Beyond Duolingo Music, Pittsburgh’s edtech unicorn is expanding its math and immersive English programs, too

At Duolingo’s 2023 Duocon, the East Liberty-based edtech company unveiled Duolingo Music, its new music course that will instruct users in sight-reading, playing and listening skills. According to the company’s leadership, this new programming will build on Duolingo’s mission to create an app where users can learn almost anything.

But Duolingo Music wasn’t the end of the news revealed during Duocon, the public unicorn’s virtual conference showcasing language, learning and technology updates. Over the past year, the company has made a host of changes and improvements to make education more accessible to users.

“All this time, we’ve been learning all the things you want to learn because our mission has always been about education, not just language,” Duolingo CTO and cofounder Severin Hacker said during the event.

After months of anticipation, in the fall of 2022, Duolingo Math hit the app stores. At the time, Duolingo Math had two options: one for children between the ages of 7 and 12 to practice their fractions and multiplication, and another for students over 13 who needed to work on their mental math. Now, according to Hacker, Duolingo Math’s features will include more advanced math skills for users to practice. This includes offerings in the course that help adult users sharpen their mental math abilities and real-world applications for math such as wage calculation, all while using the company’s signature gamified method of helping users identify patterns while keeping them engaged.

Duolingo Engineering Director Vanessa Jameson added that Duolingo Math and Duolingo Music, although different subjects, would complement each other in more ways than one. For instance, Duolingo Music and Duolingo Math lessons can be used toward your Duolingo streak. Jameson also pointed out that studies show listening to music is beneficial for verbal, listening and math skills. By becoming proficient in one subject, Jameson said, you’ll likely pick up skills that benefit you in other subjects.

“You interact with the world and find patterns,” Jameson said. “And whether you’re learning languages, math, music, or reading. It’s all about internalizing patterns, and connecting the dots. That’s why on Duolingo, you’ll learn by doing.”

Beyond Duolingo Math, the company is also developing an immersive approach to teaching English. According to Duolingo Director of Learning Design Jessie Becker, the company has been developing a curriculum that teaches English at more advanced levels of proficiency.

“It includes new immersive exercise types that you haven’t seen before,” Becker said. “Providing an English learning experience for more advanced levels is important to us for many reasons, but first and foremost, because it advances Duolingo’s mission of developing the best education in the world and making it universally available.”

Duolingo’s 2022 language report says English is the first or second most popular language to learn in 131 countries. Still, English learners have unique needs, Beckers said. With that in mind, Duolingo’s English curriculum will try to enable learners to speak with more fluency and spontaneity to talk about a wider range of topics, including more abstract ones like cultural or political issues. Additionally, the curriculum will be building on what learners already know to introduce them to vocabulary and grammatical concepts that will enable them to speak to topics that will assist them in seeking professional opportunities.

“We know that for these learners, studying English really has the potential to change lives,” Becker said. “English proficiency tends to come with greater job and educational opportunities, and we want to do our part in helping to open those doors.”

Ultimately the company’s leadership said that what Duolingo Math, Duolingo Music, and the immersive English curriculum have in common is that they exist to provide users with a world-class education in an accessible manner.

“Duocon is about celebrating our millions of dedicated learners worldwide,” Duolingo CEO and cofounder Luis von Ahn said. “We are focused on building the best education possible and making it universally available. With our expansion into Music and our updates to Math, we’re one step closer to that goal.”

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.