The Effect of Duolingo on The Students’ Listening Comprehension Achievement at Junior High School

Abstract

Listening is the first essential skill and ability in learning a new language that beginners should learn before practicing the other three language skills (Sudewi ,2021). However, there are still many students who have difficulties in listening. Students usually face some problems in listening, such as the low quality of recorded materials, speed of delivery, and difficulty in distinguishing between words (Nushi & Orouji, 2020). According to Kapp (2012), technology can make learning more engaging. Duolingo is considered as one of the future promising technology in language learning and worldwide communication (Jaskova ,2014),. This application was created to assist students in studying languages in a fun and easy way. This research used a quasi-experimental research design with post-test only design. The purpose of this research was to investigate whether there was a significant effect of using Duolingo application on students’ listening comprehension achievement. The population of this research was the eighth-grade students at one of junior high school in Jember. The research participants were determined based on the result of students’ homogeneity test using Levene’s Test. The score given by the teacher showing that the population was not homogeneity. Therefore, the experimental and control group were selected based on the closest mean scores of students’ English subject. The number of participants was 62 students. The experimental group consisted of class VIII F (30 students), and the control group consisted of class VIII E (32 students). The experimental group was taught using Duolingo, while the control group was taught using audio. The data of this research were collected from students’ post-test scores of listening comprehension to compare the achievement of the two groups. The result of Independent Sample t-test Analysis revealed that the significance value

was 0.094 > 0.05, which means there was no significant difference in students’ listening comprehension achievement between the experimental and the control group. It can be concluded that although Duolingo provides an alternative and interactive media for teaching listening comprehension, it did not show a statistically significant improvement compared to using audio. However, the findings indicated that using Duolingo had a positive impact on students' listening skills, as was evidenced by higher average scores in the experimental group compared to the control group. In line with Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis, the platform also appeared to reduce student anxiety and increase motivation, there by facilitating their learning progress. In this regard, although not statistically significant, Duolingo remained a valuable and relevant learning application for improving students' listening comprehension. As a suggestion, English teachers were encouraged to use Duolingo as an additional tool in listening lessons. Although this study did not show a significant effect, Duolingo is still useful for introducing students to authentic spoken English. Teachers can enhance learning by combining it with interactive tasks such as discussions, comprehension, and note-taking activities. Students were advised to practice independently using Duolingo outside of class to strengthen their listening skills through regular practice, summarizing material, and sharing insights with classmates. Future researchers are advised to involve larger samples, longer treatment periods, and diverse listening materials. Exploring different Duolingo genres, integrating other digital tools, or applying a blended design may provide deeper insights into its role in English language learning.