Higher education
LaGrange College
Students came back from the holidays still speaking French, and 40 languages turned up across campus.
Students came back from the holidays still speaking French
Dr. Elizabeth Appleby teaches French to students at every level of skill and comfort, and needed all of them ready to talk to French language partners. What changed her semesters was not what happened in class. It was what kept happening over the breaks.
The challenge
Every break, back to square one
Dr. Appleby's French students span a wide range of skill levels and comfort zones, and without much motivation to practise outside class, most were not practising at all.
Holiday breaks undid the rest. “Often when students return from a break, it seems as though they've forgotten practically everything”, which meant spending valuable class time reviewing material she had already taught.
What they did
Homework that carries the listening and the speaking
Dr. Appleby first met Mango through her local library, looking for ESL resources for her husband, a native Spanish speaker. After exhausting the alternatives, she found Mango's conversational approach was what finally developed his English speaking. The size of the catalog and the personalized structure convinced her to bring it to the College.
In her French classes Mango is built into homework, providing listening, reading and speaking practice outside the classroom. Through the Mango Admin Portal she tracks time spent learning and measures progress against chapter quizzes and unit tests.
In their words
What they told us
“By providing a freer space just to explore, Mango has helped with motivating students. I noticed they were telling me things I hadn't taught them yet because they got it from using Mango at home.”
“The bottom line is that throughout the day, students are now being exposed to the target language. Dead time waiting in line for a coffee or at the doctor's office becomes another opportunity to engage their minds in language learning.”
What changed
Confidence first, then the grades
Students with the highest engagement showed a marked improvement in overall academic performance. “Students who engaged with Mango the most saw their grades improve as they became more motivated and confident in their speaking ability.”
Voice recording and comparison against native speakers let students build speaking confidence privately, at their own pace, so they arrived at conversations ready to talk, and sooner. Where other resources had offered too little for too much, this one got them talking in less time.
The mobile app closed the holiday gap. Students came back from extended breaks with the language still live in their heads, and the class could carry on without the review it used to need.
By the numbers
increase in average time spent learning
- 34%
from 2018 to 2019
languages studied by students
- 40
over the course of 2018, across the whole campus
What followed
Forty languages nobody assigned
Students began studying languages the College does not teach. Across 2018, 40 different languages were studied on campus, by heritage learners, culture clubs and ESL students, well outside anyone's course load.
Students and professors heading out on study-away programs used Mango to prepare, and said the practical conversations left them more secure abroad and more willing to talk to people. For International Education Week, international students representing 11 countries shared their native languages with peers through Mango courses in Mandarin Chinese, Danish, Hindi, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and Scottish Gaelic.
About LaGrange College
LaGrange College is a four-year liberal arts and sciences college in LaGrange, Georgia, with roughly 1,000 students from 21 states and more than 11 countries. Its Global Engagement Initiative includes a one-year language requirement, study-away programs, and a week highlighting international diversity on campus. Dr. Elizabeth Appleby is Associate Professor of French.
A Mango customer since 2017, using Mango Classroom.
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