Conducting academic studies plays an important role in improving the efficiency of learning a language with busuu. We wanted to find out about the behaviour of our learners and the success of their language learning with us.
Fernando Rosell-Aguilar, Senior lecturer in Spanish and Open Media Fellow at The Open University, conducted a research study in May 2016 to help us do this. He took a sample of over 4,095 busuu learners, both female and male. 2265 of the group were learning English and 1830 people were learning Spanish. The majority considered themselves to be at beginner level of the language they were learning and most people were learning informally either to boost their career, travel or live abroad.
What were the results?
Overall, learners were very satisfied with the busuu experience. 82% of busuu learners confirmed that using the app has greatly helped them to improve their language learning. More than 92% of people said that busuu met their expectations and 86% rated it good or very good.
Feedback is very helpful
Conversations exercises, where learners can write or record answers to questions and get corrected by native speakers, were very highly rated. Over 75% of learners consider this a very good feature on the app and they confirm that the feedback received was very helpful.
It’s okay to make mistakes!
The Open University study also shows that busuu can help to tackle language anxiety. When people use an app to learn a language, they find comfort in making mistakes in a private and non-threatening setting. This means that busuu can be useful to teachers as a supplementary method of practising the language. Rosell-Aguilar encourages teachers to use busuu for repetitive grammar work so that classroom time can be left for language interaction.
For more information about the research study, follow the link.
