And suddenly the teenager loves learning English

My youngest son likes French and hates English. I think that's funny, because with most children it's the other way round. As a language enthusiast, I am of course very happy about the French. I mean, Paris, l'amour, les chansons, this language flows so beautifully and you can't swear so smoothly in any other language, n'est-ce pas.

And English, well, hello world language, being able to communicate with people around the globe, understanding film, music, literature, everything in the original, no question: fantastic! No access there? What a pity.

But as things go at school, enthusiasm for a subject often stands or falls with the teacher, and until recently my thirteen-year-old didn't have the spark. At primary school, he also experienced frequent changes of teacher and at some point completely dropped out of English.

Futile attempts

I've tried all sorts of things in the last few years: Helping with homework (bad idea; usually ended in shouting) or borrowing English comics on my favourite subject, football, from the library (went unnoticed).

Watching Harry Potter films in the original language (didn't take longer than five minutes. Son: «I don't understand a word.» Me: «You know the film and that's how you learn English.» Son: «It's no fun at all. Can we switch back to German, please?») or translate songs from favourite bands (it was too monotonous; with rap you can't get past «bitch», «fuck» and «weed»). Nothing was working. Until we discovered this app. Since then, my son has been completely hooked on English.

What makes my child tick?

But let's go back to my son's lack of motivation in English lessons. It would be all too simplistic - and parents should be self-critical enough - to blame my son's lack of motivation solely on the teacher. We won't get anywhere by apportioning blame. Constructive conversations and self-reflective questions, on the other hand, get us further (and are also much more exciting).

Questions like these: What makes my child tick? What does it need to learn? How do they approach a new task? At what time of day do they learn most efficiently? Can they plan? Organise their work? What is my child passionate about? Which of their strengths are particularly helpful for learning?

If an activity triggers a lot of positive feelings in us, we almost automatically develop an interest in it.

Fabian Grolimund, psychologist

And not forgetting honest questions to ourselves: How did I experience my own school days? What type of learner am I? How do I talk about my job? Am I motivated and is my work fulfilling? Facial expressions, gestures, posture or voice, indeed our whole charisma, everything tells us whether we enjoy a job or not. Children have an unerring instinct for this.

In my son's case, if he feels competent in a subject, he is open and interested. He then often sits in class with his ears open and what he hears usually sinks in and sinks in. If, on the other hand, he feels insecure and thinks that he can't do the subject anyway, he shuts up shop. Then the voice of the Göschenen-Airolo teacher rattles through his ears. It's a single pass where nothing sticks.

The whole family in language fever

According to psychologist and learning coach Fabian Grolimund, feeling competent is one of three basic needs that must be met in order for intrinsic motivation to develop. The psychologist also says: «If an activity triggers a lot of positive feelings in us, we almost automatically develop an interest in it.»

And that's exactly what happened to us: After years of English being a wasteland, my son is currently experiencing a whole oasis of enthusiasm. And this enthusiasm has spread to the whole family (the others are learning French and Italian) because we have discovered the language app «Duolingo».

Similar to gamen

There are many language apps and I don't want to claim that Duolingo is the best. I'm not familiar with any others either. At the moment, the fact that a long-standing and stressful issue has been resolved for us in a matter of seconds is enough for me.

The basic concept of Duolingo is a combination of mother tongue and foreign language and is particularly suitable for beginners and those who want to brush up on their basic vocabulary.

The whole thing feels a bit like gaming. That's exactly the appeal, which is why my son loves it so much. In short lessons you earn points, unlock new levels and train your language skills for real-life conversations (this is the first time I've heard him speak English loudly and happily).

You can see, hear and feel the progress after just one week.

Accompanied by various characters (woman, man, bear, bird, old, young, serious, gmögig, cool, etc.), you solve various tasks in steps of five. Sometimes reading, sometimes writing, listening or speaking skills are taught and practised.

It bounces and beeps (can be deactivated), rewards and the corresponding happiness hormones are released, other participants can be challenged, there are ranking lists (from bronze to gold league), gifts, deals and much more. In short: it's the purest learning chilli. It's fun, entertaining and hugely motivating. You can see, hear and feel your progress after just one week.

Duolingo is available free of charge or as a paid app (Super Duolingo). As with all apps for which you pay nothing, this means that it is full of adverts and only rudimentary functions can be used. A family subscription for 12 months (up to six people) costs CHF 120 in Switzerland. In our neighbouring countries, by the way, it's only 84 euros. Calculated per person, that's around CHF 60 per month.

Motivation as the golden key

The leap from primary school to upper school is a big one: while the primary school child has few main caregivers and is closely supervised, the teenager faces a large number of subject teachers, has to organise themselves independently and should be able to learn on their own. This does not happen overnight. It is a process with a few stumbling blocks. Motivation is the golden key to successfully gaining a foothold in this new phase of life.

My son is in his first year at a secondary school in the canton of Zurich. The phase of finding his class, getting to know each other and familiarising himself with teachers, classmates and subjects is now complete. The fact that the button has come loose in English is also reflected in his exam results. That spurs him on. And what makes me particularly happy is that the newly sparked motivation is already spreading to other subjects.