The founder of the language app is in talks with the UK government to offer his cheque online to visa applicants, for less than £50 at a time.
Duolingo is in talks with the government to allow UK visa applicants to take a language online for less than £50, replacing a formula that costs more than £1,000.
Luis von Ahn, the founder of the online language learning app, said the $49 Duolingo check had less risk of fraud and would be fairer to other people who want to study or work in the UK.
Currently, visa applicants will need to prove their English proficiency by taking a “Secure English Test” at an approved facility. These will be held in 134 countries and territories, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
However, this requires other people from 67 countries abroad to get tested. These countries come with Mali, Niger and more than 20 others in Africa; South American countries, adding Uruguay, Paraguay and Von Ahn’s local Guatemala, and many Caribbean and Pacific islands.
“I set out to come and examine myself in the United States,” Von Ahn told the Observer. “In my country they no longer had those tests, so I had to fly to a neighboring country, El Salvador, which in the past beat the 1990s. a war zone. They charge me $1,000 just to fly there and take the test. It’s ridiculous. “
Von Ahn, one of Silicon Valley’s leading entrepreneurs, launched Duolingo with co-founder Severin Hacker in 2012. By its tenth anniversary this year, the app had been downloaded a billion times worldwide, with 20 million downloads in the UK.
The company is now worth $4 billion, offers categories in more than 40 languages, is about to launch a math app, and already offers Duolingo ABC, an app to help kids learn to read, as well as the Duolingo English test. Check introduced in 2016, and Von Ahn said there was resistance to its adoption until the Covid pandemic hit.
The check is now paid through most U. S. primary colleges. “U. S. government,” he said. ” Harvard, Stanford, MIT. . . and I have 75 universities in the UK that accept the cheque. But we are not yet paid by the British government. “. I think they come to agree that online verification is good.
“We talked to them. I don’t know how temporarily the British government is acting. My delight is that all governments act very slowly. So I don’t know how long it will take, but I think it will be smart for the world. “if it happens
Language tests for visas have been controversial. In February, MPs accused the Home Office of a “shocking miscarriage of justice” after evidence emerged that thousands of foreign academics had been wrongly accused of cheating at UK exam centres. Many scholars have been expelled and some say their lives have been ruined.
Von Ahn said online testing is fairer and more secure than testing in physical centers.
Von Ahn said he had sought to make Duolingo a “mission-driven” company that would make language training available to everyone.
“What I’m most proud of is in 2017, when I was informed that Duolingo was being used across Europe through refugees to know the language of the country they were settling in. And the same week, I was informed that Bill Gates on Duolingo. For me, this mix is amazing. This is precisely what we must achieve: everyone has equivalent access to education.
He added that the Duolingo technique has replaced a lot since its launch in 2012. “We did what engineers do. We think “let’s teach the non-unusual maximum word first. “So, we literally train in order of frequency. And very quickly, we found out it wasn’t that wonderful because we were training debris like “the” and “a. “
Today, the company employs “30 to 40 more people with PhDs” in language training and is “much more fun,” he said.
What do he think of the Ministry of Education’s resolution to replace GCSE language learning, which means students will have to memorize 1,700-word lists instead of learning from foreign cultures?
“No, that’s how we did it when we started. When I had no idea how to teach a language 10 years ago, I understand it very similarly. I’ve absolutely replaced my brain on this. You have to know the words, but you have to know the culture. I just learned that in our course we have an entire unit committed to asparagus. In Germany, asparagus matters.