Is Language Learning Without Technology Even Fun?

I’m a language dinosaur. I started learning foreign languages with no access to technology. On the rare occasions when my teacher brought me a video cassette with the original movie, I couldn’t help but jump for joy.

No wonder many kids back in my day – and I’m not even that old – hated foreign language lessons. Writing new words on the chalkboard bored them to death. I don’t blame them – that’s a lame activity.

Luckily, I was kind of a boring nerd myself. Technological or not, I burned the midnight oil learning languages (this one’s just an expression – we did have electricity in my childhood). 

As a language teacher, I’ve always tried to save students from boredom. As soon as I got my first teaching experience, I made technology, including language learning apps, an inseparable component of my lessons. After years of trial and error, I’m ready to share the crème de la crème apps for us, language educators, and our dear students.

Some Default Apps

Many apps not initially devised to facilitate language teaching turned out to be real gems during COVID lockdowns. Actually, they’ve been my magic wands for the last five years as I’ve been changing countries more frequently than some change linens. Here's how I used these apps:

• Skype for private language lessons
• Zoom and Teams for group lessons
• Loom and Screencastify for brief video explanations and feedback
• Discord and Slack for communication with parents (they feel more professional than Facebook groups)
• Canva for presentations (I don’t know about your students, but mine consider PowerPoint a stone-age tool)

I guess you know these apps anyway. Let’s move to some more interesting stuff.

Language Apps to Use as Course Materials

All platforms I’ll be sharing are available as apps or website versions (some also as desktop ones). Feel free to use the format you’re most comfortable with and encourage your students to do the same.

iSCOLLECTIVE

A classic if your target language is English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, or Russian.

If you’re a beginning teacher, don’t rush into creating new language materials from scratch. Do some research – people have been dealing with foreign languages for quite a while and, believe it or not, they’re sharing.

This exchange app allows you to download other teachers’ materials and upload yours. Everything’s logically organized: by language skills (vocabulary, grammar, etc.), students’ level (from beginner to advanced), student type (from kids to adults), and material types (from fill-in-the-blanks sheets to music-enhanced resources).

That’s a teaching app I use daily. It saves me tons of energy and time.

Price:

Can you believe all of this great stuff is available for free? Because it is!

LiveWorksheets

The brightest gem in the pool of language worksheet apps.

This website can be used for any language, regardless of your mother tongue. It allows using other teachers' resources and uploading your own worksheets, just like iSLCOLLECTIVE.

How does this language app work? It turns your regular (sometimes boring, let’s be honest) worksheets or workbooks into interactive lessons, with sounds, videos, and images. Many teachers only use LiveWorksheets with kids. I don’t. My adult learners love the stuff from LiveWorksheets that I bring to the classroom.

Price:

LiveWorksheets offers language teachers a free version. You can still upgrade and spend $10 to $40/month to work with over 100 students and enjoy extra perks. On the bright side, students aren’t expected to pay.

FluentU

One of the best language learning apps in the industry.

This app satisfies our greatest passion – procrastination. Who doesn’t enjoy YouTube videos? FluentU puts them to use by turning fun content into fantastic language learning materials.

FluentU teaches students lots of vocabulary and emphasizes listening comprehension. Learning looks like this: you choose the video from the FluentU library, watch it with subtitles and embedded translation, create flashcards, and take related quizzes. The system tracks your progress and lets you know when you’ve memorized a new word.

Now, FluentU is a fantastic tool to use both during the lesson and as homework. It allows you to listen to native speakers in real-life situations. While my students are working on a video, I’m preparing questions for classroom discussions and essays. Imagine how much time I save (which I’d otherwise waste on preparing word lists and quizzes).

Price:

Given that I use this platform with virtually every student, I purchased a school subscription. It costs $13/year instead of $19.99/month (per user).

FluentU currently only offers 10 languages. If yours is among them, don’t hesitate to sign up. You can read my extensive ode (and minor criticism) to FluentU in this dedicated review.

TeachVid

Another useful YouTube-based language learning app.

It’s FluentU’s fraternal twin, so you’d really only need one of them. While TeachVid offers 17 languages, I only found one video in Polish and far less material in other languages (compared to FluentU). On the bright side, TeachVid allows you to create your own YouTube materials, so that’s fair compensation.

As this platform also features virtual classrooms with assignments and an option to track your students' progress, some language teachers find it more functional than FluentU.

Pricing.

There’s a free version, but it’s too limited if you're teaching a few classes and intend to create your own interactive lessons. A paid subscription will cost you approximately $10/month (schools have various plans depending on the number of teachers). Regarding the students, they may either get free access or opt for a $3/month subscription if they want to do some self-study too.

LingoPie

I use this language app with movie lovers. Lingopie does this with shows and does exactly what the previous two apps do with YouTube videos. The idea is the same - learning languages by listening to native speakers and having fun. If you like spending evenings with Netflix, consider this review a sign you need to take watching to the next level – language binge learning.

Price: You can pay $12/month or $65/year. There's also a $99/year plan for up to four people.

LingQ

My top pick for reading comprehension in group classes.

I scold LingQ a bit for not being a comprehensive app in this review. I’ll be praising it as one of the best apps for language teachers, though.

