The language learning app Preply recently unveiled its annual report analyzing the study habits of its more than 200,000 students and 40,000-plus tutor database to understand how people were learning between Jan. 1 through Dec. 15 last year. The app takes students through self-guided activities, incorporating one-on-one sessions with tutors based in 160 countries. Using a machine learning algorithm, Preply suggests tutors based on several metrics, including subject matter, the user’s native language, time zones and learning goals, among others.
The report revealed that use of the Preply online learning tool grew by “leaps and bounds,” saying kids turned to the service when in-person learning was shut down for some time. From October 2019 to March 2020 when the pandemic took hold, the number of users doubled. A month later, by April, that number nearly tripled, according to the report. Fast forward to September 2020, and Preply said it saw nearly a tenfold increase in new monthly learners. The company added that in January 2021, it reached an all-time high of new monthly learners. The report continued by saying that as COVID-19 vaccines rolled out and restrictions loosened, new learners declined. Despite the drop, by August 2021, new enrollments held steady at three times the amount of the October 2019, pre-pandemic baseline.
“Prior to the pandemic, e-learning was becoming increasingly popular, but COVID-19 lockdowns significantly propelled its growth,” Chief Executive Officer Kirill Bigai, who co-founded Preply in 2013, told Government Technology in an email. Bigai said the pandemic shifted how people live and approach work, with many people now working remotely full time. “This is a trend we’re seeing,” he said.
When it comes to choosing a tutor, the report says learners counted experience as the most important factor, with 42 percent of users looking specifically for that. Some 34 percent to 59 percent of users were concerned about budget-friendly teachers, and another 28 percent to 40 percent looked for tutors with qualities like kindness, patience and friendliness. Only 20 percent of users requested tutors whose native language was the same as the target language, and 19 percent chose tutors based on their location. Other aspects of the tutor that users deemed relevant to their selection included teaching styles (11 percent), educational background or certifications (10 percent), professional demeanor (9 percent) and being able to communicate clearly (8 percent).
As for what the swelled number of new learners are studying, the Preply report said 26 percent of them chose to learn Spanish. The next most popular choices were English, French, Chinese and Japanese. Bigai said English being the second most popular language taught in the U.S. was “a demand generated by relocators, expats and foreign students in-market.” Based on findings in the report, Bigai believes that trends toward online learning will continue.
“We believe that by incorporating a mix of virtual human interaction and proprietary self-guided learning activities, we can maximize tutor and student effectiveness, and ultimately create the quickest and most effective way to learn any language,” he said. “The pandemic was an incredible boost to the e-learning business and we’re confident that the global demand for online language learning is here to stay.”
