I Think I'm in Love with Duolingo?? NOT CLICKBAIT - GENIUS HOUR #3

This week's Genius Hour was spread out throughout the week. I worked roughly around 15-20 minutes a day on Duolingo and let me tell you, that app is revolutionary.  At first I wasn't sure about it, if you all couldn't tell from my previous post.  In reality I just needed the levels to get harder, since it had me starting at ground zero.

The more I worked, the harder the levels got.  I was originally taking messy notes that weren't really organized when I found the levels super easy, but now I am taking detailed notes, and underlining corresponding subjects, verbs, and predicates, so I can begin to find patters in the language that I didn't bother to look for before.

© Ella Wiernikowski, 2018

© Ella Wiernikowski, 2018

This has been immensely helpful for me, and I am actually starting to believe that this app really can help me improve my Polish over a longer period of time, if I continue to take the time to take these detailed notes and make sense of the language as I go.

So far, Duolingo has helped me understand the difference between the spellings: kobieta/kobietą (woman), mężczyzna/mężczyzną (man), and dziewczynka/dziewczynką (girl).  Before Duolingo, I was interchanging these words (and similar words with the same pattern) like a madwoman because I didn't really understand the difference, and to me they both sounded right.  I now understand that when these words are spelt with an "a" at the end, it means literally "a woman/man/girl", in the plainest and most basic form. Almost as if just reciting a noun on it's own, with no other grammatical context.  Now, if one were to say "I am a woman/man/girl", that is when the context changes, and the noun must be spelt with an "ą".  This would be the same for all the singular conjugations: "I am", "you are", "he/she is".  I have yet to learn if this spelling changes in regards to plural conjugations like: "we are", "you(pl) are", "they are".  However, I'm sure that practice is coming, and I am actually looking forward to learning it!

I really do love Duolingo.  I think it is wonderfully easy to use, and I love that I can use it across multiple devices.  When I take the time to practice on my computer, that is when I take these detailed notes. However, sometimes it's so easy to whip out my phone when I'm on the bus or in the car and just practice a couple levels while I'm on the go!  I did this on Thursday while my Dad and I drove to Niagara Falls for an event.  I practiced in the car, and when I didn't understand why my answer was wrong, I just asked my Dad and he would do his best to explain the difference.

I have been speaking Polish more and more around my Dad (sorry Mom), and slowly, small grammatical differences are starting to make more sense. It's only week three of practicing Polish, and I can say my confidence is definitely increasing!

I haven't felt this proud of myself in a long time, and I think it's fantastic that this pride has come entirely from setting my own learning goal, and working towards it on my own time, and in my own way. With each passing week I am experiencing the beauty of Genius Hour, and I know this will be something I will be implementing into my classroom.

For my final week of Genius Hour, I think I want to do more of the same!  I want to keep practicing a little every day on Duolingo, and have a few sit-down sessions where I take notes on what I am learning from the app.  I have found this to be the most helpful these past few weeks, even more so than watching Polish YouTube videos.  Why try to fix what isn't broken?

I'll check in one more time next week to tell you my final thoughts and findings on how I've progressed through all my Genius Hour endeavours! Thanks so much for reading along so far, and I'll talk to you all in my next post!