Potencial motivacional das aplicações móveis de aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras duolingo e memrise e o seu uso entre os estudantes universitários na Croácia

Abstract

Mobile language learning applications, such as Duolingo and Memrise, have enabled virtually everyone to autonomously learn numerous foreign languages. This paper is based on a research into opinions and practices of students from the Faculty of Teacher Education of the University of Zagreb in Croatia, who have used the aforementioned applications to learn at least one foreign language. The responses were mostly positive: respondents were very interested or highly interested in learning a foreign language (83.6%), they liked the gamification quality of the foreign language applications (80.1%), they learned how to use them quickly or very quickly (85.4%), and they liked the fact that they can use the applications whenever and wherever they want (77.6%). On the other hand, only 24% of respondents completely agreed with the statement that they would be able tolearn a foreign language using one or more such mobile applications. A follow-up research proposed in order to encompass other mobile learning applications, and to ascertain whether the high motivational factor would remain constant notwithstanding the repetitive nature of the exercises provided by these applications.