LingQ is a huge database of interactive texts with a robotic voiceover and a goal of teaching you new words. What’s great is that the system automatically spots all the words you might find useful. So, a teacher doesn't spend extra time on this. You can let the app know what kind of text you need (e.g., a mini-story, a news article, a blog post) and easily export outside materials (I use this function 99% of the time).

LingQ is among the apps I use daily, with at least one student/group. I basically turn all new texts into interactive texts. They help build vocabulary, create flashcards, and ensure memorization. Try LingQ! It offers 21 languages, so you’re likely to find yours among them.

Price:

The service costs between $8 and $13/month, depending on the subscription. Sadly, there’s no free student plan.

Duolingo and Duolingo for Schools

The good-old, green-bird app.

Duolingo remains one of the best apps for use in a foreign language classroom. First, it’s a comprehensive course that focuses on all language skills. Albeit I have some points of criticism (as discussed in this and this review), Duolingo is a fun way to strengthen what you teach and it can motivate students to do extracurricular learning.

This app works particularly well with my younger students, who prefer a highly gamified approach.

I personally enjoy the language-teaching functionality of Duolingo for Schools. You can create multiple language lessons (if you have a few groups or teach a few languages), assign materials, as well as create reports and language templates. Whatever we used to do on paper is now partly done by Duolingo. And I’m not gonna refuse this generous help, for sure

Price:

Duolingo for Schools is completely free for everyone. Amazing!

Speechling and Speechling for Schools

A language course with a teacher’s dashboard.

I love Speechling since it’s a non-profit organization with fantastic language lessons. It allows for customizing content, has fantastic audio quality, and is compatible with Anki decks. I find Speechling useful for teaching vocabulary, practicing listening, and developing extra classroom activities. Since the course has no proper structure (which is my main point of critique in this Speechling versus Glossika review), it’s best to use it as a teacher and adapt it to your class's needs.

Price:

Now, Speechling for Schools is a payable version. I used to enjoy its functionality as I was working for a private language school a few years ago. Its key benefits are a user-friendly dashboard and multiple sharing options for assignments and feedback. It’s a language course and a teacher’s record book in one. So, this app also fits into my next section.

Apps to Plan Content, Give Feedback and Evaluate

Socrative

The best choice for class management and on-the-fly grading.

This app is my heroic workflow wizard. I upload quizzes and give my students access so they can do them on tablets or smartphones. I design assessments and keep all reports in one place. I check each student’s understanding of a topic and share assessments with parents without extra effort. Plus, teachers can use Socrative as a Zoom replacement – it offers virtual rooms, too.

Younger students in group classes also enjoy the gamified competition board, fun assessment activities, and other interactive features.

Socrative saves your energy which would otherwise be spent on grading, and it allows you more time to focus on your students' conversational skills.

Price:

Students use the app 100% free. Teachers have two options: a free limited (albeit a very workable) plan or a $90/year plan.

MondlyWORKS

A great choice for companies and language classes.

Originally intended as language courses for office employees, the app is applicable to language classes. It works well both as a course and a record-keeping system.

Mondly allows for focusing on speaking skills and memorizing phrases in context. Teachers manage a special dashboard so that they can access all the students' progress or give them feedback. That’s a very mature and results-oriented approach. I typically use it with my business clients.

On the other hand, the package gives you access not only to the main app – Mondly – but also to its subsidiary apps for language practice: Mondly Kids, Mondly VR, and Mondly Augmented Reality. These allow approaching language learning and teaching as a game and the environment as a learning context. Imagine how happy kids will be with a virtual teacher!

Price:

Mondly offers a free limited plan and paid plans starting at $7.5 per user/month.

BookWidgets

An all-in-one solution for planning your language class.

While saving you time, this content creation platform adds interactivity to any classroom. Since it works on all kinds of devices, students won’t have problems accessing the materials you’ve created.

What can you do on BookWidgets? Anything, and I’m not joking. The sky’s the limit, and imagination is your guide:

• Prepare tests and reviews (copying available templates and adapting them to your needs)
• Offer students fun language games (hangman, puzzles, bingo cards, etc)
• Enhance your lessons with videos and images (e.g.: embedding a YouTube video into your ebook or worksheet)
• Grade and make reports (with exit slips, survey results, etc)
• Use planning options (for events, checklists, etc)

I don’t know about you, but I’d quit teaching altogether if I still had to use paper-based, multiple-choice tests and had to correct answers daily. Let the system do these monotonous jobs for you and enjoy teaching instead!

Price:

Subscription costs $50/year for one teacher and gets down to $35/year for a group of 10+ teachers (I’m sharing mine). Your students don’t have to pay.

WordWall

I’m a BookWidgets preacher (because of design and as a matter of habit), but there’s another app with almost identical functionality – WordWall. Feel free to check both apps and see which fits your teaching needs and personal taste.

Price: WordWall is more affordable than BookWidgets (approximately $30/year). Students don’t have to pay.

Instead of an Outro

At this point, you might think I’m a big liar – one can’t use all these apps in a single lesson. You’re right – not about the liar part, though.

I have my favorite language learning and teaching apps as well as apps I only use for specific skills or with specific students. I keep the rest at hand if I need new teaching methods in foreign languages. I’ve tried far more language learning apps than I listed. I'd been using each app for some time to determine whether I should keep it. The teaching apps shared in this article are the best language gems. Check them to see whether you feel the same way about them. Also, stay tuned for our upcoming Flying Languages app!