't know if I'd have committed to it as fiercely as I have," said Murphy, a University of Ottawa theatre student whowanted to readfamous Russian playwrights like Anton Chekhov without relying on translations.

"The Duolingo streak system is definitely a compelling reason to keep doing it, because now, I'm at a 340-day streak or whatever and if I ever lose that, I'll be heartbroken."

Murphy is one of the many Canadianswho've flocked to language podcasts, apps like Duolingoand Zoom-based classes over the past year, as the pandemiclimits in-person instructionand gives people freedom to pursue interestsonline.

But when it comes towhat the new virtual approach means for language acquisition in the long run, it's still an open question.

'A bit less personal'

"Some people like it better online. Some people miss the human interaction, because it's of course a bit less personal," said Samuel Coeytaux, director ofAlliance Franaise Ottawa.

According to Coeytaux, courses at his French-language school remain full,even though there hasn't been a single in-person class since last March.

That's led to positive developments, Coeytaux said like students signing up from across Ontario, even Montreal but also negative ones, including a halt to the cultural immersion Alliance Franaiseprides itself upon.

"Of course, online, wecan't really have a petit dejeunerfranais with, like,croissants and French pastries," he said. "These days we can't have movie nights the same way."

Missing out onFrench-language breakfastswon't necessarily hamper one's ability to learn a language, but those sorts of experiences convey traditions and elements of day-to-day lifethat can't always be picked up via an app orinthe classroom, said Jeffrey Steele, associate professor in the department of language studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

How COVID-19 has changed the way we learn new languages

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Jeffrey Steele, an associate professor at the University of Toronto-Mississauga, says that although many people have turned to language-learning apps during the pandemic, becoming fluent often means interacting with native speakers, something that now has to happen virtually.

"The best language-learning isone in which the learners are actively engaging with fluent speakers whether they be more advanced learners or native speakers, and particularly doing authentic tasks," Steele said.

Steele notes those tasks doincludethings like writing emails or chatting online, which may actuallybe more suited to the new virtual learning environment Canadiansfind themselves in.

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"For the majority of second-language learners ... there's really a practical goal here, about beingbe able to use that language in their daily lives, to accomplish real tasks with other speakers," said Steele.

"There's so many ways in which online learning can either be lent to that or sometimes be preferable."

'Go at my own pace'

The free Duolingo app which teaches users vocabulary through short quizzes and conversations has proven especially popular: the company reportedmore than 30 million new learners signed up when much of the world went into lockdown last March.

But apps like it struggle to convey the ebbs and flows of everyday speech,said professor Shana Poplack, the Canada Research Chair in Linguistics and the director of a sociolinguistics laboratory at the University of Ottawa.

It would never occur to me to try to learn a language over an app. Never.- Shana Poplack, Canada Research Chair in Linguistics

For Poplack, language acquisition requires two things: exposure to language as it's actually spoken, and the possibility of interacting with native speakers. She's particularly critical ofapps that dispenserigid grammatical rules, like always using the Frenchnein a negative sentence something her lab has found gets dropped in spoken French more than 99 per cent of the time.

"It would never occur to me to try to learn a language over an app. Never," Poplack said. "I would sooner jump on a plane and fly to the country where that language is spoken."

As for Murphy who's set her phone to Russian and isgrinding through a Russian-language version of thefirst Harry Potter novel she sees the benefits of both approaches.

"I definitely wish that I did have more people to practise with, and that there was an in-person component," she said. "But at the same time, I really like being able to go at my own pace. And the discipline that's gone along with it."